Speech and Debate

What exactly is acceptable speech and why should anyone seek to limit it (excepting fighting words and words that seek to cause violence). Based on the Imus case, it is increasingly clear that based on the color of your skin you can say some things but not others. And it's not just the content of the words, but how they're used. It's the latter that supposedly got Imus in trouble while others who use similar language are able to get by without so much as a slap on the wrist.

They're just words.

You can say Kurt Goudy has two balls on him in the course of calling a ball game, but you'd get in trouble if you said that Kurt Goudy just got hit in the balls (apologies to George Carlin).

Words are just that - they're a way to express ourselves and some words carry meanings that invoke strong emotions - good or bad. Some just sound funny when you say them. Mahwah or Ho Ho Kus comes to mind. Others have been deemed to be off limits to the airwaves on public broadcast networks (the seven words - ooohh I might catch cooties or someone else might catch cooties if they're said). But apparently there are even more words that are off limits than the seven words. Not because the government says so, but because self professed arbiters of speech say so.

Where was their outcry over the use of the words "Negro" and "nigger" in the movie Pulp Fiction? This is one of my favorite movies, and was a very successful movie lauded by critics around the world (winning multiple Oscars and other awards). One of the reasons was the witty dialogue, which happened to include repeated usage of those two words.

Of course, both those words were used not only by the white characters, but black ones. Does that make a difference? Should it make a difference?

Black rappers can use the words nappy and ho, but a white talk show host can't. There's something wrong with that.

UPDATE:
There are a number of black ministers who are coming forward to challenge the hip hop and rap communities to change their lyrics.

"We have been aware of the recurring theme that is best characterized by the term double standard," said Soaries, who heads the First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens. "The culture has produced language that has denigrated women. Our question as we have gone through this week, and now we've had a minute to lift our heads and ask what shall we do about that?"

Soaries is trying to build upon the momentum of Imus' firing towards doing something about the images and lyrics in some popular music.

There's actually a lot of Hip-Hop that has a positive message, particularly a recent wave from down south, but you don't hear it on New York City radio, and that's part of the problem.

In fact, as the minister noted, the black community has marched on radio stations, record labels and rap acts for years, but their pleas have gotten little attention.

"What the young people speak, the way they think is a consequence of experiences and comments that they've seen adults turn a blind eye to," Rev. H. Grady James III said.

CBS 2 contacted two of the radio stations that might be affected from ministers challenging certain lyrics, but Power 105 and Hot 97 said they would have nothing to say.

They haven't gotten attention because they're not Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. Also, these ministers are taking a different approach that doesn't demand firings. I happen to think that it's a better approach than firing, though it's unlikely to result in changes in the lyrics.

Since those stations have not been receptive to the idea that they lyrics are derogatory and offensive, perhaps a boycott should be arranged outside those stations? Will they get the message then? Where's Jackson and Sharpton to arrange that? If those two were really concerned about the language and not about promoting their own self image, they'd take those within their own community to task for the offensive language used and spread by their own. Sadly, they tend to focus on the other.

This is just one of the many reasons I considered the firing of Imus to be wrong. It was a gross overreaction to Imus's comments. The suspension was more than sufficient to get the message across that his comments went over the line. The Rutgers team accepted the apology and the coach is in a forgiving mood, which doesn't quite jibe with the CBS reaction, which was to fire him.