Bias and Free Speech

A little over a year ago, I was stressing through the final touches on an undergraduate thesis that looked at bias as related to reader response pedagogy. For those who aren't hip on education lingo, I was suggesting that we cannot expect people to read and analyze something without viewing it in light of their own experiences, which eliminates any intent to push students towards acceptance of new views and/or experiences as relates to literature. Without new mental tools that allow them to build away from what they think they know, humans will return to the familiar every single time. We learn nothing under those circumstances.

I like to consider myself a proponent of free speech, but I am finding myself stopping repeatedly short when it comes to hate speech. I know that, technically, people should be able to say whatever they want in a public forum, but... I'd like to see the hatred stop. I'm so tired of Kansas being synonymous with Brownback (who clearly hates women) and the Westboro Baptist Church who are militant in their hatred of the LGBQT community. A discussion of irony and hypocrisy gained the unwanted attention of someone who thought it was appropriate to post the word "fag" on my Facebook wall and we're not talking in the sense of the cigarette. I felt as dismayed and disgusted as if someone had spray painted it on my home or my car. I cleaned it up, I blocked the person, and I apologized to my friends. I didn't write it, but I felt like it had tainted something I owned; therefore, it felt like responsibility has shoved my way. As if I had to say to stomp with my shit-kicker boots on and say, "No, I don't condone this." 

And I don't condone hate speech or hateful actions. I feel as if we are pushing towards an empasse in American culture. Hate speech and anti-intellectualism have created a bizarre majority that seems determined to squelch out any sense of love, independent thought, and decency in America. What are we going to be after all those things are stripped away from mainstream society? I still have to ask the question, though, does the First Amendment truly grant the freedom for hateful people to say and do whatever they chose at the loss of other people's personal freedoms? Last time I checked, we were not supposed to be the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave... but just for those people over there who are white, affluent, heterosexual males... No, every citizen is supposed to have the same rights and privileges, but even more so, I think every human being deserves to be treated like one.

So I'm biased against hate speech, but I'm okay with that.