On another thread, Amy wrote:
If you don’t like freedom of speach then TURN THE STATION! Oh my god! I do not agree with most of Rob or Arnie’s mentality but I do agree that they have the freedom to say what they feel. And if you are a true listener of the show, you know that they would never advocate child abuse. It’s absurd and I’m extremely frustrated that everyone having an issue with this is so stupid to just change the channel if what they say upsets you so much. It’s YOUR choice to listen to what you want to on the radio. No one is forcing you to listen to them. All these posts have so much disdain for them. If you hate them so much, why are you listening. Its people like you who make our men fighting this devastating war we’ve been in for years, feel like they are doing it for nothing. Our freedom of speach is one of the many things they are fighting for. I have many gay and lesbian friends and I feel that transgenders are born the way they are and support them 100% in their choices – but this vigilanty actions towards two radio dj’s who most of the time make jokes on air – it’s ridiculous. And they have made fun of things that I stand for or represent – but I don’t take it personally – I just change that channel.
Amy, freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from criticism, and it doesn’t mean freedom from consequences.
* * *
There are times I have doubts about boycotts because of something someone said. It seems wrong to boycott (for example) a brand of pencil because you’ve heard that the pencil manufacturer is anti-gun-control. Because even if only governments can censor, there’s still a threat to free speech created if people are frightened of losing their jobs if they say something unpopular.
But I don’t feel that way about radio DJs. It is their job to be popular. There are some jobs you can’t do if your opinions make you so repulsive that listeners and sponsors revolt, and DJ happens to be one of those jobs. If Rob and Arnie can’t take being judged for their words, and being judged by how valuable they are to their sponsors — then they really, really chose the wrong industry to work in.
* * *
Free speech has consequences. I think you believe Rob and Arnie’s speech only has consequences because people are kicking up a fuss, instead of turning the dial. But I think you’re mistaken about that.
Amy, imagine for a moment that you’re a 13 year old kid who doesn’t fit into the gender roles assigned to you (either because you’re trans, or because you don’t fit in in some other way). Imagine the self-hatred you’ve learned from society around you, and think of how hard that is to overcome — as if being 13 isn’t hard enough on most of us already. Then imagine hearing this on the radio:
They are freaks. They are abnormal. Not because they’re girls trapped in boys bodies but because they have a mental disorder that needs to be somehow gotten out of them. […] You know, my favorite part about hearing these stories about the kids in high school, who the entire high school caters around, lets the boy wear the dress. I look forward to when they go out into society and society beats them down.
Can you imagine how devastating that could be? Sure, it would be only one more straw on an already heavily burdened back — but it would be a big, vicious straw. It’s the kind of straw that, combined with hundreds of other straws, sometimes leads kids to take their own lives.
What would have happened if no one had kicked up a fuss — if everyone had shrugged and said “that’s just good old Rob and Arnie, their regular listeners know they didn’t mean any harm?”
Well, they still would have done harm. They would have done harm to every kid, trans or cis, ((“Cis” means “not trans.”)) whose own self-contempt would have been made more implacable by hearing Rob and Arnie’s contempt; and they would have done harm through every person who heard their jokes and got the message that trans people are “freaks” who deserve disdain.
There are always, always consequences.
There was never, ever an option for Rob and Arnie to tell these vicious “jokes” without consequences.
Someone would have suffered the consequences.
The only question was, who.
If no one had objected, if no one had spoken up and said “that’s stupid, horrible, vicious bullshit, and Rob and Arnie should be ashamed, and KRXQ should be ashamed, and anyone who sponsors this show should be ashamed,” then the consequences would have been borne mainly by trans people, and also by some non-trans kids who nonetheless suffer gender-related bullying and self-hatred. It would have been another brick in the wall; just another thing pushing our society to be marginally more brutal, and marginally more contemptuous, towards people who don’t fit into the standard gender/sex roles.
Instead, some people did speak up. And as a result of that…
Well, now a portion — not all, but part — of the consequences have been diverted, so they are now suffered by Rob and Arnie, rather than solely by the kids they’ve displayed so much “joking” contempt for. Is that such a bad thing? Seems very fair to me.
And maybe Rob and Arnie will make the apology good, and maybe some trans kid will hear them say that expressing contempt for trans kids is wrong in every way. And maybe that’ll do some good. And I suspect they’ll be doing some fundraising or donations to organizations that help trans kids, and if so, maybe that’ll do some good.
Or maybe some trans kids will hear about this, and know that people got angry on their behalf, and hear that even major corporations like AT&T and Carl’s Jr found the open expression of trans-hating “jokes” so repulsive that they yanked their advertising. Maybe some kids will, as a result of this, feel like a few of those straws have been lifted from their backs. And that’ll do some good.
