CALIBRATING FREE SPEECH

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

First Amendment

Bill of Rights

    It is the "First Freedom" and on it I am an absolutist. It is as close to sacred as a secular statement or law can be.

     It means we must tolerate hearing even those things we find offensive. Reasonable people understand the implication of beginning to limit expression of a particular group or idea-where does it end?

    There is an however to this and the Charlottesville march and incident and its aftermath illuminates the however.

     The right to free speech does not extend to nazis or white supremacists. Here is how this free speech advocate gets to that point.

     I begin by quoting an unlikely source, Richard Spencer the American white supremacist. Spencer said "nazis are out of the bounds of humanity."  In this case, I agree with him.

     Like many of his generation, my father was a combat veteran of WWII where the issue of the legitimacy of the nazi idea was prosecuted. Later the Nuremberg trials further established the outlaw, vile and inhuman nature of that belief and the participation in it. 

      The nazi government of Germany undertook behavior that is the most evil in human history. I find succor then between the bounds of a white supremacist and the defining history of WWII to say clearly there is nothing legitimate or protected in a nazi belief, statement or attitude. The nazi history of barbarity disqualifies them from any human right or endeavor.

      White supremacy is a specious idea at best. More, it is fundamentally wrong and it is just stupid. With the exception of a isolated tribe or clan that has never had contact with others, there is no place on this planet where "blood lines are pure." Beyond that, the United States fought a brutal war fueled in great part by the foundational attitude and attendant arguments of white supremacy. 

     Those ideas allowed slavery to exist in our national experience and contributed to the inhuman and barbaric treatment of human beings. We didn't need a war to establish the foul nature of that belief, but the side that pressed racial supremacy was defeated none-the-less, ending any claim to it being a legitimate idea.

      The sheer lunacy of white supremacy, combined with the  tragic and bloody U.S. history of that issue places that view outside the bounds of protected speech.

      We would not permit those who believe in child sacrifice, cannibalism, public beheading, public rape, or the likes of ISIS, Taliban, Boko Haram,etc., to march or express their views. White supremacists and nazis are no better and no different. In fact as a civil society we are better off when those attitudes and behavior are criminalized.

      I think I'm safe in saying we have history on our side, to say nothing of the greater moral arguments. There is nothing good or right about white supremacy or nazim. They have no legitimacy or credibility. They are more than offensive, they are off the human scale. Humanity would be better if we never again had to cross them.

      Waring elephant seals just up the coast from here have more right to free speech than nazis or white supremacists.

         It is my assumption they also have more intellectual

power than the human slugs who are so out of touch with humanity.

the night i saw the nigger

    First, my apology to anyone who might be offended, but that is exactly how Dick Gregory identified himself the first time I saw him.

     It was at Ball State University in the mid 60's. Gregory performed his social comedy and was pushing his 1964 book Nigger. Throughout the concert he kept urging us to buy his book and send a copy to the President because he said he "wanted to see a Nigger in the White House!"

     Over the ensuing years I would cover or interview Gregory as he advanced his social activism. On one occasion when I was scheduled to interview him I had a sore throat and a cough. Before the interview began Gregory asked the hotel staff to bring him hot water, tea, lemon and honey to make me an elixir.

     Gregory was a ground breaker. He found a way to combat racism and segregation with a great and skilled sense of humor. He was also was a sincere and dedicated advocate of human dignity and liberty. 

     See you down the trail.

SAYING IT-IMPRINTING IT AND A BETTER WAY

NIGGERS, FLAGS AND RACISTS

    The words are still shocking, even more so from an 11 year old.

    "They ought to kill all the niggers or send them back to the slave houses. The stupid old niggers are the problem."

     The petulant girl was the daughter of the kleagle of a particularly active and virulent cell of the ku klux klan. Her words were pivotal in a documentary demonstrating how racism is passed through generations. 

      I covered the klan and extremist groups in the mid 60's and years later wrote and produced KLAN to portray how and why racism and racial hatred is so deeply woven into the American fabric. David Brinkley, one of the national Emmy judges, along with Senator Barry Goldwater, called KLAN "One of the most important hours in television." A national Emmy is an honor but little good that program or many other fine journalistic efforts have done to sear the disease of racism from society.

