Back in October 2015, a video of a 36-year old woman in London verbally abusing a pregnant Muslim woman on a bus went viral. Needless to say, it was disturbing the see such hatred and foul language being directed towards someone who had done nothing to offend her other than being Muslim. The silver lining of this story, however, was that soon after this video was taken this woman was arrested for an “alleged racially aggravated public order offence.” Of course, many people on and off social media defended her for having the right to express her opinion while others berated her for her blatant display of hatred and racism.
Hearing about this woman’s arrest got me thinking about one of the most notorious liberties that America allows its citizens: Freedom of speech. Of course, America isn’t alone there; countless nations such as Canada, the UK, Australia, and many others offer that same right. And let’s be honest, freedom of speech is a great privilege to have. Heck, it’s why I am able to write this article! Freedom of speech does have its limits in America, of course. It doesn’t apply when you threaten to incite violence or harm to someone. But unfortunately, everything else is fair game. One could argue that if that had happened here in America, the racist woman would still have gotten into legal trouble because she threatened the Muslim woman with bodily harm, but the racial abuse on its own would have been protected under freedom of speech.
Free speech is a double edged sword because along with free speech comes hate speech, two concepts that can often be difficult to distinguish from one another. Freedom of speech allows us to express our opinions, no matter how controversial they might be, which many argue is one of the fundamental necessities in a democracy. But while the citizens and legislators of America boast about their citizens’ right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression, they fail to acknowledge their lack of provisions regarding hate speech. The citizens of America need to realize that having the legal right to do or say something does not mean that it is the right thing to do. Freedom of speech does not mean that it is morally right to dehumanize, harass, or abuse someone, no matter who they are. In America people are often afraid to call racism and prejudicial hate speech, instead referring to it as a different opinion or freedom of expression. Believe me, I understand how possessive and territorial Americans get when it comes to their right to freedom of expression, but we have take a step back and look at this from a critical standpoint and think about how detrimental hate speech is to society as a whole.
One of the stark contrasts between the right to freedom of expression in America versus other nations such as Canada, the UK, Australia, along with other nations is that they have laws against hate speech. None of them are necessarily fool-proof but at least they have some type of legislature against it. I understand that the controversy surrounding this is that in order for America to criminalize hate speech, it would have to legally classify and define what hate speech is, something that can be arguably difficult. But if other nations have been able to do it, why can’t America? And let’s think about it: if we had had laws against hate speech, groups like the Ku Klux Klan might never have reached its momentum, people like Donald Trump would never have made it within a hundred miles of politics, Fox News would most likely have so many cases against it that it would have to shut down. I applaud America for guaranteeing its citizens the right to freedom of expression but there need to be limitations. Otherwise, the people of America as a society risk regressing back to the days where blatant racism and discrimination was applauded and expected. If America wants to prove how progressive and open it is, the legislation needs to be amended to criminalize hate speech. Of course, we are a long way away from even classifying what hate speech is in the legal context, let alone making sanctions against it, but we have to start somewhere, right?
