Hate Speech: Why it's Protected [#5]

 Speech Theory: Promoting Tolerance

    We live in an age where you can say one wrong thing and end up on a global stage. Thinking before you type or speak is crucial nowadays to stay afloat. While traditional cancel culture, can sometimes go too far in destroying lives, there is a need for hate speech to be said rather than suppressed.

    Many people may have a contradicting opinion (Amazon and Discord), while others struggle to what seems to be an insane idea, protect hate speech (Facebook). If you think about it on a surface level, yes of course we should ban hate speech, no one should be allowed to say slurs and derogatory words, but let's think through this.

    According to the first amendment, "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech". Like it or not, hate speech is free speech. People have a right to hate on other people, but the government should not be the one to step in to stop this. If the government stepped in to stop this, it would be a direct violation of the first amendment. The responsibility lies with the people.

    Hypothetically, the government had a blacklist of terms that were illegal to say at anytime, so that there couldn't even be a discussion about why we can't say them. That would make everyone upset and angry that the government is limiting the people and the new generation will never understand why those words cannot be said. 

    We however as a collective society have made our own blacklist of terms that if you say them, you will be condemned and pushed out, even fired from your job for it. Social acceptance is one of the most important things for a human being, being kept away and isolated from people is one of the worst forms of torture. If someone were to experience that kind of negative reaction for saying one thing, you can be sure as heck they will not say it again and if they do it's back to being socially isolated. 

    As much as we do not feel like it at times, we as a society do have power and presence over the evil and misdoings in our society. We can stop it. We can teach what it means to be right or to be wrong to so many people with the use of our voices and with not using our voices.

    We see so many companies and corporations trying to stop hate speech of them to be heard, but without that speech without those opinions, how will they be held accountable? How would they be stopped if they ever did something like that? That is why through hate speech we can send out a message of tolerance. We can send out a message of love for our fellow humans. We can stand up to injustice and say no, I stand with this person. 

    There is always certain situations where a certain type of hate speech should be banned, but then again there are situations where people need to be more informed about a topic than less informed about a topic. We must educate and teach others so they do not make the same mistakes.

"The remedy for bad speech, isn't no speech, it's more speech." 

- Professor Dean Smith