Don Ho, Hawaiian 'Tiny Bubbles' crooner, dies
Distraught and afraid that his name could never be said on the radio again.
Was that tasteless? Or funny? Or both? Or neither?
In the aftermath of Don Imus, there are so many layers that I can't address them all. Here's my facet:
Freedom of speech does not guarantee you a cushy job, as Imus learned the hard way. But all this talk of "let's go after the rap lyrics next" is sounding all too familiar to someone who's old enough to remember the PMRC Wars of the `80s. All this discussion of how some words should be unacceptable smacks of censorship.
Even lefty blogging giant, TalkLeft normally a great civil libertarian, writes:
To call this a free speech issue is a joke. We're supposed to worry about the freedom to tell racist and sexist jokes?
Yes we are, yes we are. And we're supposed to worry about Illinois Nazis and pornographers and flag burners too.
When did banning words and ideas in the name of PC-ness become a "left" doctrine?
The civil libertarian left rightly rejects the national security state argument that we must give up freedom, privacy and the presumption of innocence to "protect" us from terrorism. Yet the same people want words and ideas banned or restricted because they think it will advance their goal of greater tolerance. A true Alanis moment.
And while this is less a free speech issue than a corporate speech issue, too many progressives are rushing to ban, ban, ban, in the Newspeak hope that eliminating the words will eliminate the ideas.
They've got it wrong; ban the F word and people will still talk about sex, ban the S word and people will still go to the bathroom. Banning the N word and its variants will not ban racism, and banning the H word or the W word however you want to spell it will not eliminate sexism.
Tangent: I hate when people try to discuss this without using the actual words. The ridiculous construct "The N Word" sounds like a small child tattling on a cussing classmate: "Timmy said the F word!" Or wizards saying He Who Must Not Be Named, who forget Dumbledore's advice that fear of a name creates fear of the thing itself. Especially ridiculous coming from academics and "serious" commentators. We've all heard it; we're not calling anybody it; we're discussing racism, sexism and language. The brave wizards say the real name. Nigger. Ho. Voldemort. I feel more free now. And that's not a joke.
Indeed, in certain contexts, the use of "inappropriate" language in popular culture can expose the attitudes and advance the cause better and with more real-world impact than a delicately worded dissertation: witness Borat.
The best way to defeat a bad idea is to shine light on it and expose it. To that extent, the very fact that Imus said "Nappy Headed Ho", in a very public forum, set his ideas up for rejection. Hiding bad ideas in the dark allows them to grow and flourish, with the lure of the forbidden, just like hiding certain forbidden words as N words and F words makes them more appealing. If progressives cede the defense of the marketplace of ideas to conservatives and libertarians, and prefer to win through intimidation, it discredits our own ideas.
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