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Amazing. A thread about a library restricting access to some books, has become an anti-censorship fest where people pat themselves on the back for agreeing that it's less important to avoid offensiveness and promote harmful stereotypes than to avoid censorship at all costs.
Of course, all libraries are required to keep all content they've ever carried, and make it widely available to everyone.
And let's sneer at the idea of mitigating prejudice and hatespeech by calling it "politically correct" and claiming that since we can't eliminate all offensive speech & actions, we shouldn't bother with any of it. We certainly shouldn't be exercising any judgment about balancing what's needful for education about history against what's just leftover bigotry from former times.
</sarcasm>
I'm a strong free speech, individual rights advocate. Anti-school uniforms. FIJA.org promoter. Occasional ACT-UP activist. Pro-choice, on every level I can come up with. Your mind, your relationships, your body--your actions, your responsibility for the consequences of those actions.
And I'm appalled at the number of people (not just here) who think that the right to insult and degrade their fellow human beings is so important they must proudly announce their opposition to any attempt to limit access to hateful and thoughtlessly vile materials.
It *is* important to maintain that right. The right to insult is the same, regardless of whether the insultee is stupid, malicious, or just a member of a different cultural group. We need to support that right.
But we don't need to crow about how we're applying it. We could show some humility, some awareness, that the right to shout down oppressors comes with the right to allow oppressors to shout down their targets.
We all have the right to call each other n***rs if we want. But nothing obligates us to exercise that right, nor to smile at others for doing so.
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