And maybe future radio DJs will remember, before they make similar “jokes,” that jokes which express contempt towards the oppressed and the marginalized always, always carry consequences, even if those consequences are usually suffered by people who aren’t famous and who don’t have their own radio shows. Maybe they’ll remember that their “jokes” can do harm, and they’ll decide to tell a joke about how much the airlines suck instead of picking on trans kids.
Would that be so awful?
And yes, maybe deep inside, they’ll still be thinking that it would be hilarious to “joke” about society beating trans kids down, and how swell that would be. And maybe the only thing keeping them from making that “joke” on the air will be that they’re frightened that maybe, this time, they will suffer some of the consequences themselves. Maybe they’ll bite their tongues and just tell those “jokes” in a bar among friends, instead of on the air to tens of thousands of listeners.
Would that be so awful?
I don’t think it would be.
What would be awful would be a society in which freedom of speech never had consequences; in which people who disagreed with Rob and Arnie’s “jokes” didn’t speak up; in which the message would be communicated that it’s acceptable to talk about trans kids as if they’re less valuable than dirt and no one objected. That would be awful. And I’m very glad that didn’t happen. You should be, too.
UPDATE: For more on consequences, please read this post at Bunny’s Hutch. (Thanks, Elusis.)
I am going to save this post and just paste the URL into any argument any time anyone says, “But they have freeeee speeeeech,” from now on.
Fine, fine post, Amp.
—Myca
What I was trying to say! Except much better.
I sincerely hate when people misunderstand freedom of speech. If you have the freedom to express my freedom of expression allows me to respond.
Exactly right. If you want to say that those of us who wrote about this particular incident are too sensitive, should ignore these idiots, should just leave well enough alone — fine and dandy. That’s your right, and those are reasonable (if, IMHO, invalid) criticisms. But if you want to say that by criticizing someone we are infringing on their rights? That’s laughable.
The whole point of free speech is that you can say something, and if I don’t like it, I can say something back to you. Indeed, I can say something harshly critical. I can go tell other people that you said something bad. I can tell everyone I know that this person said a bad thing. And if you don’t like it — you can say the same thing about me.
Freedom of speech is not freedom from criticism. Freedom of speech is the freedom to criticize. Without the ability to criticize the speech of others, the whole point of free speech is lost.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Barry, this is a GREAT post, but I have one small quibble. I don’t see why we have to support the pencil manufacturer if we don’t like his/her views (why couldn’t we buy pencils from someone we like better?) See my cartoon about conservatives whining about post-Prop-8 gay boycotts, “Victims of Gay Rage”, for more on this.
Thanks for this, Amp.
And seconding Myca.
Amy, freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from criticism,
And a good thing too. Because a couple of the main alternatives are suppression of free speech either by violence or censorship. Which is why in discussions about “hate speech” and laws or speech codes to stop it I’ve always said that the only proper remedy to free speech you don’t like is to offer free speech you do like, which includes criticism.
and it doesn’t mean freedom from consequences.
Actions have consequences. The exercise of the freedom of speech can no more be free of consequences than the exercise of the freedom to have sex or to use a gun.
I’ve got a real low tolerance for people picking on kids. Most especially adults picking on kids.
Mikhaela Reid,
The argument against deciding who to buy pencils from based on the views of the pencil manufacturer is that you effectively will frighten people away from being able to express their views at all, because they have to worry that if they say, “I think the communists have some good ideas,” that they’ll be blacklisted and unable to make a living. I think the Prop. 8 stuff was a bit different because I don’t consider giving money to a political campaign to be a form of speech, and therefore boycotting the Yes on 8 donors for supporting a political campaign to take away others’ rights is a boycott based on actions detrimental to others rather than on speech or views.
But the Supreme Court and most people disagree with me on that. That is, political donations are generally held to be a form of speech, albeit of a type that the government can regulate more than what I consider to be real speech. The government couldn’t stop me from writing as many blog posts as I want in support of Barack Obama, but it could limit the amount of money I could give his campaign.
Also, honking done to annoy or harass others is not free speech.
Well, in chemistry at least the prefix “cis” has a specific meaning, and is not just the negation of “trans”. “Cis” means “same side” and “trans” means “opposite side”.
Remember all that stuff about “trans-fats”? Fats (I’m going to over-simplfy here) are made up of long carbon chains; one carbon atom after another (anywhere from 12 to 26) linked together. Usually there’s only one link between each pair of atoms, and they are free to rotate. Because of the way that the 4 possible bonds of carbon atoms are arranged with respect to the carbon atom themselves (at the vertices of a tetrahedron with the atom at the center), a chain of carbon atoms free to assume any position looks like a zig-zag, and there’s no such things as “cis” or “trans”.
But if there’s two carbon atoms connected to each other by two bonds, a double bond, then they can’t rotate with respect to each other. The relative positions of everything else attached to them can’t change.