       A friend and Presbyterian pastor was active in the struggle that got the confederate flag removed from atop the Dome at the Statehouse in Columbia South Carolina. That it still flies anywhere is symptomatic of the disease. 

      Despite comments about heritage, legacy, history or any honey tongued justification, the flag is all about racism, white supremacy and slavery. Ta-Nehisi Coates in this Atlantic piece presents the very words of the confederacy and their political leaders. They are convicted by their own uttering. 

     The racist front continues in the existent celebration and heritage of the confederacy in the south; streets, highways, schools bearing the name of confederate leaders along with statues, monuments and cultural icons. We can not afford to forget facts and must seek to understand the pathology of the culture, but we should not elevate the symbols and names of those who sought to keep humans enslaved, denied of their rights, liberties and dignity and made war to do so. 

    The flag belongs in an historical museum, as a nazi swastika or heraldry is kept. It is an object of study. It is a token of a shamed and hateful ideology. The flag itself will not spur a supremacist to violence but its very flying near a seat of government is a nod and wink that condones a perpetuation of the hatred. 

    Whether on license plates, belt buckles, t-shirts, bumper stickers, in media or even tattoos, anything that celebrates slavery should be seen for what it is, evil and a discredited idea banished to the ash bin of history.

    Words carry emotional history. We debated and anguished over inclusion of the girl's words. I debated with myself in telling the story in this post. Such is testament to the sensitivity and respect that is due, but "to each his own," unless it inflicts pain, as does the confederate flag.

    A post script: Hoagland Jr. High School in Ft. Wayne was a mix of Black, Hispanic and Caucasians-almost an equal split with fewer Caucasians. Our basketball team was predominately Black with a few Latinos and a couple of us white guys.  In the final moment of a city tourney game our center, Roosevelt (Rosie) Dodds made an incredible hook shot giving us a win. As we triumphantly moved to the locker room several of my team mates deliriously gave Rosie high fives, cheering "way to go Nigguh."  I lined up behind a black mate and when I got to Rosie's locker I gave him a high five and said "way to go Nigguh."  Rosie smiled, picked up his tennis shoe and whacked me on the face. Still smiling, extending his hand to pick me up he said "but you ain't no Nigguh!" Rosie taught me a lesson, vivid today as it was years ago.

     BTW we aired a 10th Anniversary reprise of KLAN.

The sassy and hateful little girl had grown up. She was still at home but had been banished to a trailer on the families property. She apologized to our viewers saying she had changed her mind and learned real history. She was working with "African Americans" and considered one a good friend. 

A FATHER OF PEACE

      The man on the left is Elias Chacour, thrice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. I recalled the week I spent with Father Chacour as I read of recent Druze violence in the middle east.

       Chacour has done what no one else has. He's brought Druze, Muslim, Orthodox, Arab, Palestinian, Jew and Christian together.

  I shot this assemblage of every middle eastern faction imaginable-Israeli government, Palestinian, Druze, Muslim, Arab, Christian, Melkite Catholic, Orthodox. Chacour had convened them to dedicate a new building at his remarkable Peace school in Ibillin in the hills of Galilee.    

  Struggling against unimaginable odds, it seems no one wanted him to succeed, Chacour created a school where Jew, Muslim, Druze, Palestinian and Christian children studied together. I was there as a journalist and was overwhelmed his achievement. I was indelibly impressed by 

by the courage and extraordinary quality of the man. We had hours of conversation driving across Israel, in his garden, at dinners and in his home. We watched him work his efforts at reconciliation. Chacour was born in Galilee and considers himself a Palestinian-Arab-Christian citizen of Israel. He is truly a peace maker, perhaps the hardest job on the planet.

      Role models are important, as are images and symbols.
To what do we owe our attention?

SOMETHING NICE IN PARTING

  With appreciation to my daughter Katherine!

   See you down the trail.

