Tag: free speech

Being Canceled

In response to the Bryn Mawr Film Institute’s decision to cancel the showing of the film The Child Within Me, I make the following statement:

To the Board of the Bryn Mawr Film Institute

You squandered an essential moment of leadership.

Until this decision, you were a cultural icon and an important voice in our community. But instead of devotion to keeping culture accessible through film, its thoughtful curation, and presentation, you cowed in the face of political pressure. You canceled a film thoroughly unrelated to the war.  The only controversy about this film is your decision to condemn it because the Israeli Film Festival sponsors it.  Shame on you.

People protesting against the showing of a film is an act of free speech.  It does not automatically devolve into violence, and using that as a pretense for canceling is a sign of it is either fecklessness or outright bias against Jews (also known as Antisemitism) and Israel.

Protesters are loud and obnoxious, but they are not violent. Those who attend the festival would find them uncomfortable, but they are not a physical threat. Further, the police of Lower Merion would have done an excellent job of keeping the peace even in this potentially testy situation.

BMFI was an important institution, one I enjoyed participating in and supporting. However, I am deeply disappointed that you have focused on other aspects, neglecting the crucial role of bringing influential films into our community. This decision has undermined the basis for our relationship.  I resign from my membership and call on everyone in our community to do the same.

Sincerely

Rabbi David Levin

And Justice For All

There is nothing like the threat of economic consequences to elicit a heartfelt apology.

Yes, that is as cynical as it sounds.  The recent antisemitic bile spewed from Kanye West and Kyrie Irving has met with pushback and outrage from the Jewish Community and severe fallout in the business community. And voila, apologies have started to cascade out.  But writer/activist George M. Johnson pointedly shared in a recent interview that West had been spewing hatred against the Black community for a while before turning his sights on the Jews.  That, however, did not provoke the same level of outrage from either Jews or businesses.  This is for reasons ranging from racism to the idea that such vile thoughts didn’t hurt anyone’s bottom line enough.

We all need to do better.

We all must enjoy the same rights and responsibilities in our society; that hatred against one group threatens everyone.  Businesses are rarely the bastions of moral virtue. But businesses will respond when we inflict economic consequences on bad behavior, such as not going to Nets games or buying West’s sneakers or clothing, because hatred directed at any group is unacceptable to all of us.  This is a call to all who find themselves in a group that has been “othered” in our society and those who enjoy the privilege of not being so ostracized.  Jews need to speak for the civil rights of all people, not just Jews.  Blacks likewise need to talk about injustice whenever it happens in our society, not just when Black people are affected. And so too with everyone.  To echo Langston Hughes, Let America be America for all Americans.

Some hate for hate’s sake and believe we live in a zero-sum game where a gain by me is at your expense. This is patently false.  A gain by me in the areas of justice and civil rights is a gain for all of us.  We measure the strength of our society not by the will of the stronger but by our ability to protect the vulnerable and give voice to the otherwise unheard and exploited.

I did not have much use for Kanye West before these recent rantings, and I have none now.  Irving’s comments are likewise repugnant.  And I do not need to patronize brands that undermine the “arc of justice” to which we as Americans should aspire.  I support the right to free speech even when it contradicts my values.  But words have consequences; Hate speech leads to violence and injustice. That is un-American, where all of us are called to draw the line.

The Fourth Estate is not Mar-a-Lago- The Sacred Duty of the Press

The Fourth Estate is not Mar-a-Lago, it is time for both sides to get back to work.

The Free Press has a sacred place in the American system of government. The Founders knew the profound responsibility they entrusted to the Press to use their powers as a supreme check and balance to the power of each branch of Government.   The First Amendment of our Bill of Rights guarantees that this voice is exercised to preserve, protect and defend our country from the corruption that power can bring. Whether the Press fulfills this responsibility, or that the work is appreciated is the open question.

The Press has not always lived up to its sacred obligation. History is replete with examples of the Press being used to support a particular opinion or even worse, smear something with which it does not agree. The phrase “Yellow Journalism” comes from the type of press with little or no legitimate research, with sensational headlines driven by the desire to sell newspapers. It dates back to 1895. The issues of fake news or headlines without legitimacy are not new and have been the nemesis of higher quality journalism has fought for a long time. It is also the scourge of government, undermining anything with which is does not agree, slinging mud and being dishonest by misinforming the public.