If that double bond is “trans”, then the link to the rest of the chain to carbon atom A sticks out in the opposite direction than the link to the rest of the chain to carbon atom B. The whole thing still looks like a zig-zag. But if that double bond is “cis”, then the links to the rest of the chain to both A and B come out the same side, and it looks like the letter “C”. Which, BTW, makes it harder for a whole bunch of these chains to line up together and form a solid crystal than if all the bonds are “trans”, hence one reason for the health issue.
So “cis-gender” would be that your physical and your … what, mental? … gender are the same, and “trans” gender would mean that they are opposite. Except that “cis-gender” is pretty much the default, so there’s little need in normal discourse to use the term.
Amy sounds like me six or seven years ago when I was graduating from high school and beginning college. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was extremely frustrated that logic and/or kindness never worked against jerks who made fun of people so I decided to defend the right of those jerks to be jerks and defend my own right to forcefully ignore them. You know it doesn’t work because I was ignoring the jerks and complaining to people who spoke out against them. But this post is right, allowing jerks to get paid for being hateful and alienating kids sucks. There are better forms of humor.
Mikhaela Reid and PG – I think another important distinction to make is whether members of a company you might boycott are using the company name and/or money to promote their point of view. I don’t shop at Walmart because Walmart does not pay their employees a livable wage and this is part of the way they run the company. But if another company has a Republican CEO who has opinions contrary to mine but still runs the company in a fair way, then that’s fine.
Ron, the discussion of the word “cis” is off topic here, so I’ve started a new thread.
I’ve added these numbers, which don’t appear in the original comment. I don’t think that (2) illustrates the distinction described in (1). A better example might be of the people who used to boycott Domino’s Pizza because the company’s founder and owner was a prominent donor to abortion prohibitionist causes, including Operation Rescue (the group that made targeting Dr. Tiller and his clinic essentially their raison d’etre). Domino’s as a corporation took no position on the issue, but if you were buying at Domino’s, some of your money would go to the company’s owner, and then on to Operation Rescue. I think that’s a reasonable boycott, because again, Domino’s was being boycotted not for the owner’s views, but for his actions.
excellent response, Amp.
i particularly enjoy the part in Amy’s comment about having gay and lesbian friends–invoking your acquaintances doesn’t make any of this okay…
Nice post! I’d also like to object to the claim Amy makes that “And if you are a true listener of the show, you know that they would never advocate child abuse.” They did. In this segment. I don’t know what Amy was thinking. This kind of denial seems to come out when people make racist comments too: their supporters say “but so-and-so would never make a racist comment!” in direct contradiction with the facts. I’m not sure what they’re getting at here – were the DJs momentarily taken over by the spirit of bigots past?
And speaking as a trans person, I can say with certainty that the very vocal response has turned this incident from one more reason to despair into clear evidence that people support us – not just a few bloggers, but some big companies as well. Such evidence – and such support – is so rare that I’m almost glad this happened. I’m waiting, though. A simple apology (let alone a “we’re sorry you were offended” non-apology) isn’t worth much, but some genuine act to make restitution – talking to real trans people on the air to give trans kids hope, giving air time to some trans support organization, something like this would show me the station were really kind people who screwed up. And it could make a vast difference to the lives of some young people who are hurting.
That about sums it up right there.
It seems to me entirely legitimate to refuse to purchase products or services by or from a company because you don’t favor causes that either they support corporately or that the owner(s) support personally, whether it’s Domino’s Pizza or Levis jeans. If a company or it’s owners want to take a public position on a given matter it seems to me reasonable for the public to make purchasing decisions factoring that in if they so choose.
Given what I’ve read in the original post above I think that protesting to the advertisers and the advertisers’ subsequent actions were entirely appropriate.
Mind you, I don’t eat Domino’s pizza because it sucks and I rarely shop at Walmart because the stores are dirty and disorganized and there’s rarely any staff around to answer a question. I don’t see how Domino’s sells even one slice of pizza in the Chicago area.
RonF,
I’m in the camp that thinks the McCarthyite blacklists were a bad thing. People’s livelihoods should not depend on their holding popular viewpoints. It’s one thing not to want my money to go to support a cause in which I don’t believe (as patronizing Domino’s or the business of a Prop. 8 donor would do). It’s another not to want my money to go to support the bare existence of a human being who disagrees with me.
Amp, excellent post. There are so many thoughts jumbled in my head that I hope my response comes out properly. I still believe that what Arnie said was a joke, and should not have been taken literally.
I believe that if that was the last straw for a child, and that child decided to end their life, Arnie would not be to blame. I believe in taking responsibilty for your actions. In that case, the child would be the one that should take the responsibility for commiting suicide.
