Today we're going to be hearing
about when free speech is
actually its opposite.
So from Dr. Shon Meckfessel.
He a faculty member of
the English department
at Highland College.
He received his PhD in
Language and Rhetoric
at the University of
Washington in 2014,
and a Master's in
Teaching and English
to Speakers of other
Languages in 2010.
He has published two books,
Nonviolence Ain't What
it Used to Be: Unarmed
Insurrection and the Rhetoric
of Resistance, and
Suffled How it Gush:
A North American
Anarchist in the Balkans.
Meckfessel has authored a
number of academic and popular
articles, and has appeared
as a social movement
scholar on radio and TV.
He has been involved in
social movements and protests
for the last 30 years in the US,
Eastern Europe, and the Middle
East.
So without further ado,
Dr. Shon Meckfessel.
Thank you so much, [INAUDIBLE].
I want to begin by
acknowledging that we
are in occupied Duwamish land.
And we were honored, actually,
on Monday-- or Tuesday
to hear from Cecil, who's
the representative now
for the Duwamish.
So it was an honor
to have her here.
I want to start by saying thank
you infinitely much to the MLK
Replanning Comittee.
It's a real honor to
come here as a speaker.
And also to the
Multicultural Affairs Office
and Intercultural Center.
And Highline!
Woo!
Really, really appreciate
this opportunity.
I also want to--
another thing I want
to say before I get started.
This presentation, a lot
of it is about this--
it's a really ugly phenomenon.
And I'm a little worried
it's sort of a downer
presentation in
some ways, so just
sort of be emotionally ready
to hear some rough stuff.
Some of the slides are actually
refer pretty openly to racist
and anti-queer violence.
I'm going to give you a
warning when this comes up.
Just be aware that that's
part of this presentation.
And also just because
we're focusing--
I'm going to be focusing this
talk on white nationalism
and a lot of the really
explicit open displays
of white supremacy and white
nationalism that are happening
in our country right now.
That's not to say that probably
the much more widespread
endemic, systemic white
supremacy and racism
in this country, that's
not to deny the importance
and centrality of those.
Luckily, we've had a lot of
really wonderful speakers
already, and we'll continue to.
And Highline continues
to be an amazing campus
for talking about these issues.
But I just want to
acknowledge just because we're
focusing on the really obvious,
nasty, open, explicit kind
of racism is not to
deny the importance
and the devastating
effects of systemic more--
not always as open
forms of racism.
I also want to acknowledge my
positionality as a white guy
talking about this.
It can be sort of paradoxical
at moments or whatever.
So I acknowledge that I'm
talking about phenomenon where
I'm not the primary target.
And sometimes, you know, I often
don't have primary experience
about it, but I do think
that white people can
play a part in fighting
these systems, and have to,
just like everyone.
And yeah, with that,
I'd like to get started.
So what I'm going to talk about
today is this weird phenomenon.
There's been a
lot of things that
have happened to us in the last
year, as a country, as a world.
And of course, all of
these things have roots.
All of these things
have been going
on in some way for a long time.
But we've really seen
some abrupt changes
in the way these
things have happened.
But I think it's caught
a lot of us off guard.
And I'm really-- I'm only
talking about one of those.
There's many, many
things, when we're
talking about the legacy of MLK
and his legacy of resistance,
and the history of
inequality and racism
that he stood up
against, there's so
many strains we can focus on.
So I'm just going to
acknowledge that I'm really
focusing on one specific
phenomenon that's
happened over the last year.
But maybe especially in the
question-and-answer period,
we can kind of work on
applying this more widely
and connect it to other things.
But I think particularly
it's something
that's been happening
on college campuses,
even locally, and specifically
across the country.
So I think all of us
involved with this college
should be concerned about this
and should think about what
it means for our positions.
So a lot of the disagreement
and the controversy
has revolved around language
and the First Amendment
of the Constitution, the
beginning the Bill of Rights,
the most basic important
law of our government.
And part of that says, "Congress
shall make no law abridging
the freedom of speech."
This is kind of ambiguous.
It's a nice idea, right?
It's a lot better
than having a King who
can say you're not allowed
to say things, or a dictator.
But there's some
kind of ambiguity
in the meaning of that.
And what I'm going
to talk about today
is the way that
some social forces
are kind of playing
with that ambiguity
to put some things
over on us, and maybe
how we don't have to take it.
So I don't know how many--
I'm just curious,
actually, can you
raise your hand if you've heard
of this guy Richard Spencer?
He's up on the screen now.
OK, maybe about half,
a third of the room.
So Richard Spencer has come
to notoriety especially
in the last year,
year and a half.
He's an open white nationalist.
He talks about wanting
the United states
to be a white ethnostate,
meaning basically
a place only for white people.
And he talks about
how he believes
in peaceful ethnic cleansing.
I have no idea what that
could possibly mean.
Displacing tens of
millions or hundreds
of millions of people
from their homes
doesn't tend to be
a peaceful process.
So I don't actually--
I think he's lying.
But he has this sort
of polite demeanor.
And he's having a
great deal of success
going around and speaking
at college campuses.
We have seen him yet
in Seattle, but--
I mean in public he's come
here, but we might soon.
We should be prepared.
But what I'm going to start
with a story about him.
I'm going to show you
a few other stories
to kind of show
you this problem.
And then we're going to kind
of break down the problem
and how we can respond to it.
So currently right
now, Richard Spencer
has been invited to speak at
the University of Michigan
by a conservative student group.
And the administration
says, well, you know,
it's free speech.
Well, let me just--
I'm going to play the video.
Some students
have-- so he's been
invited to speak on
campus, and there's
students who, for
very good reason,
are saying, let's not let this
happen, this is ridiculous.
So they're protesting.
They're trying to stop it.
What I want you to
listen for, particularly,
of course, what the students
are saying, but the--
one of the administrators
of the college
comes up to speak to
him, the chancellor,
and says why he thinks they need
to let Richard Spencer come.
So pay special
attention to the ways
that the chancellor responds
to the students' concerns
in this video.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
No Spencer!
No KKK!
No fascist USA!
Hey hey!
Ho ho!
Richard Spencer's got to go!
Hail not vile!
Hail not vile!
Hail not vile!
So if you flip your [INAUDIBLE]
over you'll see our demands.
Basically, they're pretty
simple, pretty straightforward.
We want the university
here at Dearborn
to acknowledge the
request from Spencer.
They've been totally silent,
probably because Dan Little
is retiring and wants to go
out quiet and on a good note.
No.
We're not going to have that.
Well, what a pleasure!
Hello, sir.
I just wanted to start
off with a question.
Are you aware of why
we're here today?
Yes, I am, actually.
Do you have any comments
before we make our commands?
Well, I think you know what the
university's very considered
and, I franky think,
wise position.
And that is that
the university is
committed to freedom of speech.
It's committed also to the
Constitution and the law.
The Constitution and
the law are unambiguous
that when the external
party requests
access to the university's
speech to rent space,
we have to apply
exactly same standards
irregardless of content.
And the university is vigilant
about [INAUDIBLE] and also
respecting the values
of freedom of speech.
I hope it goes without
saying that all of us,
myself and the faculty and staff
and students at this campus,
are opposed to hate.
We are opposed to division.
We are opposed to
white supremacy.
We are opposed to
anti-gay bigotry.
We are opposed to
anti-Muslim bigotry.
We are opposed to anti-Semitism.
We are opposed to racism.
In all of those ways, I think--
I'm just kind of
guessing-- all of us
stand together in the
values that we have.
And frankly, a third party
cannot disrupt those values.
We understand that you say
that you have this commitment,
but there is a clear
difference between saying it
to 20 students outside of your
office, who've you only said it
because you demand
it, and telling
the almost 10,000 students
that pay to go here
directly that you believe that.
So we're asking you to stand
in your beliefs stronger
than just this, and to speak
it to the entire university.
If you really believe it,
you should be brave enough
to tell the entire university.
I think [INAUDIBLE]
wise decision.
Given the Constitution
of our country,
given the legal
environment of our country,
and given the University's
fundamental commitment
to freedom of speech, it
is our task, our task,
to be a unified community,
a community of people
who care about each other,
who care about mutual respect,
who hate hate.
[END PLAYBACK]
OK, so you heard his response.
