speech on freedom is not just the right as we wish to live
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A lot of the time the free speech that Yiannopoulos and his ilk are so desperate to protect is dialogue that is as valuable as fake news” – Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff
In a review of Ghostbusters, he criticised Jones’s “flat-as-a-pancake black stylings” and called her “a black character worthy of a minstrel show”, which led to an outpouring of racist abuse by his followers. And as New Statesman columnist Laurie Penny revealed, having spent time with Yiannopoulos on the 2016 US campaign trail, he “shows no remorse for the avalanche of misconduct he helped direct towards Leslie Jones, who is just the latest victim of the recreational ritual abuse he likes to launch at women and minorities for the fame and fun of it”.
I suppose what's interesting about the type of people who defend freedom of speech as if their actual lives depend upon it, is that their lives rarely do depend on it. Yiannopoulos is a strange exception in this case, being gay, but, like the rest, he does come from the same type of background that means that his safety is unlikely to ever be bound up in the opinions of others on his race, religion, gender or class.
Men like Yiannopoulos have grown up unfettered by the chains of consequence, and they have never had to acknowledge their privileges. But sometimes people have to take a backseat and listen to the oppressed. To just believe that we’re not lying when we bang on how difficult it can be growing up brown and different in western society. To learn to apologise for being hurtful, and to recognise that unfounded opinions on people from diverse backgrounds, when spread in the right way, can contribute to the systemic marginalisation of the oppressed, huge rises in hate crimes, and worse.
This is another key point: a lot of the time the free speech that Yiannopoulos and his ilk are so desperate to protect is dialogue that is as valuable as fake news. As proved by support for Trump’s Muslim ban, which has been tearing families apart and leaving refugees from war-torn countries such as Syria and Yemen bereft, many people have fallen for the misinformation spread by the far-right about Muslims.
For instance, as found by immigration policy analyst Alex Nowrasteh, nationals of the seven countries singled out by Trump have killed zero people in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1975 and 2015. This is despite a member of Trump’s team making up a fake Iraqi terrorist attack called the Bowling Green Massacre, and Trump’s repeated claims that the ban will help protect the US public from terrorism.
It’s unsurprising that free speechers hypocrisy becomes extreme when the tables are turned on them, because it's not nice when you begin to be affected in a negative way by something you feel that is out of your control. And in general I think it’s better to err on the side of caution and attempt to protect the people that the facts and figures show to be in need of it, as well as those who didn’t realise they needed it until it was too late. Violence is rarely the answer, but neither is total free speech.
In a review of Ghostbusters, he criticised Jones’s “flat-as-a-pancake black stylings” and called her “a black character worthy of a minstrel show”, which led to an outpouring of racist abuse by his followers. And as New Statesman columnist Laurie Penny revealed, having spent time with Yiannopoulos on the 2016 US campaign trail, he “shows no remorse for the avalanche of misconduct he helped direct towards Leslie Jones, who is just the latest victim of the recreational ritual abuse he likes to launch at women and minorities for the fame and fun of it”.
I suppose what's interesting about the type of people who defend freedom of speech as if their actual lives depend upon it, is that their lives rarely do depend on it. Yiannopoulos is a strange exception in this case, being gay, but, like the rest, he does come from the same type of background that means that his safety is unlikely to ever be bound up in the opinions of others on his race, religion, gender or class.
Men like Yiannopoulos have grown up unfettered by the chains of consequence, and they have never had to acknowledge their privileges. But sometimes people have to take a backseat and listen to the oppressed. To just believe that we’re not lying when we bang on how difficult it can be growing up brown and different in western society. To learn to apologise for being hurtful, and to recognise that unfounded opinions on people from diverse backgrounds, when spread in the right way, can contribute to the systemic marginalisation of the oppressed, huge rises in hate crimes, and worse.
This is another key point: a lot of the time the free speech that Yiannopoulos and his ilk are so desperate to protect is dialogue that is as valuable as fake news. As proved by support for Trump’s Muslim ban, which has been tearing families apart and leaving refugees from war-torn countries such as Syria and Yemen bereft, many people have fallen for the misinformation spread by the far-right about Muslims.
For instance, as found by immigration policy analyst Alex Nowrasteh, nationals of the seven countries singled out by Trump have killed zero people in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1975 and 2015. This is despite a member of Trump’s team making up a fake Iraqi terrorist attack called the Bowling Green Massacre, and Trump’s repeated claims that the ban will help protect the US public from terrorism.
It’s unsurprising that free speechers hypocrisy becomes extreme when the tables are turned on them, because it's not nice when you begin to be affected in a negative way by something you feel that is out of your control. And in general I think it’s better to err on the side of caution and attempt to protect the people that the facts and figures show to be in need of it, as well as those who didn’t realise they needed it until it was too late. Violence is rarely the answer, but neither is total free speech.
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