I completely agree with you on your position of free speech. I am a Marine Corps veteran, and let me tell you, I get pretty pissed when people don’t understand their basic freedoms. I know that just because I don’t agree with other people taking offense to what was said, doesn’t mean they have to shut up or just take it. Trying to control people and their opinions by silencing them is unacceptable. Clearly society has spoken. The majority of people do take offense to what was said and demanded Rob and Arnie be held accountable, and that what they said was not acceptable. If there are people out there who want to get support behind them and boycott or do whatever legal thing they can to get them off the air, then more power to them. I’m happy to know that people can and do stand up for what they believe to be right. I may disagree, and just want all of this to blow over so that I can go back to listening to RAD in the mornings, but that is my right. I also have the right to not be sympathetic to the plight of the transgendered youth ( I am rarely sympathetic to anyone).
I know this sounds very harsh and so many of you will think “oh my god, how can she say that a child is responsible for commiting suicide!” or “How can you not be sypathetic to the transgendered youth?”
Well I guess it is harsh. And so am I.
I really don’t want people to believe that I make this argument because I personally advocate bullying or violence of any kind for any reason. Honestly, I wish everyone would get over the little (and big) differences between us wether it be the color of our skin, our sexual orientation or being transgendered. Until we can live in that kind of world, I am happy people are standing up for what they believe to be right.
The basic points of this post – freedom to speak is not freedom from criticism nor freedom from consequences of what you say – are both things that Rob and Arnie have espoused endlessly on-air for the ten or so years that I’ve listened to them. Rob made it deliberately clear that this was not a free-speech issue. It was them realizing through introspection and through the reaction of their AUDIENCE that they had been out of line in their manner and had gone over the line from being simply offensive to being patently hurtful. Instead of using them as a wonderful example of the reformative power of education, people are just using them to beat a drum for whatever opinion they already hold, and it is sad.
I’m in the camp that thinks the McCarthyite blacklists were a bad thing.
Me too. But I fail to see how this situation is analagous to that.
People’s livelihoods should not depend on their holding popular viewpoints.
It should not be dependent on holding popular viewpoints. But the very basis of these two’s livelihood is how well they can attract and maintain listeners to a media outlet so that said outlet can charge an amount of money for advertising time that is in turn a function of how many listeners and advertisers they can attract. So if they use their employer’s radio time to express those viewpoints it’s entirely appropriate for their livelihood to be at risk thereby.
Otherwise their employer is giving away air time irrespective of cost. If you want to set up a radio station and do that be my guest. But don’t expect to make any money. And don’t expect my tax money to fund it.
RonF,
If you missed it, I’m in favor of the boycotts of Ron and Arnie. What I was discussing, beginning from my comment @8 (my first comment on this thread), is which boycotts I find acceptable and which I don’t. I’m not making a categorical argument against all boycotts, but rather attempting to draw a line.
Yes, yes, yes. The criticism – or even attack – of someone’s opinion by another is itself free speech. Every discussion board on the Internet should have this as a disclaimer. Hell, once we invent holograms, it wouldn’t hurt to have these words hovering over the air of any contentious argument in meatspace, either.
I can’t help shake the feeling that some of the people making these outrageous accusations, besides trying to play the victim, are also perhaps trying to muddy the water with the term “free speech”. If no one shares this feeling, then I won’t bother elaborating, but it’s just a feeling.
Yes, I feel the same way at times, though it’s hard to articulate it. The best way I can put it is that large enough private organizations can de facto act as governments. There’s something chilling about large advocacy groups doing everything they can to ruin the lives of some small time schmo who said something unpopular. (Yes, I’m including liberal advocacy groups.) Not to mention that I think we all agree that it would be wrong for a company that, hypothetically, has workplace policies that punish the expression of a particular political viewpoint that has nothing at all to do with the business they’re in. (Demoting someone in a conservative radio station because their views actually happen to be quite liberal? Understandable. For a company that deals in plastics, not so much.) You know, despite no government being involved.
For a liberal, this view has precedent, as when we share conservatives’ antipathy toward government bureaucrats, but extend it to corporate bureaucrats. Liberalism to me anyway always meant that freedom and concentration of power are mutually incompatible, be it of the public or private sort.
And, of course, there is the “fire in a crowded theater” counterexample to the above as well, and I do believe the threshold for private actors should be higher than those for government. I didn’t shed any tears for Don Imus, for instance, though I do hope this “get them to fire this bastard” thing doesn’t become a trend.
There is a great article about freedom of speech that you might like to read.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-bully-witch-hunt/200907/the-tragic-death-freedom-speech-and-the-growth-intolerance
I have a very important article about freedom of speech that you should read:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-bully-witch-hunt/200907/the-tragic-death-freedom-speech-and-the-growth-intolerance
Here, i also have a link to free manuals that deal with the application of freedom of speech:
http://www.bullies2buddies.com/resources/download-free-manuals
Ayala, please either participate in the discussion here, or stop spamming our blog. Thanks.