The one problem is that the owner is a big ugly trolley. He says on his news appearance that the reason he did this is to “start dialogue”, (aka, make people mad and yell at him a lot), and “he succeeded”, he gloats.
Freedom of Speech does not mean Freedom from Consequences of Speech. He can be as racist as he wants to at his business, his house, his t-shirt, or the bumper of his car, but that certainly doesn’t absolve him from being punched, rear-ended, or his property destroyed. At some point, productive dialogue does not cut it.
In this particular case–and as much as it pains me to say it–it’s not really on Trump. I grew up in western PA. When I came home from college during one of my breaks freshman year, I was greeted by the news that an interracial couple had moved in one town over, and one of their neighbors greeted them by burning a cross in their front yard. This was in 1995/1996. The place has always been a racist shithole. Has Trump made it worse? Maybe a little. Significantly worse? Doubtful. Once you leave Pittsburgh, you might as well be in 1950s Mississippi in terms of racism.
I’m from Pittsburgh, but also lived in Oklahoma for a couple years.
While I started with a degree, I went into blue collar work about 10 years ago and I have worked with people you described over that time. I remember the incident in Greensburg with the torture- I lived there too. Its actually a cool town, becoming super trumpian lately, much like my hometown, greatly to my dismay. Trucknut flagwavers everywhere
The funny thing is Tarentum is exactly as you described as is much of rural PA outside of the city, but even Tarentum has a private Japanese garden…
There are sane people among the idiots everywhere. The problem is there are simply too many loud idiots and we aren’t allowed to forcefully remove them. If stupid and malice had gravity, most of PA would be a black hole.
It could always be worse- you could have had a large LED billboard broadcasting Trumps smug face and quotes literally over your grandparents graves- like happened to me. PA- where classless assholes have no dignity or tact
Incorrect, the US doesn’t have any hate speech exceptions. See Brandenberg v Ohio. The First Amendment is very clear: “Congress Shall Make No Law Abridging Free Speech and Assembly.”
It is very easy to superficially frame a story as in opposition to an idea while in fact constructing it in a manner that supports the idea.
As has been mentioned elsewhere in the thread: it would have been better if they had honestly presented the worst of the billboard content (partially censored as appropriate), rather than misleadingly presenting a sanitised subsample.
There was also no need to give the racist douchebag any personal speaking time at all.
I don’t think it’s worse, per se. I just think that Trump’s emboldened the racist shitbags to be more public about it.
I mean, when I invited some friends home from college over Thanksgiving weekend, I was told specifically not to invite my black friend from Baltimore because “they have a different smell to them” and “it would upset the dog.”
The dog in question was a Cocker Spaniel. This was in 1997.
Later on, when eating with my parents at India Garden in Oakland, I was shushed loudly for casually mentioning that “Squirrel Hill is a predominantly Jewish neighborhood” because they somehow considered the word “Jew” a pejorative statement.
This was coming from parents who were, at the best of times during their childhood, were poorer than the respective Blacks in their neighborhoods, and who most definitely had actual Black friends growing up.
I grew up in Pennsylvania. It has always consisted of 3 distinct cultural homes: Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west, and Mississippi in between.
Yes, it’s a hurtful thing, but it’s not just about that… it’s about the reality of violence used to reinforce a white supremacist society and the relationship that has to speech. Yes, there is a historical connection to that, where speech has very much been used to create violence against minority communities (and women and LBGQT people of all races). Speech is never consequence free, and I think it does us well to think about that more critically.
As usual @Melz2 has some good sources, so check them out.
I would say it’s a vocal minority of loudmouths who talk big, but are nothing more than a bunch of insecure chumps using pickup trucks as a stand in for their threatened manhood. Too stupid to know how the world actually works, and too soaked in a mixture of pride, insecurity and laziness to ever admit they don’t know everything, they run their mouths about a variety of “common sense” and “gettin’ back too’s” that make sense to nobody, including the imbeciles around them that nod their heads.
The local talk radio stations don’t even bother catering to them exclusively anymore. Seriously. They are on the way out in many respects. But again, like every other stupid cause out there from anti-vac to flat earth, they suck up a good bit of attention by being vocal and obnoxious.
We’ve been waiting for the racist generation to “die out” for a long time now… thing is, they keep indoctrinating their children, some who carry on their ideology. Racism isn’t the domain of old people watching fox or ignorant rednecks in the south. It’s a key ideology of America. It won’t change until white people are willing to do the hard work of dismantling it.
Brandenberg is still cited in free speech cases to this day; our courts certainly find it still relevant. They unlike you understand the value of unintended consequences, slippery slopes, and the long arc of Justice, and being a nation of laws and not men.
Anyway the good news is it doesn’t matter what you or I think, as there are way smarter people than both of us looking at the issue through the lens of a document written 220 years ago based on principles established centuries before that.