He said because of
the law, he said also
because of the current
legal environment
in this country, which is an
interesting phrase that we
might come back to, And
because of the Constitution
of the United States, they have
to let Richard Spencer speak,
is what he said.
They don't have a choice.
And you know, he said
even though it should
go without saying that the
university is opposed to things
like what Richard
Spencer is saying,
that the University
of Michigan has
no choice but to let him speak.
So we're going to get into that.
That's what this
presentation is about is
sort of how to answer that.
One of the things that
I just want to notice
is it's strange the way that
this is applied, because he
says "it goes without knowing,"
"they have no choice,"
he used these very
absolute phrases.
Two years ago, this
same university,
University of Michigan,
invited Alice Walker,
I think a student
group also, invited
Alice Walker the Pulitzer Prize
winning author of The Color
Purple, very famous
novel, famous film,
to come and speak at the
University of Michigan
at the same college.
And the college dis-invited her.
They said that she could
not speak because--
they actually sent
a letter to her.
They said some of the
donors in the school
did not like what she has said
about the state of Israel.
She made comments that
said that she grew up
in the Jim Crow South.
And when she visited
Israel and Palestine,
she said the system there
reminded her of growing up
in the Jim Crow South.
So because she'd
been talking about,
the same university with that
same chancellor we just heard
from said she was not allowed
to talk, and cancelled her talk.
So and currently,
that same college, you
can look at the
headlines, I'm curious
how it's going to
turn out, but it
sounds like they actually
are going to allow
Richard Spencer to speak.
So there is something
going on here.
And I'm trying to figure
out through this talk what's
this phenomenon, and
how do we respond.
In bearing this out, I want to
tell you a couple more stories.
Both of these are actually
local and a bit closer to home.
University of Washington
in Seattle, I live--
this is where I got my
PhD, and I live just
up the street from this, so
this hits me very close to home.
They were having a performance,
the student theater group
was having a performance
on the theater
on the UW campus of
a Shakespeare play,
As You Like It.
And the majority, like, all
of the leads of the cast,
the majority of the actors,
are people of color.
And they're portraying
queer folks.
There's several
queer folks in it.
And as they were in the
performance with also
a majority people-of-color
audience, the--
so, by the way,
this is the first
of the flyers that's
kind of upset coming up.
Content warning.
While they were performing
this play with a full house,
the theater was plastered
with these posters
from a group called Atomwaffen,
which has, you can see,
swastikas on the flyers.
And it says "Seattle
needs a good cleansing.
Drive out yellow, black
and brown, the sodomites
and degenerates."
So we see explicitly
extreme racist language
and anti-gay, lesbian, queer
language on these flyers.
So you know, and
again, this went up
while people were in
the building, glued
all over the outside
of the building.
So as you can imagine, this is a
quote from one of the students,
people were very upset.
I mean, they felt directly
attacked by this, right?
And one of the actors
in the play, she said,
"It was terrifying, because all
the leads are people of color,
as were a lot of our audience.
We have people playing
LGBTQ characters,
and that's a huge
portion of our audience.
It didn't seem arbitrary."
She's like, we are being
targeted on purpose, right?
"The thing that
upsets me so much
is the blatant gaslighting that
is happening across the nation.
This can't be normalized,
yet it is because we're
seeing it so often."
And she said, out loud,
addressing that same language
we're hearing so much, "This
is not freedom of speech.
This is harassment."
Tamsen Glasor.
So you know, I can very
much understand how
she would feel this way, right?
That seems like a very
reasonable response.
The response from the
University of Washington
police department was
somewhat different.
[? Rittenhouse, ?] I think
was the Chief of Police.
And he came out in
the same article,
and in regard to
those fliers going up
he said this, "Putting up
handbills is certainly legal.
We want people to be able to
promote freedom of expression
and freedom of thought.
For some people,
those flyers are
going to be clearly offensive.
For others, it's going to
be seen as not offensive.
We are an open campus
that respects--"
and here's the words,
"--freedom of speech,
freedom of expression, so we
will let people judge that
in a way they want to."
And then this is
the winning line.
"Obviously, if you
find it offensive,
you'll want to stay away
from that," he said.
So the least we can
say here is we're
seeing a fighting of frameworks
with participants who said,
well, this is freedom
of expression,
there's nothing we can do.
And people are like, this
isn't freedom of expression.
Are you crazy?
Another situation even closer
to home, not physically
but in terms of the
institution, Shoreline,
I have a lot of colleagues who
teach at Shoreline Community
College.
There's a lot of great
folks there, you know?
It's a really good place.
But there's one
concerning phenomenon
that my colleagues have
drawn attention to,
that there's been a
crew of Nazi skinheads
that have a long
history of violence
in the region called the
North West Hammerskins.
They've been present on
campus, kind of hanging out.
They haven't made
a big deal yet,
but they're clearly sort of
testing the waters to see
how people react.
And some of the
faculty and listserves,
when people are
talking about how
to respond, some of the teachers
have sort of been saying,
you know, I think they just
feel like that because they
feel like they're not heard.
So maybe we should invite
them into our classrooms
and make sure they feel
heard, and then they
won't feel so angry.
So to get us going on the
topic, what I'd like to do now
is turn to your neighbor.
Let's stay in groups of maybe
three, three or four, two
if you're kind of
in a smaller group.
And introduce yourself.
Say hi.
And I'm just kind of curious
to hear a couple ideas.
We're not going to
have a lot of time.
But just to kind of get us
thinking about these things.
In those three stories, Richard
Spencer having to have his
freedom of speech at the
University of Michigan;
the theater flyers being said,
well, some people will like it,
some people won't.
If you don't like it,
don't go near the buildings
that Nazis are
pasting things on.
And then talking about
inviting the skinheads
into the classroom.
Do you think that that was--
those are the right responses?
And why or why not?
And do you have ideas of ways
that could be done differently?
So go ahead.
Turn to your neighbors
and talk about that just
for a couple minutes.
We're going to
have a half an hour
after the lecture to have
a discussion in a back
and forth questions-and-answers
open discussion.
So make sure to hold on
to some of the thoughts
that you just had.
And if they're not kind
of addressed in this talk,
let's have those.
But I just-- maybe just to
kind of get us going, maybe
if somebody could
tell me something
that their partner said that
they hadn't thought of before.
Anybody have something to offer
that they hadn't thought of,
that the person they
were in a group with?
OK, awesome.
We're good.
I think one of the--
when my colleagues
or faculty members
said about that they
would have used different
lingual to express their
opinion towards the matters,
that they're using vulgar
language than being
able to push their
hatred doctrine.
You know, they could have used
a different type of lingual
to push their doctrine.
But instead, they used something
that was going to offend each
and every single one of
them, of individual people.
So it's all about how
do I use your lingual
at the end of the day.
Yeah, that's really,
really well put.
And that's going to
be one of the things
we talk about later on
is that there's content,
and there's also language.
There's ideas, and there's
free exchange of ideas,
and then there's the way that
we choose to put those in words.
And those can be kind
of different things
that might really matter
when we're talking
about freedom of speech.
OK, there's so much to say.
I think what I'm
asking you is hold on
to the thoughts that you have
and the thoughts that you
heard in the conversation.
And if we touch on those great.
If there are things that come
up that we haven't heard,
please bring those up in the
question and answer period.
But I'm really glad I heard
some wonderful conversation
on the topic.
So I'm going to kind of
present my case for why
we might want to oppose things
that call themselves freedom
of speech.
People probably--
some of you are
familiar with the
idea of scare quotes.
So this means just
because somebody
calls something
freedom of speech
doesn't mean it is, right?
That's why I have the
quotations instead of me saying
it's something I
think is free speech.
Free speech is one of these
things, it's so foundational.
I was just hearing from
somebody from Ethiopia
who was saying it's
something they really
treasure about the United
States because if you speak out
against power and
the authorities
and the president in
Ethiopia and a lot of places,
you can really get in trouble.
You could be killed.
You could be imprisoned, right?
So it's really
important that we have
this law in the country to
say you can't do that, right?
But what are the
limits of that law?
You know, other
times that you would
want us to oppose
it even if people
were claiming to be using it.
So I'm going to list
off a series of kind
of five problems, five things
we might want to think about,
and five reasons we
might want to object,
even if somebody
is saying, well,
don't you like
freedom of speech?
Are you against
freedom of speech?
Then you have to let me talk.
Not necessarily.
The first one is inconsistency.
