By Laura Acuff, Opinion Editor
In America, freedom of speech is one of our most treasured and violated rights.
While our generation lives decades after the tumultuous Civil Rights Movement, we face the challenge of proceeding. Should we shift the campaign for equality abroad and risk accusations of meddling in foreign affairs? Or do we keep our marches at home? Whether local or abroad, how then do we judge what is and isn’t racism? To a certain degree, we have to balance our freedom of speech with sensitivity and appropriateness.
The question of racism seems simple: actions based upon race constitute racism, whether or not well-intended or with good consequence.
Murkier matters, however, cloud the eyes of justice. For example, when hate crimes garner more severe punishment than the initial acts, we judge perpetrators’ thoughts and feelings-commodities less determinable than clear actions. And when we do judge those thoughts and feelings, where is the line between free speech and punishable offense?
I mean to make a case neither for nor against the punishment of hate crimes. It is a highly complicated issue, which is exactly my reason for using it as an example. My case is wholly devoted to freedom of speech.
In light of recent events here on our ACU campus, we all are being forced to answer some of the above questions for ourselves, and we all will come to solutions as unique as our own individual personalities.
These decisions must not divide us. Disagreements can be good, even constructive.
For instance, despite the negative reputation of our bi-partisan government, its stubborn tendency toward disagreement forces compromise. If our politicians all agreed, we wouldn’t need them all to represent the country; we’d need only one, but that’s generally called a dictatorship, which indicates either a governmental monopoly or a uniform society, neither of which bode well.
The freedom of speech that empowers our government also grants us, as individuals, the freedom to disagree.
When our campus begins to find some sort of closure and resolution from the Students’ Association noose incident, if we find our classmates’ conclusions to questions of racism offensive, we are under no obligations to accept them.
However, if we are to preserve our own rights, we also must preserve theirs.
No matter how much we disagree with our friends, we must remember their soapbox is as constitutional as our own. And no matter how strong our convictions, our right to speech is never a right to an audience.
Just as we have to let people talk, they must allow us the option of refusing to listen, and vice versa.
As the legendary Billy Joel intones in his song My Life, “You can speak your mind, but not on my time.”
We as a society constantly test and reaffirm the indistinct boundaries of our right to free speech. We keep trying because we know its worth.
In the racial threat, prank or mere distasteful gesture made in the SA office, those lines were clearly crossed.
Whether the guilty party meant the noose to symbolize a complaint or threat, we award the gesture that status only by interpreting and dwelling upon it as such.
As a campus community, we cannot risk granting influence to what is essentially local terrorism, as cliché as that may sound. Instead, we should look upon it as a challenge to better ourselves as a group-a reminder that peaceful, nonthreatening means are always preferable to intimidation.
We are better than a hatetwisted noose. And in the trying times of aftermath, our actions respecting each other will best prove that.
