Introduction
Racist speech is an oral expression of thoughts and emotions of hatred of another race based on the feelings of superiority of the speaker’s race to the other that depicts authoritativeness, discrimination and intolerance to the given people. Racist speech is often aggressive and harmful in that it creates a feeling of present danger and imminent lawless action. Is often highly offensive and amounts to the violation of human rights. It may also mean behaviors, written or oral messages in a pubic setting intended to degrade the given race.
Racist speech being the offensive use of language to pass aggression, hate and feeling on not belonging in all its forms that include homophobic speech which is the yelling of racist names against people of the different speech in free speech. Misogynistic speech that’s generally expressive of the hatred of women and girls. All these forms of racist speech should not be allowed as it shows partiality in relations for example in a classroom setting. It also shows the level of injustice and unfairness within a given administrative environment and poses the feelings of danger on the person it’s being used against and may amount to violation of their rights.
Racist speech should not be used as it also attacks the self conception of an individual inflicting psychological pain depending on the speech severity and explicitness. Racist speech in institutional settings like schools causes segregation that further amounts to inequality and unfair conditions to the victim and in turn create an unfair learning environment that can result to failure. Racist speech should not be allowed as it further promotes the vice of racism that creates the feelings of inferiority in the victims resulting to low productivity and lack of motivation and initiative in the society. The sense of minority in the victims further raises the tension and social conflict within the given environment that reduces the results of cooperation in work environments or in educational institutions. This can also lead to physical confrontation like violence, public unrest, fighting or genocide by the seemingly oppressed class of people in an attempt to equal the discrimination.
Any speech should be limited to avoid violation of individual or group rights. However the restriction on speech should not extend to the level of violating the speaker’s right to freedom of speech which is a constitutional provision.
The quote that freedom should be compared to flowers
He explains that people walking along campus streets having flowers due to the loveliness and splendor they bring depict freedom. He also refers to the green of grass and the early morning dew smell as relaxing and refreshing. To others the same means allergies like sneezing, coughing and headaches. This makes the point that people everywhere should learn to tolerate others whether one is practicing their convictions or hurting them. This explains to us the ways at which the belief of racially prejudiced speech imposes harm or tends to inflame instantaneous infringe on peace. He quotes this in support of limitations on freedom of speech and the harm of racist speech.
Derek Bok argues that it is obligatory that everybody takes into account the thoughts and feelings of others and the reasons they have to do what they are doing. He gives an example of the hanging of flags by Harvard Students who felt that it meant slavery. His argument against the First Amendment protecting free speech does not necessarily imply that it’s correct, appropriate or civil.
Conclusion
The general truth is that racism is degrading, breaches personal rights and should not be allowed in its different forms. Further it needs to be controlled as it causes the feeling of danger, lawlessness and affects the daily practice of the victims for example affecting the performance of a student. However, this favorable environment where there is a balance of freedom of speech and control on racist speech is not favorable to the demands of the racists. Lastly racist speech is more harmful than imagined as it can lead to further confrontations like civil war therefore should be restrained at all cost.