Racist speech free essay sample

On Racist Speech: A Critical Analysis Introduction Charles R. Lawrence Ill, a professor of law at Stanford University, wrote the article On Racist Speech against the growing incidence of racial violence, especially in University campuses in the U. S. A college campus has the status of a home for the students residing therein, and as such any racist aggression or violence in general and racist speech in particular have the potential to disturb the law, order, and harmony in the social environment, apart from causing injury to the victims of such racial behavior. This paper attempts to analyze the reasons and arguments mooted y Lawrence to demand that racist speech must be regulated, more so in a college campus environment. It also examines how such regulation will impinge upon, or impact, the rights assured under the First Amendment. Summary Lawrence begins his article with a focus on the unmistakable message that racial speech sends a destructive message to minorities that they are inferior and are in turn second class citizens. We will write a custom essay sample on Racist speech or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page (Lawrence). He further feels that the problem of racist speech has been framed as one in which the liberty of free speech is in conflict with the elimination of racism. He continues: l believe this has placed the bigot on the moral high ground and fanned the rising flames of racism. Above all, I am troubled that we have not listened to the real victims, that we have shown so little understanding of their injury, and that we have abandoned those whose race, gender, or sexual preference continues to make them second-class citizens. (Lawrence). The essayist laments that libertarians in civil society who stoutly oppose the plea for clamping down on racist speech have turned away their ears from the cries of the real victims as they do not really understand or appreciate the ature and extent of harm suffered by the victims. Exposing the reality of how championing the cause of free speech for its own sake comes in conflict with efforts to eradicate racism, Lawrence makes an impassioned case for eliciting support from the powers-that-be. A major support that the essayist relies on to drive home his point is the now famously known Brown v. Board of Education case that finally drew curtains on the segregation of students in schools on racial lines. He held this up to show that the government took its awareness of the problem of racism to its next ogical step of legal intervention with a view to getting rid of the system of signs and symbols that signal the inferiority of blacks. (Lawrence). Later in his essay, Lawrence takes a strident view that the goal of ending racial oppression and racist speech would remain an empty dream unless and until the regulation of free speech becomes a reality. He argues that under the cover of free speech, racist elements tend to take a moral high ground and go on to add fuel to the fire of this burning issue, thus fanning the rising flames of racism. (Lawrence). He thus feels that those ho blindly oppose the plea for bridling of free speech in order to halt racial oppression only help in rendering racial animosities grow stronger by the day. Writing Techniques Charles Lawrence has a gifted style of narration that is lucid and flowing. He writes hard-hitting and honest in his exposition of the realities of life as he sees it, and makes forceful pleas to eradicate the evil of racist speech. Critical Analysis The strong plea for regulation of free speech made by Lawrence aims at eliminating racist oppression and racist speech even at the cost of legal restrictions to the rights ndowed under the First Amendment. The writer thinks that if society has not been successful in this direction for so long, then it would be futile to imagine that free speech should continue even as the fght against racism goes on. He does not buy the argument that free speech empowers all people, including the victims of racism, to express their views and problems freely. To support his view, he cites the Supreme Court, which ruled that the First Amendment could not be construed as protecting words, which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. (Lawrence). I am inclined to agree with the views of the author inasmuch as unbridled freedom of speech might rather help in entrenching racist attitudes deeper than in eradicating the evil.