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| When freedom of the press becomes hate speech |
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When can the written word be classified as hate speech? Does someone have to verbally use assaultive speech in order for it to qualify as hate speech? How do first amendment rights and equal protection of the law apply when a newspaper prints what is perceived as hate propaganda? Could crossing the line occur when words wound, that is, cause harm to others even if someone is not verbally assaulted but simply reads it in a local newspaper?
Finding the common legal ground on this matter may soon be tested as students from the University of Colorado at Denver confronted an April fool’s edition in the Advocate, the college’s newspaper. Newspaper editors played an April fool’s prank that backfired. The newspaper, utilizing what they felt was cultural satire aimed at some cultural and disenfranchised groups angered several students to move into action. A protest was organized on Monday, April 5th at the Auraria campus.
I am an alumnus of this institution. To read, “Now don’t get me wrong I have allot of Mexican friends and I think there good hardworking people but LEARN ENGLISH,” even if it was an April fool’s hoax was an insult to me. Within the context of this statement words are misspelled and bad grammar is purposely used to make the point that Mexicans can not speak, read nor write in English. Is this creativity or insensitivity? Does it add insult to injury? Editors hid behind the 1st Amendment, innocuous to student pleas for justice. Are satirical grammarians immune from committing transgressions?
Words can be powerful. They can emancipate hearts and minds into imagining a more humane existence. There are also words that wound; words that perpetuate stereotypes, causing pain and humiliation. They can become mechanisms reinforcing self-condemnation.
In “Words that Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, and the First Amendment,” Richard Delgado retells the story about Dr. Kenneth Clark, a black psychologist who conducted an experiment during Brown v. the Board of Education. Black children were asked which doll they would be prefer to be, black or white. Children overwhelming chose white dolls. He argues that racism had become an ideology perpetuated in society. Blacks had already been relegated to inferiority statuses because of the ideology of racism. Their spirits had been infiltrated and damage had been caused by the majority culture. Initial harm had occurred.
The psychological impact was further described by Dr. Clark who stated that the accumulation of negative images can lead to self-hate. In this classical Supreme Court case an implied message was shared. That message was, “Black children are an untouchable caste, unfit to be educated with white children.” The badge of inferiority becomes a symbol of less than to the general community.
Raza has also been verbally assaulted and relegated to second-class citizenship during the Immigrant Wars. No! Not the recent ones; the ones that have left the malignant scars bestowed upon our ancestors; the ones that cause self-hate, self-depreciation, internal violence and self-destruction such as what was printed in the Advocate. The recent stereotypes are only adding salt to the historical wounds inflicted by América.
Authors in the book state, “Freedom does not imply a right to degrade or humiliate another human being any more that it implicates a right to do physical violence to another or a right to enslave another or a right to economically exploit another in a sweatshop, in a coal mine, or in the fields.”
Violence of the tongue is a transgression; hurling it at vulnerable populations constitutes racial slurs and is demeaning. Satire can consciously and unconsciously be masked in comedy. Racial slurs can be forms of racism that breach the ideals of egalitarianism that “we are all created equal.”
Scholar and law professor Richard Delgado states in the book, “Racial slurs are undeserving of first amendment protection because the perpetrator’s intention is not to discover truth or initiate dialogue, but to injure others.” In the case of the Advocate, was there an imbalance of power relations that gave an unfair advantage to the editors of the newspaper? Did they abuse their power? Do racial invectives printed in newspapers qualify as hate speech? Are newspapers immune from persecution when they print hate propaganda?
The dismantling of racial discrimination translates into dismantling the structural and cultural elements of a society that are socially ingrained. The doctrine of white supremacy has become an American ideology and some legal scholars believe that it protects racists. Disassembling it is a momentous task. Many have tried and many have died.
The magic in finding balance between protecting the rights of freedom of speech and press and putting a halt to assaultive speech are challenges that civil libertarians and constitutional legal minds have grappled with since the signing of the constitution of the United States of América. Let’s hope that contestation leads to justice. ¡Que viva la palabra libre!
Dr. Ramón Del Castillo is an independent journalist.
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