Censorship

Can we fight racism without chilling expression? The answer must be a resounding yes, but how can we ensure that schools and educators understand their responsibilities to protect their students from censorship and from discrimination both at once? It isn’t easy and it can’t be done in one lesson or even in one course. However, when we avoid discussing race and racism or other forms of oppression out of fear that we are going to be using or permitting the wrong language, or that our motivations will be misunderstood, we become part of the problem.

Historically, stand-up comedy has pushed expressive boundaries and found itself at the forefront of battles over free expression. In Part 1 of this series, I made the case that stand-up comedy, even the deliberately offensive kind, can tell us something important about free expression.

If you want to truly understand free expression and why it’s so vital for a democratic society, you need to immerse yourself in the margins of public discourse. An important subculture that often finds itself at these margins is stand-up comedy, where a variety of controversies are pushing the boundaries of free expression and attracting no shortage of public attention. 

Engaged as I am in the endless fight to protect the rights of creative professionals, I spend way too much of my time reading ridiculous claims by folks who just want free stuff. Ask any writer, musician, artist of any kind; approximately four out of every five interactions around our work involves us explaining that we can’t work for free or give away the product of our work without compensation. The pressure for free cultural product is relentless and exhausting to those who are trying to make a living in culture.

The ‘Freedom Convoy’ that rolled into Ottawa on 22 January 2022 to occupy Canada’s capital was organized at least in part by a group called ‘United We Roll’, whose former activities include opposing the federal carbon tax and defending the construction of new oil and gas pipelines, the Convoy was originally operating according to the terms set out in a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ releas

In early June, the New York Times ran a piece by Michael Powell entitled “Once a Bastion of Free Speech, the ACLU Faces an Identity Crisis.” So what’s new? The author claims that there is a schism in the American Civil Liberties Union whereby the old or “classic” civil libertarians stand up for free speech, no matter the content of that speech, while the younger or more “woke” activists want to see the organization focus on anti-racism action.