A Discussion on the Issues of Hate Speech in America Essay Example

a significant change now will not work. A world with a more impartial society in which racism, sexism and prejudice are eradicated sounds like perfection. However that is just not what we have, far from it, and it has been this way for a long while now. The 'word police' Kakutani mentions are comprised of authors of dictionaries and writing guidebooks that support "political correctness".

Political correct language is bias free, nondiscriminatory, gender-blind language. One example that I could relate to was the use of the word "black". Ms. Maggio, one of our few word police mentioned, believes,“... it should be excised from terms with a negative spin: she recommends substituting words like "mouse" for "black eye,” "ostracize" for "blackball," "payola" for "blackmail" and "outcast" for "black sheep."" (Kakutani) Maggio believes these changes should be made in order to stop correlation between the black/African American race and negative language. That is very thoughtful of her but truthfully, being an African American, I can say that I never found association being made between my race and those sayings, other then maybe the black sheep.

This small change would not deter the prejudice of our country. Some other examples from the article that are proposed are, "[The words ] "Fellow," "king," "lord" and "master" are bad because they're "male-oriented words," and "... linguistic mutations as "womyn" (women, used as an alternative spelling to avoid the suggestion of sexism perceived in the sequence m-e-n) and "waitron" (a gender-blind term for waiter or waitress).” (Kakutani) All of these may seem like pleasant, respectable ideas but realistically will make no change. A different word, lessening masculine/feminine references will not put an end

to sexism. This will not only have lacking affect but also, “...politically correct, the prohibition of certain words, phrases and ideas is advanced in the cause of building a brave new world free of racism and hate, but this vision of harmony clashes with the very ideals of diversity and inclusion that the multi-cultural movement holds dear, and it's purchased at the cost of freedom of expression and freedom of speech.” As previously stated, the regulation of hate speech is very unlikely overcome the desire of freedom of speech and expression and if it did would do an inadequate job.

Now let's take a look at the opposite side of this argument, what if we installed regulation on hate speech. This debate on hate speech has been happening for a some time now and there have been situations that fall under this category that have already been dealt with. These cases can give us some insight to what the regulation would be like. R.A.V. v.

City of St. Paul, included a Caucasian 14 year old boy who burned a cross on the lawn of the only black family in the neighborhood. Burning a cross is a symbol of the Ku Klux Klan and no playing matter. The family called for charges, and the boy was prosecuted. Minnesota had a law making, “it illegal to place, on public or private property, a burning cross, swastika, or other symbol likely to arouse anger, alarm, or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, or gender.” (ABA) The case went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that the Minnesota law was unconstitutional

due to violation of the boys' first amendment, freedom of speech.

That young man was punished for his thoughts and intended message, hate speech, not his actual actions and he was let off. On the other hand we have the case, Wisconsin v. Mitchell. Mitchell was a young black male. He and several other black youth were outside a movie theater after watching Mississippi Burning, a movie about an investigation of the Ku Klux Klan at its highest point.

Several blacks are beaten and killed in this movie. A caucasian young man walked by and Mitchell yelled, “There goes a white boy; go get him!” (ABA) The group attacked and beat the boy. Wisconsin law increases the battery penalty if the offender deliberately chooses victim "because of the race, religion, color, disability, sexual orientation and national origin or ancestry of that person.” (ABA) The Supreme Court ruled that increased penalty did not violate the free speech rights of the accused because the act itself was directed at a particular victim, not Mitchell's thoughts. Here there are suspicions of racism, found in the matter that in very similar cases act wise, decisions were made differently, the harsher being on those of African American descent. What help will regulation be if the sexist attitudes, prejudices, and racism work their way into it? Being a victim of two forms of hate speech, I should want to stand strong for regulation of hate speech.

But, I don't. It's not that I want hate speech to continue, I just simply feel that it will not be successfully regulated and even if regulation was achieved would it be done in a just and fair

way. Certain opinions, stereotypes, and prejudices have been deeply engraved into this country. They are serious problems but, when something has been allowed to set roots so deep it becomes quite the struggle to upheave. Regulation of hate speech will either be inadequate or flawed.