We just heard about the
Alice Walker, Richard Spencer
example.
We can watch the
news this month,
because I think Richard's--
they're going to decide this
month if he can speak or not.
But already the faculty
are saying we have to,
we heard from the
chancellor that they
have to, when they didn't
have a problem canceling
on one of the greatest
living novelists--
says to me something's
going on in the way
that these terms are applied.
Another story that happened
recently that's kind of
got some connections
to other stories.
There was a situation called
Gamergate, that somebody,
if you're writing
papers, you might
want to write a paper on this.
This is a really
important situation
that introduced some
of these changes.
And Gamergate
basically happened--
there was several women, most
notably Anita Sarkeesian here,
who are scholars.
They do cultural studies work.
They do stuff sort of like
what we talk about in some
of our classes here.
And they're particularly talking
about gender in video games.
And Anita Sarkeesian does
this really cool work--
you can watch some
of her videos--
where she's just
breaking it down.
If you look at video
games, what kind of ideas
do you get about what women
are like and what men are like?
What kind of ideas do you get
about masculinity, femininity,
if you spend a lot of
time playing video games?
She likes video games,
she plays different ones.
Some games are
better than others.
But she kind of
just looks at that.
And what happened was
there was this uproar
from a lot of sexist dudes
who take video games really
personally, who were like,
who is she to say that?
Like, I want to hear
her talk or whatever.
And they got organized, and they
started making death threats
to her to the extent
that she was supposed
to do a cross-country tour
of college campuses talking
about her research, and
all these different places,
the college was like, yeah, I
guess you have all these bomb
threats.
Good luck.
There's not really anything
we can do to protect you.
And she had to cancel
her whole tour.
So where was her freedom of
speech in this situation?
Now, this gets crazy.
Stay with me here.
The person most responsible for
organizing those death threats
and bomb threats
and attacks on her
was this person
Milo Yiannopoulos.
By the way, if you see this with
this sort of pinched fingers,
this is a current sign
meaning white power.
This is not just A-OK.
So Milo Yiannopoulos
is a complex character.
We could talk about
him for an hour.
But he was the person who really
organized these attacks on her.
Milo then went on a national
tour of college campuses.
And in his talks,
he said things--
again, prepare for
upsetting material.
He said things like,
"Islam is cancer."
He said, "feminism is cancer."
He said slavery was a good idea.
He said that trans
people are mentally ill
and should have,
like, lobotomies.
Really, really violent, really
threatening language, right?
And yet, in all these
different campuses,
the colleges were saying,
well, we have to let him talk.
He's got freedom of speech.
We can't tell him no.
He came to University
of Washington.
Some of us were there.
And a lot of the
colleges where he went,
there were big protests
to shut him down.
And some succeeded,
like Berkeley succeeded
in stopping him from speaking.
And that was a big
national turmoil.
University of Washington did
not stop him from speaking.
There were a bunch
of skirmishes.
There were fights.
And somebody even got shot.
One of the protesters
trying to stop him
from speaking or at
least calm people
down was shot by one
of Milo's supporters.
And yet, still, we hear him
talked about, oh, you know,
it's important to give
him his freedom of speech
even if we don't like
what he has to say.
Part of the back story here,
you might have noticed the--
I referred to it-- the
chancellor of University
of Michigan said,
it's not a good idea
in our current legal
environment in this country,
as well as the
Constitution, et cetera.
I think what he might
be referring to is
there's a billionaire
guy, Robert Mercer,
who is a good name to look up.
He was one of the main people
who sort of was funding
the Donald Trump campaign.
He's a big he's a
really big funder
of kind of far-right causes.
And he admits that
he was basically
funding the Milo
Yiannopoulos tour and several
of these other ones, and then
suing schools that said no.
So I think when the
chancellor is like, it's not
a good idea in this
current legal environment,
they might be talking about this
fear of right-wing lawsuits,
which is scary but I
don't think it's something
that we should just give in to.
Another situation about the
sort of inconsistency, here
is another sort
of friend of mine,
he's in Philadelphia
at Drexel University,
George Ciccariello-Maher.
And he's got a fierce wit.
And he started writing a lot.
He writes a lot.
And he started writing a
lot about how messed up
some of these people like
Richard Spencer, some
of these right-wing
people, were.
And he sort of was
putting out some tweets
that made fun of them.
And they got really angry.
And they started making death
threats and bomb threats
at him.
Until he couldn't actually
teach his classes anymore.
He had to start
teaching by Skype.
And again, the university, they
had some bodyguards walk him
to class a couple of times,
and then they said, you know,
I'm sorry, there's
nothing we can do.
So he had to teach from
home for about a year.
And then this last
month, he just retired.
He just quit.
He had a protected job.
But because the university
said, I'm sorry,
we can't let you teach your
classes because the students
could get shot or
you could get shot,
we don't want to be
responsible, he basically
was pressured into quitting.
Where was his freedom of speech?
This remarkable author,
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor,
she wrote this book called
From Black Lives Matter
to Black Liberation.
She's probably the
best writer about--
together with Ta-Nehisi Coates--
about Black Lives Matter
in the current moment.
She's at Princeton
University, one
of the most prestigious
in the country,
in the African-American
Studies department.
And just is a
phenomenal speaker.
I've seen her speak
a couple of times.
She tried to come to
Town Hall in Seattle.
I don't know how many of
you have gone to Town Hall.
It's a really great place
to see public events.
She tried to do an event at
Town Hall earlier this year,
and had all these death
threats and bomb threats.
And the city, the same city--
well, yeah, the city
provided all of the-- that
had all these police to protect
Milo Yiannopoulos when he spoke
at University of Washington, the
same city said, you know what?
I'm sorry, we can't
really protect you.
And if you do this event,
it's at your own risk.
And so she canceled
her event in Seattle
because she said she
feared for her life.
She has a really
powerful statement
you might want to look up.
Again, I'll say it, where
was her freedom of speech?
So there's just a
stark inconsistency
in the way these
things are applied.
I want to bring
up one more story.
We're going to come
back to this one
later because it's kind
of an interesting story
for several reasons.
But this Palestinian
professor, Steven Salaita, he's
actually an expert about
Native American studies.
His scholarship and
most of his books
are about Native American
history and settler colonialism
in the United States.
But he's also
Palestinian himself.
And last time that
Israel started bombing--
saturation bombing Gaza
in 2014, he was angry
and wrote some angry tweets.
All of his tweets were only
criticizing state policy.
He wasn't saying anything about
any people and individuals.
He was saying the
things that the state is
doing are unforgivable, right?
And for that, he
was about to get
a-- he just quit-- he just
landed a job at University
of Illinois.
He quit his previous job.
He was moving to Illinois.
He'd already signed
the contract.
And he was notified
that he was un-hired.
There were protests,
especially at that college,
around the country.
People said this is outrageous.
They didn't even
give him a reason.
Although, finally they
came out and they said
it was because of these tweets.
And despite all of these
protests, even a lot of-- this
was actually at [INAUDIBLE].
A lot of people wrote
letters and everything,
but he did not get his job back.
Where was his freedom of speech?
So the inconsistency is
a really serious thing.
I think we can all see
something's going on where some
people get to claim freedom of
speech and some people don't.
And we can notice that all the
examples that we've heard of
are these sort of
right wing white guys.
And the people who are
most hit by this that we're
seeing in the examples
often are people of color,
women of color, queer folks.
Another aspect of
this, it's connected
but it's a different focus,
is that a lot of time
when people are talking
about freedom of speech,
they're confusing
it with something
that I would call platforms.
So for example,
it's an honor for me
to be invited to
speak to you today.
And it's not just-- you
know, somebody can't say,
I have something
important to say, give me
a room with 300 people
and a microphone
and call everybody
to see it, right?
That takes a lot of work.
And you only do that if
somebody is sort of--
I don't want to say
this about myself,
but if somebody has sort of
earned being listened to,
that's when they
get invited, right?
And it's if they reflect the
values of the institution
that's inviting them.
So for example, here I
have Seattle Town Hall,
and this is Angela
Davis speaking.
Angela Davis is speaking
there because she's
had a lifetime of work.
She has a lot of stuff
to say, and these people
want to hear it, right?
But there's nothing
in the First Amendment
that says if somebody wants to
talk to a big roomful of people
that you have to listen to them.
That's ridiculous.
That doesn't make any sense.
