"Fuck You Nigger." This was what I heard as I released my first air balled free throw in my now retired basketball career. I looked at the referee in which I knew he knew he had heard what was said, and he did nothing about it. Those three triggering words almost made me walk off the free throw line and fight the kid that murmured them under his breath. Luckily my coach saw the anger boiling through my body and called a time out.
Speech Theories promotes the tolerance of freedom of speech and extremest speech. One of the first events that brought this to light was dealing with a couple members of the Socialist party deciding to march down a suburb in Chicago where a majority of the population were Jewish. During this march they raised Nazi paraphernalia and hate speech against the Jewish. The socialist supposedly did this because they did not want to, "let their traditions die." This was obviously morally wrong and society knew it. Yet the courts felt bound to protect their first amendment. From personal experience I hated it. It allows racism to continue to live on with out a punishment in sight basically a big middle finger to minority communities back in the day. Now that times have changed and the majority are becoming less tolerant to racism, this allows people to really show their true colors. If you are bold enough to express yourself in the demeanor that you are better than someone else because of the color of your skin or relegion you are viable to be " cancelled" and publicly shamed on the internet. Ive seen it multiple times in the last couple of years and as we talked about in class the owner of the Atlanta Hawks tweeting under the influence. Recent " cancelations" of people have shown the world what will happen to you if you continue to carry on outdated traditions of the unequal treatment of human beings.
The government was smart and kind of countered the freedom of speech and extremest speech with, "Protect Dissent." It protects minority views no matter how unpopular. You have the right to disagree with the government no matter what is said. This kind of plays into the storyline of Martin Luther King JR. Without this major change in American history segregation and the mistreatment of minority Americans may very truly still exists. He gave speeches to over two hundred thousand people about his dream of making America a better place. An idea that truly went against all policies that were being enforced at the time. If we did not have this law implemented I believe things would have went a lot different and the black community would have followed Malcom X, a less peaceful way of getting the same message across , completely changing the history of America.
As a black man in America this matters to me. I want to be able to play basketball without being racially attacked simply because of the fact I was better than them at the sport; and that goes for all things. I want minority children to not even know what it feels like in the future because it has become such a taboo thing to do. As I have grown and matured I have not let those words control me anymore but learned to use them as a "log on the fire" to fuel me on my journey to success. I love that America gives people the opportunity to express themselves and show the world who you truly are by simply opening your mouth or typing a couple words on a screen. As change is slow and we will not see true justification for people still stuck in their outdated ways today, I believe it is approaching and a new way of living life is upon as the old dies and the young prevail.
Source: https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/164866/04_02_BR_Magee.pdf;jsessionid=84A682DD8686260BD2798598190AA4E0?sequence=1
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