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Lynching Free Speech
Whitehead, John W.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/15/lynching-free-speech/Date Written: 2017-06-15 Publisher: Counterpunch Year Published: 2017 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX21073 In Charlottesville, as in so many parts of the country right now, the conflict is over how to reconcile the nation's checkered past, particularly as it relates to slavery, with the present need to sanitize the environment of anything -- words and images -- that might cause offense, especially if it's a Confederate flag or monument. Abstract: - Excerpt: With more than 1,000 Confederate monuments in 31 states (in public parks, courthouse squares and state capitols), not to mention Confederate battle flags on display in military cemeteries, and countless more buildings and parks named after historic figures who were slaveholders, this isn't an issue that is going away anytime soon, no matter how much we ignore it, shout over it, criminalize it, legislate it, adjudicate or police it. The temperature is rising all across the nation, and not just over this Confederate issue. The "winter of our discontent" has given way to an overheated, sweltering summer in which shouting matches are skating dangerously close to becoming physical altercations. Subject Headings |