There's limited
resources, whether it's
a college campus
and a public event
or a radio station or a
published book or whatever.
Saying you don't want
to bother letting
somebody say something
that is not worth saying,
that's not censorship.
You're just not doing work
to give them a platform.
So I find this a
very helpful term
when you're hearing these people
say, but free speech though,
but free speech though.
Don't confuse free
speech with platforms,
because platforms
are not a right.
Another example
of this happening.
I'm using the technical
term "bullshit" here,
so I hope nobody is offended.
Recently, at the
University of Vermont,
I think it was a professor
actually, invited this guy
Charles Murray to
come give a talk.
And Charles Murray is most
famous for this book he wrote,
I think in the '80s,
maybe the '90s,
called The Bell
Curve, that claims
that white people are
biologically more intelligent
than people of color.
And immediately after
this book came out,
I mean within weeks
after this book came out,
every journal in the--
all these things were
coming out saying
this is totally fake, he has
absolutely horrible science,
there's no-- he has
no evidence at all.
It's just pure racism.
And scientifically, it's
absolutely debunked.
And that was like 30--
20, 30 years ago that this
was shown to be totally bunk.
But for some reason, the
University of Vermont
felt like they had to
accept him as a speaker.
So students took
it upon themselves,
and I think that it was a really
admirable decision, to not
give him a platform.
He's fully discredited.
The things that he's talking
about has been shown time
and again to have no value,
scientifically, socially,
anything.
So why let him speak?
So these students
interfered with the event.
Notice they all turned their
backs on him, which I think
was kind of nice.
And they had signs about him.
And they made noise
to disrupt his event.
Now, do you think
they got thanked?
Do you think the
US public was like,
thank you for saving
our ears from stuff
that we know is damaging and
actually not true at all?
No.
The Washington Post,
you know, supposedly
one of the most liberal papers
in the country, newspaper
of record, within that week,
had two articles about it.
One said that Middlebury's
violent response
to having him speak reminded
somebody of the Little Rock
Nine.
And I've got to
unpack that exactly.
I've got to unpack that a bit.
That's saying that the
first black students
to go to a previously
segregated high school
were like the professor.
And the students who were
trying to stop him from speaking
were like the white
supremacists who were trying
to keep out the black students.
What?
And the same week we
hear another opinion
piece in the Washington
Post that said protesters
at the Middlebury
College demonstrate
"cultural appropriation
of fascism."
I'm not sure what that
means, but it's basically
saying that they're fascists for
not giving this guy a platform.
I hate to say it--
I didn't put it in a slideshow
because it was too sad--
but Cornel West came out
and he agreed with that.
He's like, yeah,
these protesters,
we have to value free speech.
I'm like, Cornel West?
Yeah, that's how I felt. What?
So my response to these--
OK, so sorry, my response
to this is that basically--
I'm going to come back
to this in a minute.
But some ideas aren't worth--
some things aren't worth
talking about anymore, right?
Some ideas are--
you can say, oh no,
this isn't worth
talking about anymore,
how white people are
biologically more
intelligent because
100-odd years ago,
like, thoroughly
over and over, that
was disproven as a
thin excuse for robbing
people of their lives, right?
That's not science.
That's not a good idea that
maybe we should discuss.
So on one hand, we
hear a lot of people
questioning the so-called
experts or whatever.
It's good to question authority.
It's good to ask questions.
But at a certain point,
you're like, wait,
I'm pretty sure that
actually that's not true
and it's sketchy to
try to talk about that,
and to raise these as
if it's not settled.
For example,
Holocaust denialism.
For example, the idea that
maybe World War II did not
involve Nazi Germany
putting 6 million
Jews-plus to their death in a
variety of horrifying manners.
This is a picture of Auschwitz.
We now generally
recognize that--
I mean it's absolutely proven
that this happened, right?
And to question this, to say,
"Well, but really though?"
is questioning this
mass of suffering.
There's every scientific reason
to know that this happened,
and to question if
it happened and maybe
distrust the sciences, also
to question that suffering.
We know, as we should know,
that it's a closed question,
and it's sketchy, it's
wrong to bring it up
like it might not be.
So I think what people
like Murray are doing
and Richard Spencer
and all these people,
is they're trying to do the
same thing with 19th century
racial science.
Back in the day when
people would say, well,
if you measure
somebody's head, you
can find out their natural
race and their ability.
First of all, we know race
exists in a very real way
as a social phenomenon, right?
We get treated very
differently depending
on what race we're read on.
That's very real.
Race does not exist
biologically in any way.
Skin tone, hair texture,
you know, like eye shape,
mouth shape, these things
that don't have anything
to do with each other, and
certainly don't have anything
to do with ability
or intelligence,
we have a history of those
being used as excuses
to rob people of their lives.
But we know that those
excuses aren't true.
That's not, like, an
interesting question to ask.
So this is, to me, this
is like the Holocaust.
To act like maybe these
are questions worth asking
is like asking if maybe
the Holocaust was not all
we thought it was or something.
This is more the
images from back
when it seemed like people had
these interesting scientific
questions about race,
which were really
just an excuse for the
inequality that had produce--
that you know, that the society
had, with no scientific basis.
So when these people are
talking about these supposed
interesting ideas of
inquiry, and Richard Spencer
is using his polite
language, we should hear it
for what it is,
which is basically
saying we should
go back to a time
when our institutions
were not diverse,
when we didn't even pretend to
have legal equality for people,
and when we had basically
institutionalized apartheid
in this country.
That's what they're saying
is to go back to that
with these excuses and things.
I don't know why we would
make space for that.
A couple other related points.
I wrote this piece recently
for the Federal Way Mirror.
And I made the point in
this that the only content
in what they're saying,
if you look at it,
is that other people
shouldn't be allowed to speak.
So if the only content
in the interesting ideas
of Richard Spencer
and Milo Yiannopoulos
is because of
somebody's sexuality
or because of somebody's
race that maybe they're
not full human beings, maybe
we shouldn't listen to--
maybe they shouldn't have
a spot in the public.
What that's actually doing
is taking away speech
from a huge number of people.
And so that's why I'm saying
it's actually opposite
of free speech, no
matter how much they
like to tell us that they are
practicing free speech, right?
And that's how you
should treat it,
as the opposite of free speech.
Philosopher Karl Popper talked
about the paradox of tolerance.
And he said it's kind
of a contradiction,
because you want to have
a society that is tolerant
and allows all sorts of people.
But if there's
people who come up
in that that don't believe in
allowing all sorts of people,
if you have intolerant people
in your tolerant society, what
do you do with them?
It's a problem, right?
And you can basically--
if you allow--
if you tolerate intolerance,
then as we saw in Nazi Germany,
Karl Popper said, it'll put an
end to your tolerant society.
Those people found
a loophole, and they
can make an intolerant society.
So the solution to
it is you actually
have to be intolerant
to intolerance,
if you're going
to stay tolerant.
OK, that was a lot of words.
TLDR, I'm going show a video
that just came out yesterday
by this woman Molly
Stewart that basically
says maybe everything I just
said in a lot cuter images.
So I'm going to play this.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
So my baby brother
is convinced that he
has the right to free speech.
And I'm like, sure, you
can cry all you want,
but I shouldn't have
to listen to it.
Hey, you know what?
That's just like
what's the fault-right.
If Richard Suspenders was at
a dinner party with a bunch
of dinosaurs, crying about
how white power isn't the same
as it was in the olden
days, and, like, la-de-da--
I'm making pancakes.
Don't care.
But if he's on TV
with a bunch of people
cheering and doing weird
Nazi gestures, then I'm like,
"Mom, why does
this scary man get
to tell people that they
aren't really humans,
and no one listens
to me, even when
I have super genius ideas?"
She says it's because I'm
not a white man funded
by right-wing billionaires.
So I guess even though everyone
has the right to speak,
money makes some
people way louder?
But what I don't
get is that my baby
brother isn't being paid by
billionaires, and he's so loud.
Anyways, I have a plan.
I'm going to march around
the house with my accordion.
Hey!
Oh man, my mom and my dad
took my accordion away.
They said if I try to silence
him I'll only make him louder.
But I'm not silencing him.
I'm just drowning him out
so we don't all go crazy.
[CHANTING]
It's like the university
that brings in the police
to keep the protesters away.
This is so unfair.
Now I feel like crying.
So I close my eyes
and try to remember
what my teachers taught me
about the first amendment.
