Excellent point, and the honest Leninist answer is that there is no 'guarantee'. I am a big fan of Messrs Pryor and Bruce, and of hip hop. You just have to judge the situation for yourself and authorise yourself to make the correct intervention where necessary. I am not advocating state repression as a general means of dealing with this. However, if the state decides to bring in laws outlawing incitement to racial hatred, I am not shy of using these. But the business about "African-American Jim" just seems rather silly to me. In the concrete situation that I work in, the real problem is that people are using talk of "Asian gangs" raping white children as an excusive to send dusky-skinned men to the casualty ward on a Saturday night. That's what I'm talking about - not silly fucking PC worries about whether this or that comedian should use this or that word.
>It's one thing for someone to simply shout or type a racist epithet, and
>even then I tend to side with the libertarians. But when the banners
>attempt to erase words from the language regardless of context or intent,
>then it's thesaurus throwin' time.
Who, what, where, when? I'm just trying to break this 'libertarian' fetish.
My basic position on this is as follows: free speech is not an absolute right, and has to be measured against other rights; political expression is not innocent - it is explicitly trying to generate further action; expression that encourages action likely to involve a Muslim shopkeeper's window being done in is entirely justifiable in my view. I have witnessed far right marches through white working class areas, and have invariably heard shortly afterwards of racist attacks on non-white locals. The statistical correlation is actually unimpeachable. Therefore, I think that anti-racist demonstrations and resistance - which is quite authoritarian - is entirely justified.
In the case of cartoons, I wouldn't demand a general state ban, but I certainly think we should support those Muslims who are now trying to organise international solidarity on their side because at 2% of the population of Denmark they aren't in a position to act on their own.
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