     

WHO IS RACIST? WHAT'S WITH THE SUSPENSION? and SEEN ALONG THE TRAIL

SLIDING BACKWARDS

     An agonizing disappointment to boomers is the new crop of racism that seems to be the spearhead of a wave of bigotry and narrow mindedness in the US.

     We spent the early and mid 60's fighting to end segregation, American apartheid and blatant discrimination. The entire culture was swept up in the drama and federal legislation moved to excise intolerance and set up an even playing field, imperfect and flawed though some of the legacy efforts have been. Feminism followed in that wake, connecting with efforts of earlier generations of suffrage campaigners to even the score for women. Still it seems as though it has been for naught.

      New studies and reports find a complex mix of racist attitudes in American today. Some of the young, the reports say, don't know or have not been taught what discriminatory or prejudicial behavior is.  "Post racial" is a term that is used.

      Then there is a poster child of our new dilemma, the matter of NIGGER. Some of you maybe offended seeing it here. Back in our youth it was a phrase never used in civil or polite conversation. Today its use is a map of how confused we seem to have become. Is it OK for African Americans to use the term, but not for anyone else? Though people of color divide on this. Is it wrong for a Caucasian to criticize its use or even to use the word? Depends on who you ask, doesn't it?  

       Remember the early argument about weather Black's could be racist?  Some who suggested that a person of color could also be a racist were themselves called racist. Today most agree that a person of any color or ethnicity can also be guilty of being racist, ethnocentric or bigoted in other ways.

        LGBT people have probably garnered more media attention for their struggles for equality in the last few years, though old fashioned racism has not disappeared. Classism stalks modern western life even as women still fight to overcome, the barrier being their birthright.

        From where I stand on this planet there is plenty of evidence of narrow mindedness, discrimination, fear, prejudice and hatred. The targets are men and women of all color, all ethnic origin, all gender identity or sexual preference. And so too are the perpetrators.

       It is easy to paint the broad stroke villain as being white men-Anglos/Normans/Saxons and in America in particular there is a sad history of invasion, genocide, land theft, broken treaties done by our government run mostly by white men. However there are many other guilty of such insensitivity and crimes around the globe with different casts of color, ethnicity, heritage and land of birth. We know that Africans too were partners in the horrible sin of slave trading. Patriarchy is written into the history of cultures north, south, east and west. American white men are in fact easy targets for criticism, but then if that is all who you see as offenders, you suffer tunnel vision and are not looking on a large enough scale of history and geography.  

      One of the most economic and employment vulnerable

today are legions of men, 50 plus, who were dislocated by the Great Recession and who are still out of work, unemployable or underemployed. Who in today's political climate are likely to carry their banner? Perhaps I should go cautiously here, less some of the dunderheads in our legislative branch of government who fail on intelligence about or understanding and sensitivity to half of the human specie, just might pick up that standard.  

     Our ability to find a commonweal, a set of normative values, a framework of equality, a true open-mindedness is honorable and necessary work for this democratic republic. It will be challenging, painful and will demand our better angels. To continue as we are with confusion, ignorance, rampant narrow-mindedness and condoned bigotry will lead only to apocalyptic political and cultural landscapes.

SEEN ALONG THE TRAIL

      On a recent hike I saw a couple of young California Striped Racers crossing the trail, enjoying the sun.

     The area was the scene of a recent "controlled burn."

     The sky was a palate of contrails.

HATS OFF TO THE SAN LUIS OBISPO TRIBUNE

   The paper editorialized today that William Randolph Hearst would have approved of Lady Gaga's recent adventure at his famous Castle, now a state park.  Nick Franco, the highly respected local State Park Supervisor has been suspended, for mysterious reasons, since approving of Gaga's use of the Hearst Castle for a production shoot.  

    Lady G paid some $300 thousand for the use, left additional funds to underwrite a water use study, did a promotional piece and a public service message about water conservation. The Hearst Corporation approved "loaning water" and the entire undertaking. Governor Jerry Brown wrote approvingly to Lady Gaga.

    The paper hints that perhaps some bureaucrat's nose may have been out of joint. Maybe or she is angry they missed their moment of closeness to her Lady G.

     Tsk, tsk, tsk.  Stay tuned.

    See you down the trail.