A long time ago,
there was a group
called the Wobblies, who
wobbled around for many years
protesting places that didn't
let people speak freely.
When police came
to take them away,
they were too wobbly
to be arrested.
So they were sprayed
with fire hoses instead.
But they kept right on saying
that workers shouldn't be
started with stuff like that.
Then later, I can't
remember when,
there was a student
at [? UB ?] Berkeley
who was handing out papers
and got arrested for it.
But his friends saw
them put him in the car,
and said, oh no, you
don't, and climbed on top
like it was a jungle gym.
They stayed there for 30 hours.
Now students can give out
papers without getting
into big trouble.
Oh, and then there's my
most-favoritist free-speecher
ever, Colin.
Do Kaepernick kneels
on the football field
because the national anthem
has a white-people rhythm.
And he's like, could we
get a little jazz in here?
Unlike my brother or the
crazy-rich white guys,
Mr. Kaepernick doesn't have
his free speech protected.
And now I don't get to see
him on television anymore.
All I see on television are
the really terrible things
that people do after they
listen to the fault-right guys.
I wish I could be there,
at the speeches where
people get violent
ideas, to drown them out
with my accordion.
Anyway, I had a
new idea about what
to do about my baby brother.
I found out about
something called
the marketplace of ideas.
It's like the flea
market, except whichever
idea is sold the most
becomes the truth,
and all the junk
ideas disappear.
So I'm selling my
brother's cries
in the marketplace of ideas, and
hoping that no one buys them.
I hope Richard Suspender's
store goes out of business just
like mine will, so his
ideas will disappear
with my brother's cries.
It turns out he and
his dinosaur friends
are much more dangerous
than my baby brother.
For now, I think they
need to be drowned out,
so we're going to need
a lot more accordions.
[END PLAYBACK]
OK, I couldn't believe
it when I saw that.
I was like, why am I
even giving the talk?
I should just play the
video over and over.
Super beautiful.
So I'm going to
end kind of quickly
with an overview of some of the
way-- some of our accordions,
some of the tools that we
have in a few different ways
to oppose this kind of language,
these kind of speakers,
these kind of events
in our community.
I'm going to race through
them because I underestimated
my time as always--
overestimated.
So first of all, there's
a list of legal responses.
Also we have half an
hour for Q&A after this,
so any of these that you want
to find out more about we
can go more in-depth then.
So for example, I
just wanted to say
Highline is really in
a particular position
with this stuff.
We haven't really had any
of these problems yet.
And hopefully, we won't
be faced with them.
But because we're the
most diverse college
in the state, if this stuff
kind of comes near our campus,
it might be
particularly difficult.
I am so happy about--
our cultural diversity
policy, we say
"Highline College
actively promotes
and supports a learning
and work environment
which ensures social justice,
mutual respect, understanding,
civility, and nonviolence, and
is opposed to discrimination."
So just for all of us in
our different positions
to think about what it means
to actively promote and support
that kind of environment.
If we're faced with
this kind of challenge,
it might be complicated, right?
And so far, the attorney
general of Washington
has taken a very passive role
and sort of gone together
with this like, well,
whatever these people say
is probably freedom of speech.
And I mean, we might
need to kind of
be prepared for
situations and deal
with those contradictions
ahead of time.
I think Highline has been
really a leader in this already,
and is really
ahead of the curve.
But it's a problem
that I don't think
anybody has the answer to yet.
So we need to be
preemptive and really
think about those solutions.
I think in some ways, we
are, and it's something also
that we should
all be working on.
I wanted to say, hate
speech is-- you know,
it's in the title of this
talk, but actually, I
don't find it the most
useful term because it's
legally really ambiguous.
It can be really hard to
apply because you have
to show somebody's motives.
And also, a lot of the time,
hate speech or hate crime
modifications are actually
applied against sort
of the wrong people.
They're, a lot of
the time, applied
against people protesting
racism or against these things.
They're kind of ambiguous.
And part of that is
because I'm not sure
hate is actually the issue.
So for example, here's
another content warning.
I'm going to show a couple of
nasty flyers in just a second.
Here's a flyer from one of
these sort of neo-Nazi groups.
And here's the 14 words.
This is sort of the white
nationalist motto right now.
And notice the 14
words, they say,
"We have to secure the
existence of our people
and a future for
white children."
Where's the hate?
They're just, it's all
about the children, right?
I don't think we
should fall for that.
But notice they're being
really careful to not
sound like they hate anybody.
They're just, we just care
about our children, right?
And here, this flyer from this
nasty Traditional Worker Party,
"Love your people."
And so we know this
is coded as racism.
This is coded.
I mean, sure, it's hateful.
But it's kind of hate is the
thing that's hard to point out.
However, racism is
pretty clear, right?
So if we acknowledge that
racism is the problem,
you know, homophobia,
bigotry, then
we can have a
critique towards it.
If we're looking
for the hate, they
might say, oh, no,
it's just about love.
It's not the clearest standard.
So I'm going to
blow through these.
And if you want to hear about
any particular one of these,
I'm happy to revisit
it in the Q&A.
There's a thing
that is effective,
called "real threat," where
if there's a situation, given
the context, if a
reasonable person feels--
knows that they're
being threatened,
then that's not
protected speech.
So I think, for example,
the College Republicans,
the group that brought
Milo to the UW campus,
the day after there
was that shooting, they
released a statement.
And they were like, activists,
labor people, leftists,
gay people, whatever, there
was this list, they're like,
we are coming after you,
we will put out your flame.
A day after a
shooting, by somebody
associated with the group?
That's a context that
makes that a real threat.
So that's not protected speech.
Milo targeted a trans
student at a previous event.
And the student had to
drop out of college,
because so many people were
threatening that person.
That was a real threat.
That's not protected speech.
If somebody is getting in the
way of what a college is there
for, materially disrupting
the purpose of a college,
that's not protected.
And that can be
something that's limited.
Harassment.
Even if somebody is talking
when they harass somebody,
it's not freedom of speech.
It's harassment.
It's not protected speech.
This pops up on
campuses all the time.
I would claim that that
UW theater thing, where
people were inside, and
these threatening death
threats were pasted on it,
was not freedom of speech,
as the UW--
as [? Rittenhouse, ?] I think
is the guy's name, said.
There was definitely
not protected speech.
It was actually prosecutable.
Another terrible example I want
to throw at you , so again,
this is maybe the worst yet.
This is a very transphobic
and homophobic flyer
we're about to see.
This happened two months ago.
It's so awful.
I'm sorry to show you this.
But it's a really
clear example of this,
what we're talking about.
This group at Cleveland
State University
posted this flyer
encouraging queer students
to kill themselves.
Because a very large
number of youth suicides--
it's so ugly-- a very large
number of youth suicides
are queer folks.
So this flyer is saying do
it, join your fellow "F" word.
And it's signed
"Fascist Solutions."
That's the group that put it up.
And what's the response
from the administration
of Cleveland State University?
They said, you know,
of course-- just
like the other guy-- of course
we believe in diversity.
We're proud of our diversity.
And then in their
official letter they said,
"CSU is also committed to
uphold the First Amendment, even
with regard to
controversial issues
where opinion is divided."
That was their
response to this flyer.
So I would argue rather
aggressively that that is not,
indeed, First Amendment.
And it's not a divided issue.
It's extreme harassment.
I can't believe
they would say that.
And then finally, incitement
to violence is another thing.
Legally, it's not
protected speech.
Activists like on the left
go to jail for this stuff
all the time.
I know environmental
activists, who,
because they talked
about planning
or they talked about
how companies should
pay the cost if they're
doing environmental damage
or hurting animals, some people
I know with animal rights,
just for saying that on tape
they got years in prison.
They weren't threatening
any people at all.
But because it was
incitement to violence,
they were found guilty,
conspiracy, and all
these things, and put away.
And then we have people
advocating genocide,
and they get to
claim free speech?
I don't think so.
So we're out of time.
I do feel like it
depends a lot--
responses to these
kind of things
depends a lot on the context.
It's different if you
see it in a classroom.
I think sometimes
classrooms, if you've
built, if you have a supportive
environment where people have
some relationship
with each other,
it can sustain people
kind of trying to figure
these things out a bit more.
I had a class recently where
an international student
had sort of caught a hold of
the "build the wall" rhetoric.
