Quote:
Originally Posted by BookZombie
Off course it is not a negative thing not to me and you at least, but to many people this is offensive and is as in your face as someone wearing a hateful sign.
I do see your point, however my problem with it is, 50 years ago a black man in USA wearing a tshirt that said my kid have as much the right to a good eduction as your kid, could cause just as much overwhelming negative response. My hubby had a teacher who was a sailor in the 1950's, one time he was in USA and he saw that blacks and whites could not sit in the same place on the buss. Now this sailor said fuck this, it is not fair and sat down in the black section. As a result he was beaten up but a gang of white men who was offended that he had sympathies with the black population, today men like this sailor is the heroes, however if he and the others of any race who thought segregation where bullshit had considered, oh, well I should not express myself in a way that could lead to overwhelming negative emotional responses then there might still be a black and a white part off the buss.
I do not mean to offend, however there is allot of people today that say the same about gays expressing themselves in public, or gays that fight for equal rights. And I am quite sure there where many that said the same about those that expressed their views that segregation where bull to. It is never best to control freedom of speech for society's sake, for then it is not the freedom of speech anymore, it is the freedom to say whatever is popular and accepted.
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But in these examples - the homosexuals kissing, the black man wanting his children to have an education and the sympathetic white man on the bus - whilst their actions cause offense, that was not their initial intention. Their personal intentions were positive - acts of love and kinship. However a racist baring their symbol does so with intent of showing others their
hatred towards a group of people. Both stimuli cause offense - however it is the intention behind them that makes the racist's case weaker when it comes to their freedom.