Brown students trash Horowitz

Kelley Walker kelley at interpactinc.com
Tue Mar 20 08:17:20 PST 2001



>I tell you, I've seen more moronic
>>political acts performed by Ivy Leaguers than by any other crop of
>>students and grads. Doug excepted, of course.
>>
>>DP

i guess i count calling Horowitz's idiocies hate speech a moronic approach. perhaps someone can explain to me how on earth it could be called hate speech! i don't keep up with such debates anymore, but i think it's a stretch to call the ad hate speech.

<forwarded> Here is a letter that Lewis Gordon wrote to the Executive Administrators at Brown University regarding the recent events precipitated by the hate-speech ad in The Brown Daily Herald (The BDH). Lewis Gordon <lewis_gordon at brown..edu> Joe Feagin has argued in his co-authored book, The Agony of Education, that racism also infects the public sphere by creating a racist sphere. For many black students and white and other students of color who are in solidarity with them, the public sphere of Brown has become a minefield of racist assaults. What bothers me is how the decision to print what was clearly hate speech is treated by so many critics of the multiracial community of protesting students as "reasonable," while the students are being treated as "irrational thugs." How reasonable is a decision that precludes any justification for rejecting hate literature from the Neo-Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan? Should ads against Jewish reparations for the Holocaust now be a regular $750 addition to the BDH and the Brown name? What is more, although the protesting students are a multiracial group, only the black ones are singled out by the critics of their action. Isn't this part of the continued racist activity of presuming the illegitimacy of colored reasonability?

Here is a reality check. Afro-American Studies has been receiving hate phone calls. One had a chant, "Give me an 'N,' give me an 'i,' give me an 'g,' give me a 'g,' give me an 'e,' and an 'r.' What does that spell? Well, you people can't spell six letter words any how!"

Contrast this with what the Dean of the College received an anonymous call of support against those "rowdy students" at Brown.

An ad is different from an op ed. The ad contained statements such as a demand for African Americans to pay the U.S. for having civilized us, and there is much more. The ad also solicits "donations" of up to $1000 to support its distribution of hate. In short, it was a rallying cry of hatred that the BDH need not have accepted money for, and worse, it has in fact harmed black students on this campus and it has put white students who are not racist in a situation of a threatened public sphere. There are black students who have stopped eating, and what I saw on the face of some students is equivalent to what I've seen in> instances of being called "n-word." The ad wasn't speech. It was a racial assault, and we should admit this. The BDH staff knew this, and they also knew that this was being printed in a racially noxious climate given the racial situation at Brown over the past few years and in the nation generally. They knew and they still know why there are no blacks on the staff of their paper.

I just spoke with Paul Armstrong, Dean of the College, about organizing a public forum on this matter, and I hope we succeed, but I am also concerned about the insensitivity toward the protesting students. They are among the brightest students at the campus and they have been, and they continue to be champions of free speech and foes of hate. We all know that the word "fire!" is a life saver in a fire, and reckless in the proverbial crowded theater.

If a place like Brown cannot come out strongly against hate speech, then the message is clear: There is no where for black students in the U.S. beyond, perhaps, separate institutions of higher learning. Is this a similar message to convey to black professors who have been so loyal to the institution?

Sincerely and deeply disappointed, Lewis Gordon Director of Afro-American Studies and Professor of Afro-American Studies, Contemporary Religious Thought,and Modern Culture and Media at Brown University

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

</backwarded>



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