And they kind of were
presenting this thing
about how we should
build a wall because all
these illegal immigrants
were making problems.
And I know that there
were undocumented
students in that class.
But because we had a
relationship built up
in the context of a classroom,
those students were like,
are you sure about
that one part where
you said that that's because
of undocumented immigrants?
What was your source for that?
And they were able
to get the student
to reconsider the way
they thought about stuff.
In a conversation,
a classroom is
different than a public space.
And I think you wouldn't
want that conversation
if it was going to really
upset or shut down conversation
with other students.
But that classroom, people
knew each other enough,
had enough trust, that they
could have that conversation
and show that person maybe
what they were missing.
So with classrooms,
it just depends.
I think building
a classroom where
you can support everybody,
and if it's strong enough,
maybe you can actually
kind of work through that
and show people
ways of thinking.
That can work.
It depends.
And then finally,
campus response.
I feel strongly that this
stuff is not going away.
We're going to have to
deal with it in some form.
And the best way to deal
with it is for everybody--
we should all be thinking,
as students, as faculty,
as administrators, as staff,
what are our accordions?
And also outside
of campus, right?
Like as citizens, as people
who live in a certain area,
as parts of communities,
what are our accordions?
What's going on around us?
And what kind of ways can
we stop that and fight back?
Thank you.
[INAUDIBLE] Meckfessel.
So at this point, if
you have any questions,
go ahead and raise your hand.
And Mikaela is going to
walk around with the mic,
and go ahead and
provide it for you.
Hello, Dr. Shon, thank
you for your presentation.
I have a question.
We know we come from-- our
ancestors were back in the day,
they were fighting against each
other, like on the [INAUDIBLE]..
So everything like black
versus white versus brown,
[INAUDIBLE].
In the past, we haven't
worried about this.
And right now we
have [INAUDIBLE]..
So still we have some issues.
How long do you
think it will take
us, how many generations it
will take to [INAUDIBLE] racism,
like if freedom of the
speech will go away?
I don't know.
But that's a great question.
This is actually a little bit--
I have an answer for you
that's a little bit distanced
from this.
But I wrote two books.
I wrote my first book
about former Yugoslavia
and the war that happened there.
And what I was struck
by in that and why
I decided to write
a book about it
was so people outside
that situation,
like people in the
US, were saying,
oh, they've been killing each
other forever because, like,
religion and stuff.
And that's actually
not true at all.
Before the 20th century, people
in that area weren't-- people
would invade it, but people in
that area weren't ever really
killing each other on any
kind of big scale or whatever.
It was more like
outsiders versus locals.
And World War I, World War
II hit there very hard,
and in the '90s had
terrible civil wars there.
But when I talked to
people and researched
it, what was actually
clear was when people
were in a really bad situation
and they were competing
for just safety, and
they were convinced
it's your family or
them, that's your choice,
then people
understandably-- this
is tragic-- but
understandably, people
chose to protect themselves.
Some people did.
Some people didn't.
But A lot of people
chose to do violence
against others, when that
seemed like the situation.
And then, for example,
when World War II
ended after massive
violence, massive--
World War II hit that area
the hardest in all of Europe.
Within a generation, one
out of three marriages
was across ethnic lines.
So given a chance
to get past it,
given a chance to actually
live a decent life
and not have to take
stuff out on each other,
people generally are pretty
anxious to get that chance.
So I have this weird
idea that [INAUDIBLE]
that is different from how
we think about this a lot
of the time, that
actually people
can change really fast if the
situation changes really fast.
And I think what we're seeing
in this country right now
is that a lot of
the people who were
doing these kind of policies
and feeling this kind of way,
they think they're in a
corner, maybe in a way
that they're not.
And I think as soon as people
get that their interests aren't
opposed--
yeah, as soon as people don't
see their interest as opposed,
but they see that there's a
system kind of outside of them,
if they see the
set up and they see
that they have a
reason to get along,
that situation can
change really fast.
War apartheid South Africa,
it seemed it would never end.
It would never end.
And then there was this
really amazing movement.
People rose up.
And it took some
decades, but really you
saw it happen on the
surface really quickly.
And suddenly you have a
century of apartheid overturned
in a totally different system.
And then that ended up
having problems, too.
But this thing that
seems timeless,
seemed like it was
just how people were,
like went away like that.
So I think it can change--
the good news is I
think it can change
for the better really fast.
The bad news is I
think it can change
for the worst really fast also.
And I think this last
year, a lot of this
has been a little bit winded
by how fast a lot of things
changed for the worst,
that we didn't see coming.
So I think people are--
the reason we've survived and
adapted and evolved for as long
as we have is because
we can change.
We're really good at
doing stuff in a new way.
That can be used for
better or for worse.
I had a question about
freedom of speech.
You've talked a lot about
what isn't freedom of speech.
But what do you think really
constitutes freedom of speech,
and why they wrote it
into the constitution.
What do you think
their intentions
were when they were writing
the constitution about it?
This has never actually
happened in my life,
but I always imagine if I"m
having a fight with somebody
and they're like, well, you have
to give me freedom of speech,
I would be like,
I'm not Congress.
Because freedom of speech
says Congress will not
pass a law that abridges.
And if I'm telling
somebody, shut up,
like we don't want to hear
that here, I'm not Congress.
I can say that.
That's fine.
Arguably, if I'm a teacher
at the moment or something,
it's a little confusing.
But I would never.
But anyway, so I think
what I'm saying here
is clearly when
they made that law,
they were talking about
the whole Bill of Rights.
And the whole idea
of this sort of
liberal 18th-century
bourgeoisie system of government
was coming out of monarchy.
They were like, we
don't want a system
where you have some dude
that just says what happens.
We want something that
respects individual rights.
And you have legal recourse.
You have a system set up to
make sure that that happens.
The world was a really
different place back then.
And we found that a lot of those
limitations weren't adequate.
But it's a nice idea.
And I think the reason I
posted this is I think clearly,
the point of the Bill
of Rights and the point
of the constitutional
rights that we
do have that I think we should
fight for and hold on to, is--
does anybody know the
difference between--
has anybody heard the terms
"punching down" and "punching
up"?
I love these.
They're, again, when I hear
a lot of this conversation,
I come back and I think,
are you punching up or down?
Punching down is
when there's somebody
who's weaker than you, who
has less power, who you can--
it's like being a bully.
It's somebody that you can
get away with picking on.
That's punching down.
It's like making fun of somebody
who has less power than you.
It's a cheap shot, you know?
So I think basically given
the centuries of inequality
in this country, all
the people that we're
talking about here,
Richard Spencer and Milo,
they're all punching down.
They're bullies is basically
what they are, right?
And they're supporting a
systemic bullying system
called racism that's
dispossessed people
of their lives and their wealth.
The difference
between that and this,
which is a famous image from
Black Lives Matter, is clearly,
this woman, she's very
powerful in a sense,
but in another sense,
she's punching up.
She's not bullying the police.
That doesn't make sense
because they have--
they're like storm troopers
and star wars, right?
They have all this special
gear and everything,
and they have the
law behind them.
They have a lot of history.
They have all sorts of power,
and she's not having it.
She's like, no, I'm going
to stay on the street.
I don't even care what
you think about the issue.
I'm going to stay right here.
So that's punching up because,
at least structurally,
they have so much more
power than she does,
and so she's fighting
against where the power is.
And I think that's what the Bill
of Rights was meant for, right?
It was passed-- they're
thinking about kings.
They're not thinking
about small-time bullies
on each other, whatever.
They're thinking
about limitation
on the powers of government.
So, you know, do I think that--
I'm obviously critical
of how freedom of speech
is being used in this.
Do I think that people who have
terrible racist things to say
should we shut down by police?
I don't know.
I guess not.
I wish police would stop
shutting people down
who had good stuff
to say, like this.
So I think the thing is,
like, essentially it's
meant to protect people
from punching up.
Essentially the Bill of Rights,
including the First Amendment,
is meant to put a check
on the government.
But we're seeing those things
twisted to a very, very
different meaning.
And we're seeing them applied
to sort of punching down.
So how should we use the
term "freedom of speech"
if it's not being used equally?
That's a great question.
I don't know if
I have an answer.
I just point out that it's
not being used equally.
So if somebody is like, well,
why don't I have a freedom
of-- and I'm like, well, because
a lot of other people don't.
So if you're serious
about it, why don't you
let those people talk?