Hall of Mirrors

Journalism, the kind with higher purpose as envisioned by the Founders, has its legitimate mission to gather and report the facts as a means of checking government power. It is not the friend of government rather it often plays an adversarial role. That, however, is not grounds for government officials to cast aspersions on all the press. It is to be put those officials on notice that the people are watching and you officials are ultimately responsible to us. The recent hard work of the press corps in the matter of Michael Flynn should be viewed as an important step in protecting “We the People.”

Government of, by, and for the people is the extraordinary sacred mission our officials are tasked to do. Ensuring and preserving that is the sacred mission the Free Press. It is time for everyone to do his or her respective jobs.

Pamela Geller and the Nazis

I recall concluding that I needed to support the Nazis marching in Skokie, IL back in 1977 on the basis of free speech. I was a college student at the University of Chicago and the debate was hitting close to home on multiple levels, for me as an American and as a Jew. The need to defend the right of free speech in this country was fundamentally important to both identities. I ultimately supported the right of the Nazis to march despite the despicable hate speech they spewed.

 So too it is with Pamela Geller. Like the Nazis she too spews a venom of hate. Like the Nazis she has dehumanized her prey and tried to mock their beliefs. Like the Nazis she too has painted her victims as threats to our way of life. And like with the Nazis, I support the right of free speech including Geller’s right to fan flames of hate, bigotry and fear in this country.

 We are stronger than Geller or her bile. Her thoughts and actions are both despicable and the world she envisions is more a threat to our way of life than anything she might accuse the Muslim community of perpetrating.

 Fortunately most Muslims see her for what she is, a hateful bigot. They mock and dismiss her insults. We, the Jewish community and the entire American community, need to admire and respect their ability to shrug off her offensive rants. Many Muslims in America are much like us. They come here to build a better life for their families based on the ideals of the American system including freedom of speech, freedom of religion and the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And they live here because this is their home.

 When we repudiate the hateful speech and thoughts of people like Geller, we all move forward. We fight her by shining light on her repugnant hate-filled talk, by coming together around our fundamental American values and together declaring there is no place in our society for her loathsome ideas; we are better than that.

Words Matter

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.  This was a lie our parents told us when we were children designed to protect us, but a lie nonetheless.

Words do matter and words can do extraordinary impact and have the capacity to wound deeply.

 Epithets can be painful. African-Americans heard the word N***** spewed from the mouths of fraternity racists this past week at the University of Ok, Jewish youth have heard vile anti-Semitic words hurled their way. Gay and Lesbians struggle with terms that are offensive and hurtful.

 It seems strange that these things are happening on college campuses. Even if the campuses were only reflecting values of the greater society that would be troubling enough, but these are college campuses, ostensibly places where our young go to learn and be exposed to the best we have to offer them to help shape them and expose them to the world of ideas that they can explore. It is a time of idealism unfettered by the harsh realities of daily life filled with obligations that shift focus away from lofty thoughts. But then we have words such as these spoken at the University of Oklahoma.

 Words matter. I have heard some young people claim otherwise. For example, nasty tweets are only venting and meaningless. But words do matter. We do not know what mental process might be underling or ameliorating the words. But we hear them and are affected by those words because of our understanding of them.

 Jewishly, we believe words carry supreme importance. The Ten Commandments are actually called the 10 Utterances. Our Bible tells us that God spoke the world into being. Words matter a lot. Because they carry so much weight, so much power, words and the meanings they carry, cannot be used cavalierly.

 Free speech comes with responsibility. When we say things, the words reflect who we are and what we think; for that is the face we show to the world. Offensive words, words laden with hatred, ridicule or judgment can profoundly affect others. Verbal bullying for example has created pain so deep that some have actually committed suicide.

 I am at a loss when someone defends offensive speech as something that is “merely words”

To carry that logic forward would indicate that we completely dismiss everything the speaker has to say as only empty meaningless words. And with that comes the complete dismissal of that person whose words and thoughts are meaningless. However, when we attempt to follow this logic, we are met with push back, because words matter. They reflect on us and they are the basis for other’s perception of us. The words we choose express the beliefs we hold. They are the basis for how we interact with others and often go to the heart of our own personal issues and insecurities. We cannot afford, any of us, to refuse the weight of our words. Free speech is welcome; just understand that we are listening.