Codie McKeighen
Sociology 111
3 May 2017
Hate Speech
Going solely with the definition of hate speech, I would say that it is harmful especially in the wrong audience. I think it is easy to be disgruntled by another person's opinion and we, as humankind, have a hard time not being right or having the last say. We are all going to have an opinion, but we need to learn how to cope and understand how to either keep those opinions to ourselves or how to appreciate another person's differing opinion.
There is however, a fine line between what is okay and what is not okay. It is okay to have an opinion and share that opinion if you feel necessary – after all its one of our rights, by law. It is not okay to use your opinion to spew death threats or as a terrorist act. As a society, we need to learn how to filter, be it personally and through the media. Our media seems to find the most horrifying and worst things to share, very rarely is there something positive going on in the news.
In an article titled "The Freedom to Ignore Hate Speech", published in the Opinion section of the San Francisco Chronicle, Madeleine Change discusses the differing sides on UC Berkeley's campus. Berkeley, known for its student activists supports students of both political views and struggles while its student's try to prepare for finals, along with fighting for their right to free speech. The conflict originated after Berkeley College Republicans invited a woman by the name of Ann Coulter – a conservative – to speak on campus. Rather than prepping for finals and the upcoming school year, admins became apprehensive about the possibility of a protest. The suggestion was to move the speech to the next week when most of the students would not be on campus and prepping for finals during their "dead week". In the end, the school was sued for encroaching on the student's First Amendment rights.
Therefore, I feel as though the problem is not necessarily the hate speech – because everyone is entitled to his or her opinion – but how we react. We can only control how our actions and ourselves. In regards to the article, what the school did to prevent a riot was a smart move on their part but at the same time it limited the group with whom they reached and how their spread their campaign. There is no solution to hate speech, we solely need to control how we react and maybe try to consider others. That is the only change we have complete control over – the change within ourselves.
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