Asian American Ariel Encounters Prejudiced Social Media Comments — Page 2

Yes I agree. Hopefully they will attend and realise it's all ok. Let's be clear about my position though: I'm glad people had the opportunity to challenge these ideas rather than suppressing the speech and letting them go unchallenged. I just feel the tone of your post is almost disingenuously suggesting I am glad racism exists, which is not the issue here at all.

And perfectlymarvelous, I can see how witnessing those events does make it seem like there is a growing uprising that wants to repeat the holocaust. Maybe I'm misguided with the following claim but my intuition is that treating all racist events and behaviours as if they come from a place of neo-nazism and deep hatred might be an overreaction though and counter-productive. My sense is that while there might be a small fraction of politicized white supremacy - the vast majority of the kind of racism we see in our society is the more covert, sometimes unintentional kind - like a casting director not 'seeing' an Asian male in a lead role in their vision rather than necessarily thinking that Asians are subhuman and don't belong on the Broadway stage. Hopefully I am just not naïve.

Updated On: 8/14/17 at 01:56 AM

qolbinau said: "So just to clarify are we saying that someone expressing disappointment for non-white casting is 'hate speech'?



Yes!



You are white and privileged. You don't get to call what someone who is not in your position has said as 'overreaction'.

Updated On: 8/14/17 at 03:12 AM

It has PLENTY to do with your racist, because you have the

And you think people of color haven't tried any of that? Having "conversations" with their oppressors, marching, protesting, sitting, rioting, boycotting, etc.? The problem is, none of these white supremecists are willing to listen and have no intention of changing their minds.

Since we're on the subject of Great Comet, maybe if the playing field within the theatre-industry (any business where it's supposedly about "talent" and not skin color) were level in the first place, no one would have to question the replacement of a black actor in favor of a white one and maybe there wouldn't be any backlash.

Plenty of "nice" people can be racist or have racist and ignorant views, not just Hicksville, Middle America.

Someone on my newsfeed shared this:

"Dear theater friends, if you're looking over at Charlottesville and thinking "they" are white supremacists, I urge you to take a closer look at the ways you support and perpetuate their ideology and reinforce their narrative through your storytelling practices.

perfectlymarvelous and GeorgeandDot, you've both expressed something along the lines that "hate speech isn't free speech." It's hard for me to tell exactly what you mean by this. Do you think it would be fair game for the government to punish people for expressing hatred towards members of a certain group? If so, I absolutely, passionately disagree. Free speech protections are all about protecting the kind of speech that we find offensive, repugnant, and even dangerous, because these are the kinds of speech that are in jeopardy of being stifled

Updated On: 8/14/17 at 09:53 AM

Last I checked, noone is preventing any of the deplorables from making those statements on social media. Just like they can post their disappointment with the casting choice, the rest of us can judge them for making such an asinine and xenophobic criticism. See how that works! I am sorry that the actor saw those statements, it must have been so disheartening.

perfectlymarvelous said: "America is built on the concept of white people taking things that were never theirs to take from the people who were here first, and constructing their own society on the backs of people they stole from elsewhere."

America hasn't actually been "great" since the first European settlers arrived on its shores.

Nothing irks me more than having someone explain to POC how they should best address racist discourse in the United States. So many assumptions are made about what they have and haven't done on individual levels and the classic avoidance of acknowledging history and the current climate. I also notice certain people feel so confident to chime in when they want to talk about race, but then can easily peace out or go on with their lives acting like this whole thing is an intellectual exercise rather than a dominating, continued lived experience that it is for others.

I get the idea that people should say what they want and when they want because it's better to recognize the racists as they are and allow the subject to be put in the forefront. However, every time that happens, the push back to responses to the racism (the part where advocates for totally unchecked free speech says is the perfect opportunity to educate) can be vitriolic and violent. The burden is also always on the people who are victims of such speech and hate. This always creates a severely unequal dynamic, and there's a reason why people are tired. Plus, lived experience shows that there's a difference between being able to speak to someone on issues like diversity casting who is interested in having a rational, reasonable discussion and will actually listen rather than speak past the other person....even if the result is still differences of opinion and trying to have polite "educational" discussions with people who are the type to openly display their hatred and bigotry without a care of how their words affect the people they're talking about.

Many people deal with that every day and has shaped their life experiences and how they see the world, so there's a reason why they'd rather avoid it as much as possible because they know there's nothing they can really do to change those people's minds. Any type of social change that will lead people to be more accepting of different races can still happen without calls for people to openly confront OTT hate and bigotry all day everyday. Once in a while is just enough while doing things like casting more people of color in roles that aren't race-specific and having more representation even without a controversy like this one will do the trick.

Also, in the United States, First Amendment protections of free speech DOES have limitations. I won't go into it more, but it's a complicated subject with various tests created by the Court to balance free speech protection (from government intrusion) that avoids content-based censorship and protecting the public (incitement of violence; time, place, manner for obscenity; and even hate speech).

ScottyDoesn'tKnow2 said: "Nothing irks me more than having someone explain to POC how they should best address racist discourse in the United States. "

^^^^^

kdogg36 said: "ScottyDoesn'tKnow2 said: "Also, in the United States, First Amendment protections of free speech DOES have limitations. I won't go into it more, but it's a complicated subject with various tests created by the Court to balance free speech protection (from government intrusion) that avoids content-based censorship and protecting the public (incitement of violence; time, place, manner for obscenity; and even hate speech)."

These exceptions have been interpreted in a very narrow fashion by the courts in recent decades. And that's a good thing, because if the government starts punishing speech in the current political climate, I can guarantee you it's not going to be the speech you'd like them to punish.



"

Oh definitely. If it's something that is seen as "content-based" censorship, then the government has a HUGE hurdle to get over in order to prove that the law or government action serves a compelling government interest and that it is narrowly-tailored to serve that interest and isn't over inclusive to needlessly censor or even chill speech that doesn't serve that interest. It is narrowly-fashioned. My point is just that there are times in which courts recognized the constitutionality of limitations on speech and that it's complicated. I remember taking a First Amendment class in law school and our professor said in our opening lecture that if the First Amendment was simple, there would be no need for this class and the incredible case law behind the First Amendment. Of course, there's more to the First Amendment than the freedom speech clause, but that was a major part.



qolbinau said: "I really like your post ScottyDoesn'tKnow2 but I still don't quite get the idea that you have to belong to a certain group to discuss issues they face. The Great Comet incident alone shows us that people are fallible and can make mistakes on this very issue regardless of whether they are a POC or not.



"

Thank you for your post. Sorry if I came off like a jerk. I agree with you that we all can do better when we discuss this issue and there are a lot of things we need to navigate and figure out when moving forward.

Updated On: 8/16/17 at 08:06 PM