Oppressors, Oppressed, Privilege, and Free Speech
Speech codes are written by and for the privileged. They are written by the oppressor to shut up the oppressed. George Wallace did not need the First Amendment, black kids trying to go to the University of Alabama needed it. So the progressive opposition to free speech (e.g BLM shouting down the ACLU over free speech) is either 1) completely misguided, as the oppressed need these protections the most or 2) an acknowledgement that progressives and their allies are now the privileged, that they are the ones in power, and that they wish to use speech codes as they have always been used, to shut up those not in power. In our broader society the situation is probably #1 but on university campuses we may have evolved to situation #2.
Example of #1 (via Overlawyered)
A woman has been questioned by police and could face a hate crime prosecution after she waved a banner at Belfast’s Pride parade reading “Fuck the DUP”.
In a case that could have consequences for free speech and the right to offend across the UK, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) says it will pass a file to the region’s public prosecution service (PPS) after Ellie Evans, 24, held up the placard at the August parade to protest against the party’s policies on gay marriage.
The investigation was prompted by a complaint from DUP politician Jim Wells, who told the Guardian that the slogan constituted “incitement to hatred and potential public disorder”.
A few months later, I received a letter from two Reed students of colour that was being distributed among alumni like a piece of samizdat. The students didn’t reveal their names for fear of being ostracised, but they described a campus that had been overtaken by militants who routinely shamed as racists anyone who didn’t agree with them. One of those singled out had been a freshman named Hunter Dillman who had been branded a racist after asking the organiser of a Latina student group an innocent question. He was ultimately hounded off campus.
The students said the Facebook shaming became even more virulent as the year went on. When another white student apologised to Amanda for being unable to attend a particular protest because he was behind on his schoolwork, Amanda accused him of being the kind of white guy who would ‘laugh at a lynching’. The students felt Amanda’s charge was so outrageous that they decided to take a big step: they would all ‘like’ the student’s apology on Facebook, even though they might be called racists as well. ‘As students of colour we felt that we had to do it’, one of them later told me. ‘It would have been 100 times worse if somebody white liked it.’