You know?
I think it's just pointing
out that it doesn't mean
what people pretend it does.
Sometimes I think-- so I
teach rhetoric classes here.
And I wrote my last
book about nonviolence.
And I didn't even say
anything about what I think
of non-violence as an idea.
I just point out how
people use the word.
So I think maybe
it's similar here.
I think it's good for us to
point out how people are using
the word "freedom of speech."
And then if you can get
them to acknowledge that,
then you can acknowledge
the problems.
Then maybe you can
start a conversation
what should it mean.
But if these people--
no, I don't think it makes sense
as a reason to [INAUDIBLE]..
What I'm saying is if
these people are like,
you can't shut me
down, you have to let
me talk because of freedom
of speech, I'm like,
no, I don't, because that's
not the standard that's
being applied to other people
who deserve it way more.
A couple questions.
Earlier you were talking
about University of Washington
allowing, I believe it was
Milo, and the city's response
with resources.
Is there an insinuation that
they're allowing more right
behavior than left?
Absolutely.
I think the evidence
is on the table.
If they're going to have
a police force for Milo,
why wouldn't they have it
for Yamahtta Keeanga Taylor?
And also why would
they have one for Milo?
So yeah, absolutely.
And I think there's different
ways to talk about this stuff.
If you want really my take
on why that's happening,
I think it's that
Robert Mercer lawsuit.
And I think that the
chancellor early on who's like,
"given the legal environment
in this country right now,
we have to respect Richard
Spencer's freedom of speech,"
I think what he's
saying is, given
that we're terrified
of a lawsuit
by this billionaire who's
looking to sue us for this.
And for better or
for worse, I don't
think that there's any
billionaire-like people who
are going to sue on behalf
of George [INAUDIBLE]
or Yamahtta Keeanga
Taylor or Steven Salaita.
So yeah, I think it's
absolutely consistent.
The real reason I think is--
just to break it
down for you guys
and not leave it a mystery--
I really think the reason--
and I kind of hear
this from people
who are in some of
those meetings--
is the lawsuit that's pending.
And Robert Mercer's
pretty openly--
he's pretty open in the
press that he's been--
he's concerned about-- I
have a quote here actually.
He's concerned about the
limitations of freedom
of speech of
conservative students,
and he's active on
campuses to enforce that.
Something like that.
So yeah, I think they
basically are saying
that that's what's going on.
And I think it's on us--
it's one of these things I don't
think these administrators can
just go ahead and switch things
when they're going to get sued.
They have to have a
movement behind them
that gives them that power.
And that's us.
So I think it's because people
don't know what to do around
these words "freedom of
speech," and there's not, like,
so many people mobilizing that
they can get away with it.
And then administrators are
sort of like, I don't-- like,
you're going to put
me in this position?
So yeah, I think it's
on us to make sure
that our institutions
reflect those values,
and not just look up to people
who it's just their job.
We have to create an environment
where people recognize
that these people
aren't exercising
their free speech there.
I guess like the last
part of the question
would be, when I
think of Seattle,
University of Washington,
very liberal city,
very liberal college,
are we that far behind
that even they are
allowing Milo to speak?
Yeah.
I'm asking if that-- are we
that far behind if even Seattle?
So this is tricky
because this is deep.
The Pacific Northwest
is a strange region.
And it's got a really extreme--
you know they talked about
the Wobblies, that labour group
that was doing free speech
rights?
There were some of the most
prominent murders of Wobbly
leaders were in
Centralia and in Everett.
Both high-profile
stories at the time.
And the clan has been very
active in the Northwest.
Oregon had it in the law books
until something like 2002
that no black folks
should live there.
So it's a weird place
because I think--
I don't know, for various
reasons grunge and Microsoft
or whatever, Starbucks.
So if you drink coffee
you have to be-- we
have this liberal self image.
We vote for gay marriage
and pot and whatever, right?
So there's ways that that's
true, and there's ways,
especially around race,
that is really not true.
Numbers show that King County,
if you measure in a certain way
by wealth and race
within zip codes--
so you have to measure
it that certain way--
King County is the most
economically-segregated county
in the country.
So it depends.
The attitudes are-- you
don't hear people talk here
necessarily in the same way
as Alabama or something.
But where the money is
at, and where it goes,
South King County has a higher
murder rate than Haiti does.
There's some serious,
serious inequality here.
And we have yet
to deal with that.
And I think there's
a weird thing--
I'm going to get a bit personal
around this shooting at Milo.
That was my friend who was shot.
I mean, he lived,
but he got injured.
Trying to have
conversations about this,
I think sometimes that
liberal self-image really
gets in the way.
So one thing I saw
when I was trying
to talk to folks in
the city or whatever
about the thing that
happened at that event,
at the Milo protest, and
my friend getting shot,
people would kind of be like,
oh, no, that wouldn't happen,
that wouldn't happen here.
And I'm like, no, I was there.
I was right there when
this guy shot shot.
And you can read it
in the newspaper.
It happened.
And people would be like, oh,
no, no, it wouldn't happen here
because we're a liberal city.
So sometimes-- even I'll
tell you there was a--
anyway, yeah, I'll
just say that.
The sort of "it would
never happen here"
when it's actually happening
right in front of you
is this problem that we
have because of that image.
And I think the Northwest
is a little more
confusing than a lot of parts of
the country because it's got--
it's very liberal
in certain ways,
and I think it's also
never dealt with race.
It's worse about race than a lot
of parts of the country, too.
So it's hard.
So I want to would of what the
question that the gentlemen
over there asked.
I feel like when
we think about race
in the context of
American history,
it came from Bourgeoisie people
and people of higher power.
And as you can see, there's a
lot of force put behind racism
and teaching these
certain kind of rhetoric.
But when we look at trying
to alleviate the problems,
no one talks about it.
So do you think there
should be laws implemented
by the government to
enforce teaching tolerance
and diversity in schools,
like elementaries, to try
to alleviate the problem?
Because we talk about the
issues, but a lot of people
are miseducated about
race and what's actually
going on in America.
A lot of the students don't
know what's actually happening.
And I feel like
there's not enough--
the government is not taking
enough responsibility,
since a lot of the
problems they've
created, to try to alleviate the
problems, maybe with education,
With any other ways and means
of trying to fix the issue?
Really powerfully put.
I mean, I got mixed
feelings about that.
I think sometimes that programs
like that can be great.
I think it's really
great the programs
we have like that here, for
example, can be really helpful.
But across the
board, before I would
advocate that as
a major thing, I
would like to see
the government--
I mean, the government--
I don't like to
say the government.
It's like saying the
media or society.
It has so many different
parts and contradictions.
But we have a lot
of laws on books
and a lot of things
that are done legally
that are still really actively
promoting structural racism.
So I'd like to see those
things change first
before we focus on education--
I mean, on government-wide
showing people
about diversity or whatever.
In educational
institutions, that's
what we're here for, right?
So yes, here, absolutely.
But do I think that's
the main solution?
We've seen with
Black Lives Matter
that there's things
immediately where
accountability,
unaccountability,
and the structure of a lot
of officials, the fact that
in the United States
if an officer commits,
even is found
guilty of committing
an unforgivable infraction
or murder of somebody
where there was no excuse
or something, by law,
they don't get in trouble.
It's the department
that pays a fine.
That's a structural problem
in every police department.
That's also individual
officers' fault.
That's the way the
laws are set up
and the structure and the
police unions and everything.
There's this whole
thing that's set up.
And I think changing that.
Like Black Lives Matter is
really raising awareness
about changing things
like that would maybe
start having a real impact.
So education is important.
We're in an educational
institution.
I'm a professor here.
It's really important.
But that's not the only part.
I think we need to change the
parts that are actively still
racist in promoting inequality.
I don't remember if
I can find the book--
you know, I can look
for it afterwards.
There's a book
that just came out
about government housing
policies in the United States
since World War II.
And it's not a coincidence that
all the black folks were living
in the [? city, ?] and
that everybody is now--
gets pushed south.
That's policy.
And banks that would loan
money to certain neighborhoods
to start businesses or fix up
houses, and redline and not
loan money to other
neighborhoods, that's policy.
That's law.
And that's still going on
even long after Jim Crow.
So I'd like to see
those things change.
And if you change the
material situation,
then that's going to change
the social racism that
happens because of it.
