Of course, people have free speech up to a point of course. Even free speech has some limits as the Supreme Court has said. I am not advocating that we ban all humor or all satire shows because it might offend one person. That's absurd. Yes, we should allow satire and political humor and even shock humor. Sure.
But that is totally different from what Sawyer did. He did not make those comments as part of a SNL skit or satire show. He tweeted them.
I'm sorry, but saying a TV show is allowed to do it, but an individual is not, that's a very weird position to take.
Especially with Twitter. TV and Twitter are both media, it's an individual and/or a group using a medium to transmit an idea (in this case a joke) out into the ether, where they have no control over who receives it or not, or how they would interpret it. It really is the same thing.
Well, yeah, obviously. People can only react after the fact. That's why Roseanne got in trouble after she made her comments, not before. And Hartley Sawyer got fired after the tweets happened, not before.
Now, as a disclaimer, I haven't actually read any of the tweets in question. But, using your scenario, how would he have been able to tell that people would find it offensive enough to get him fired eight years later?
In many cases, it is done on a individual basis. For example, if I tell a joke in the office, they don't poll all women to see if all women are offended by my joke, they just ask the female co-workers who heard the joke or complained to HR about it. And no, they don't have to be a monolithic group. They don't all have to agree. But generally, we can reach a general consensus. Just like with the current protests. I am sure not everybody agrees. But the protests are big enough and loud enough that, society has rightly taken notice of a serious problem that needs to be fixed.
Okay, but doesn't society need to have a discussion before coming to consensus? Talking about this case, I didn't hear about these tweets until the news that Sawyer was fired for them, and I still haven't read them. Now, amittedly, I'm a white male in Germany, I probably was not the butt of any of those jokes, but the fact that I hadn't even heard about this going on until a decision was made is deeply troubling.
I was just trying to be consistent in my position. It would not be right for me to say that you can't make fun of women or minorities but it's ok to make fun of rednecks and Trump voters.
And I am fine with political satire. But again, we are getting off topic. There is a big difference between someone tweeting things that are racist or homophobic and a TV show that is designed to provide satire and humorous commentary. Plus, people have the freedom to change the channel if a TV show offends them.
Well, first off, the idea that all "rednecks" are conservatives is in itself a stereotype which I imagine some people in rural areas find offensive. Second, that doesn't change the fact that people with political ideologies shouldn't get to decide whether it's okay to make jokes about said political ideologies, and that goes for any political ideology. Like, I'm a German democratic socialist, and if you made jokes about Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, I should not hold back just because you might hurt my feelings.
And all political jokes are satire, not just those on TV.
Sure. That's why it is a good idea to think before speaking. Because not everything we think, is worth saying out loud.
Yeah, but we still say stuff without thinking. We may try our best not to do it, but on occasion, we still will. Not to mention that we may not always recognize how something might be offensive until we learn better.
I am against a minority censoring any little thing they don't like. But I am also against people being allowed to be racist, misogynist, antisemitic or homophobic just because they think its funny and they think the other side is being too "politically correct".
How we draw the line might be difficult sometimes but I think we need to try to find that line that respects everybody because racism, misogyny, antisemitism, homophobia etc are wrong and should not be tolerated. It's not as simple as just saying people need to "lighten up" or "It was just a joke". Some things can be genuinely hurtful to people.
Sure, some things can be genuinely hurtful to people. But also, some people are genuinely hurt for silly reasons. For example, there are white people out there who hear "Black Lives Matter" and genuinely think that that means that the lives of any other ethnicity don't matter. There are white people in the Southern states who are genuinely hurt when they hear about their ancestors fighting for the right to own slaves. There were people who were genuinely offended by Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the National Anthem. And there were billionaires on TV just a few months ago actually crying because Bernie Sanders said such mean things about them. Do we take their feelings into consideration when we comment or (God forbid) joke about these matters? Hell no, and for good reasons.
There might be a line, but finding it very hard indeed. And if you advocate for a case-by-case consensus decision, be prepared to not always agree with all decisions.
What a bizarre question. That's like saying "How do I know whether the accused witch will really drown unless I try to drown her first?" That's getting the burden of proof completely the wrong way around. You should err on the side of not taking the risk, if there's any question at all.
And why the hell would you want to tell a racist or sexist joke to a member of the group it demeans? If you even want to do that in the first place, that is the problem. Unless they tell you such a joke, unless they take the initiative in letting you know it's okay, it should be off the goddamn table. It's not your decision to make, it's theirs.
But there are jokes you don't even realize are racist, or sexist. With some jokes, it's not that obvious. And with some, you don't know whether you cross a line or not.
Here's a joke:
Man asked God: "Oh Lord, why did you make Woman so beautiful?"
And God answered: "So that you would love her."
But Man asked further of God: "Lord, why did you make Woman so dumb?"
And God answered: "So that she would love you."
Now, is that joke offensive? It's certainly sexist. But it's both calling women dumb, and saying men can only be loved by somebody stupid. So, should I not tell this joke to a woman, on the chance that she might be offended? And if she were offended, would that make her right?
Again, you err on the side of consideration. It's like the difference between taking off your clothes in private with a consenting partner and taking off your clothes in a public park with kids present. Broadcasting something to a group doesn't give them the option to grant or withhold consent, so something that would be harmless with consenting, accepting parties becomes an assault when forced on people without their permission. This should not be difficult to understand. It's basic, everyday consideration for others.
People have the right not to hear something? And it weighs heavier than the right to say something?
It's misusing the concept of freedom of speech to apply it to something like this. The First Amendment forbids the government from restricting free expression. But private entities have every right to decide what content they choose to publish or broadcast, or what people they wish to employ. Hartley Sawyer did not have an inalienable right to be employed by Warner Bros. as a cast member of The Flash. He had a contract that it was in their power to terminate if they found the cause warranted.
Also, free speech is not a license to avoid consequences for the things you say. You have the freedom to own a car, but if you drive drunk or recklessly and hurt someone, you still have to face the consequences for the harm you did. You have the freedom to start a business, but if you commit business fraud, you still have to be held to account for that. A right is a responsibility, not an indulgence.
There is an argument to be made for modernizing the freedom of speech. It is supposed to protect those without power from those with power. But we have now learned that private entities, especially employers, do have power over us, in the form of our livelihoods. Or would you agree that a company should be able to fire an employee because they didn't like which politician I advocated for? What about a company that doesn't like their employees talking about forming a union? And in the case of Sawyer, his tweets were from the time before he was employed on The Flash.
Now, maybe what we are currently seeing with the so-called "cancel culture" is really a democratized form of censorship, a public consensus deciding what is acceptable and what is not. But I'd come back to the fact that I didn't even hear about any of this until he was already fired. And I'm online several hours each and every single day.
