Topic: Liberal Fascism
It’s truly amazing, the twaddle that can be passed off as serious commentary, for example:
The Constitution has enshrined within American democracy the foundational principle that white freedom is always prior to black safety and white rights are always prior to black freedom. To defend freedom of expression without thinking through these histories, and to accuse Black students of attempting to take rights from white students as though they actually have the institutional power to do such a thing, is a gross distortion of the facts.
This from a Salon piece scribbled by one Brittney Cooper who, you will be unsurprised to learn, teaches Women's and Gender Studies and Africana Studies at Rutgers. Ms. Cooper has her knickers in a twist over the criticism that’s being directed against the “safe spaces” movement, which purports to shield “students of color” from the vicious racism that runs rampant on America’s college campuses. And take my word for it, the whole thing is just as preposterous as the passage quoted above.
I’ve read the Constitution a few times and nowhere in it is enshrined the principle Ms. Cooper claims to be there. The First Amendment merely admonishes Congress to “make no law” limiting freedom of expression. But Ms. Cooper demurs. She does want laws made that limit free expression: laws empowering Blacks to shut up whites. (Incidentally, Ms. Cooper, how come you capitalize Black but not white? That’s a microaggression and it offends me.)
The traditional understanding of free speech is that it’s indivisible: a civil liberty that all enjoy, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, etc. And this understanding embodies a corollary: that people don’t have a right not to have their feelings hurt. If such a right existed, free speech would be fatally compromised. Feelings being self-defined and subjective, anything might hurt them—a facial expression, a gesture, certain words, a Halloween costume. The right not to have one’s feelings hurt is the power to shut up anybody, at any time, for any reason. And that’s exactly what Brittney Cooper wants.
Now if it were really true that American college campuses are fever swamps of racism safe spaces for minority students might be required. But of course that isn’t true. The claim that “students of color” are not “safe” on campus is malarkey. Probably there’s no venue in American society where they’re more coddled and petted. Every racist incident calls forth a forceful if not hysterical response from administrators, faculty and student activists. Yet though the grievances are minor—and in some cases imagined or manufactured—the anger level is greater than ever. No surprise there: If you treat young adults like little children, they’ll behave accordingly.
So there’s nothing to “think through,” Ms. Cooper. Your demand for limitations on freedom of expression in the name of racial justice are, in a word, fascistic. It’s just the kind of thing that Dr. Goebbels would have come up with: The Volk may revile the Jews, but the Jews are to be deprived of their voice. And for what? A figment of your race-obsessed imagination. Shame on you and on everybody who thinks like you.