So I think yeah, I mean,
education is great,
but there's lot of other
levels we need to look at too.
Relating to the laws
and stuff, if we
want to look up and
research, where would we go?
How would we find out
which laws are racist
or have racist
tendencies to them?
Where do we go?
So what I usually write
about is social movements.
Here, I'll show you my
favorite book on this stuff.
Usually this is
what we talk about.
There's a book that's like
my bible called Poor People's
Movements: How They
Succeed, Why They Fail,
by Francis Fox Piven.
Probably have it in
the bookstore here.
And according to them,
the way this stuff works
is that if you
have a cousin who's
got a billion dollars,
if you'd like--
you're friends with Robert
Mercer and you can call him up,
then you have access
to power, right?
If you have somebody that's
a legislature, somebody
you went to school some and
you go out to drinks with them,
you have access to power.
Most of us don't, right?
And if you don't have access
to that kind of power,
if your only power is
like a vote every four
years or whatever,
then historically
the way that people, poor
people, marginalized people,
have power is by disruption.
It's by getting in
the way of stuff,
getting in the way of stuff
that makes everyday life happen.
And making an issue our of it.
So what did we see with
Black Lives Matter?
Highway shutdowns.
People were like, if
you keep shooting us,
we're not going to let
you drive to work, OK?
What did we see with the
first week of the refugee ban?
People are like, if you're not
going to let refugees get off
the plane and come
home to their families,
and you're going to try to send
them back to a country where
they'll get killed,
we're not going
to let you fly your planes, OK?
And Occupy was like,
if you're going
to foreclose on
our houses, we're
going to not let you
have your bus stop
in the middle of the city.
We're going to turn
it into our new home.
So that's the trick.
And I think social movements,
when that's happening,
that's like ears to the ground.
And they come out
with ideas, and they
tell you whats up, faster
than any professor would.
What have we been hearing from
social movements recently?
So the immigration ban.
We said Black Lives
Matter was still going on.
So that's one place.
People involved with those
movements, people writing
from them, people like
Yamahtta Keeanga Taylor
that I mentioned,
Ta-Nehisi Coates,
people involved with
these movements who
seem to know what
they're talking about,
they will point the way.
And there's so many
people who are like, aw.
This law or that l So that's
where I recommend starting.
Beyond that, like
specifically that book--
I can see the cover.
I can't remember.
It's called The Color--
oh, you remember.
It's called The Color of Law.
It's called the Color of Law.
Thank you.
We have librarians in the room.
[INAUDIBLE]
You have librarians
in the room, Shon.
Yes, sorry, I forget.
If we don't have any of his
books in the library right now,
we will have them soon.
So they'll go back
there and order them.
So the answer to your
question is go to the library
and ask a librarian because
they know all these things.
This is a particular
book that I heard
is really excellent
that just came out.
And Amazon just crashed.
So we'll see [INAUDIBLE].
You see the little X down
in the right-hand corner?
Oh, yeah, open the--
there we go, there's the book.
Thank you.
Librarians are magic.
There we go.
So that's a book specifically
that just came out about this.
The New Jim Crow
is a classic book
about how this stuff worked
around mass incarceration
and the world of drugs,
by Michelle Alexander.
That's extremely important book.
So I think those two would
be really good to start.
And then like I teach
like my research classes,
you can look at the
bibliography in this one
and see what they're reading
and read those books.
So everything you have talked
about today is very important.
But what is one takeaway
from this presentation today?
No, it's good.
Last year at this time
was extremely scary.
Thinking of that protest,
my friend who got shot,
that was a really scary moment.
And now looking
back after a year,
I'm not sure if things are
quite as scary as they looked.
I think there's
things that are--
I just read that-- there's
another book, good book that
just came out called Fire
and Fury by this guy who's,
like, lived in the White
House this whole year.
And everybody-- I got to
tell you about this book.
Yay books!
Everybody in the White
House hates each other
so much that they would just
run to this guy and be like,
you wouldn't believe what
this idiot said today!
They just all talk
trash on each other.
And then he wrote it all
down and it's a book.
And it's really
enjoyable to read.
And it also means
that last year it
seemed like there was
this master plan in place.
It was really scary,
and it was kind of true.
And that's kind
of falling apart.
So now I think we're kind of in
this, like, "what now?" moment.
What now?
I have no idea.
But the same stuff that's worked
in the past, finding each other
and thinking about where
your accordions are at,
you can never go
wrong with that.
I do think we need to
take really seriously
how scary stuff is.
We're not making this up.
I'll say, like, I've been
involved with protests
and stuff like 30 years,
and there was so long where
I'm like, oh, this
is a good issue,
OK, I'll go to that march,
I'll go to that meeting,
I'll talk to this person.
But it's not like the
real issue or whatever.
It's like this
thing is important
but it's not the
heart of the matter.
Suddenly, the last couple
years, Occupy, Black
Lives Matter, the
stuff that's coming up,
that's the core of our problems.
It's on the table.
It's never been on the
table like it is right now.
And then you have a reaction
to that where people are like,
I don't want that on the table.
Take that off the table.
So the one takeaway point,
maybe it's like, how about let's
keep it on the table.
Let's keep it on the table
until we deal with it.
And sometimes that
happens pretty quick.
We could be surprised for
good, surprised for bad.
But we'll see.
One more question and
then we've got to wrap up.
Are there any?
I mean, anything is great but--
All right, so I see everything
that you are discussing about.
And it seems like what
the bigger problem is
and biggest problem
is pretty much money.
That's what it boils down to.
So how do people
actually come back,
enterprises and individuals
and corporations that
fund this type of thinking?
Because somebody
mentioned about government
and talked about education
and things like that.
But that's what it is.
These lobbyists have
their hands in the pockets
of these politicians and they
buy this type of thinking.
And so at the end
of the day, it's
great to have these discussions
and things like that
but until we actually find ways
to combat these powers that
have deep, deep pockets--
as being a black man
and seeing [INAUDIBLE],,
it's kind of like
it's overwhelming.
And I just want to
find ways to actually
just have these
types of discussions
but also try to find
ways to actually divert
the money into people that
actually will make changes
and actually will stand up
against these corporations
and these powers that be.
Absolutely.
That's a really great
point to end on.
I think there's two
directions to that one.
One is that we think--
yeah, the money behind this all.
We forget about that.
So for example, we talk
about racism, right?
We forget that the
reason racism got
invented is to legitimize people
getting enslaved and people
getting robbed of their land.
Those are the two founding acts
of this country in some way.
And racism was made to
say that's OK, right?
So that's a money essentially
underneath it all.
Slavery and colonialism
were these things
that happened for money.
And then afterwards you
have racism to be like, no,
but it's OK though
because they're
not really human, right?
So in a way, we
always kind of lose
that tie between the money
that is motivating stuff
and then the social
phenomena that we see.
And so we want to go back
and remember that that's
behind it, like you're saying.
So that's a really good point.
The other direction
of that though--
this is kind of some Marxist
metaphysics weirdness--
is like, what's money except
a very powerful symbol
of social power?
Money is just a way of
showing social power.
So things that we value as a
society get a lot of money,
because that's what money means.
So things that we decide as
a society we don't value,
we can start taking
their money away.
And I think one way--
I told you I write
about protests.
One way that happens
is when, like I said,
or like that book says, poor
people, marginalized people,
start interfering with
that reproduction cycle.
That hits the
money pretty quick.
This is MLK week
and we'll end it
with tying back to
what did MLK do.
MKL talked about having a dream.
MLK talked about reconciliation
and talked a lot about love.
He also talked a
lot about power.
And he also stopped the money.
He got in the way and cost
certain people a lot of money
with boycotts,
especially with boycotts,
with all sorts of
blockades and stoppages.
He embarrassed the business
class of these cities
until they were like, OK, we
can't afford apartheid anymore.
How about we ask
this guy to a meeting
and see what we can do
next so we can start
making our money again, right?
That was a big part
of what he did.
And you read his
stuff, he says this.
He's like, this is
part of his process
was economic direct action.
So one side of it is to see
the money behind society.
The other side of it is to
see society behind money.
And then when we
decide our values
and we stand up for
them, then ultimately
then money just follows
where that goes.
It can take a lot of work
or it can take bloodshed.
And It's a struggle,
but that's ultimately
the money goes along with what
we believe and stand up for.
Everyone please give
it up for [INAUDIBLE]..
