Tag Archives: Fighting Words

Containing An Online Viper Pit of Antisemites

05 Thursday Jan 2023

Posted by in Free Speech, Social Media

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This post is about a particular social media platform and a terrible oversight on my part. I signed up for Gab at least two years ago as I tried to find social media platforms that respected free speech rights and on which I could promote my blog. I haven’t paid for a subscription to “GabPro”, but I’m embarrassed to have completely missed some of the stink emanating from within the platform until recently. It’s not as if it hadn’t been reported, but somehow, I was oblivious.

I knew pretty quickly that Gab was an odd fit for me because so many posters there are on the very religious right. That’s fine, as I’m a strong believer in religious liberty and free speech. My views sometimes conflict with the religious right, but we’re in alignment on some key issues.

I never really scrolled Gab for more than a few moments at any time, having maintained my account there primarily for cross-posting my blog. I joined a particular Gab “fan” group of a band I love, and I have an old friend who happens to be on Gab. I also joined the “Libertarians of Gab” group. Occasionally, something raised my antennae right at the top of my feed, prompting me to look more closely, but I knew this much: like many other social media platforms, Gab is a meme-fest with lots of repetition, so I seldom wasted time scrolling there.

A year or so ago, a Jewish acquaintance on Gab mentioned a few antisemitic posts he’d seen there, but he’s a staunch free-speech advocate and had other reasons to stick with it. At the time, I might have begun to notice a few posters on Gab who were clearly anti-Zionist, but there’s a real distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. Antisemites are bound to be anti-Zionist; the reverse doesn’t always follow. But again, I hadn’t yet found any real fault with Gab itself at that time.

(Note: I’m not hyphenating “antisemitism”, nor am I capitalizing “semitism”, because there is no such thing as a “semite” or “semitism”. The word was concocted by political factions in 19th century Germany in an attempt to “other” German Jews as “Orientals”.)

Over the next several months, however, at the top of my feed, I began to see a few antisemitic posts. Sometimes these amounted to silly assertions, such as the Rothschild family’s supposed world domination, a claim that would be harmless enough if not for indignation that the Rothschilds happen to be Jewish. A few posts were much worse. My knee-jerk reaction to offensive content is to block the poster, as I did a few times.

More recently, in the wake of Kanye West’s crazy tweets about Jews, I was a recipient of a group email from Andrew Torba, the founder and CEO of Gab. Torba, as it happens, is a self-styled “Christian Nationalist”. His email essentially portrayed West as a messenger from God. Here are some excerpts:

“God is using Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, for a big purpose…. He talks about the need for our leaders to uphold Christian values, not Zionist ones. … Ye is using the influence and talents that God has given him to speak the Truth and glorify Jesus Christ.”

It’s interesting that Torba referred to “Zionist” values. Though he is almost certainly anti-Zionist, that’s not really what he meant here. This bit of nut-jobbery, as I learned, had been preceded by many other wild statements from Torba over the years. For instance, over a year ago he tweeted the following and then disabled his Twitter account, a stunt he’s repeated several times:

“We’re building a parallel Christian society because we are fed up and done with the Judeo-Bolshevik one.”

The author at the link above, who reviewed some of Torba’s antics, noted that Judeo-Bolshevism was a term thrown around by the Nazis in the 1930s. But even putting that aside, Torba has an unfortunate tendency to paint with an extremely broad brush in promoting his very own brand of identity politics. That point is established clearly in this “Open Letter” to Torba from a “Hebraic-oriented evangelical Christian attorney”. If anything, the letter is far too gentle with Torba. The writer concludes:

“… I do hope you will reconsider your gratuitous exclusionary rhetoric regarding our spiritual cousins in the House of Judah, treating at least the many who share our cultural values and all-important Creationist paradigm with the same basic respect and camaraderie you show to atheists in the MAGA and conservative movements.”

Torba’s perspective seems to be that all Jews are unworthy, or worse. Here’s one of his posts:

From my perspective, Torba’s recent email regarding “Ye” served as a permission slip to antisemites on Gab to engage in blatant hatred of Jews. Since then, I’ve seen truly antisemitic content appear in my feed with increasing frequency, as if it’s being promoted by the platform. I’m not sure it always sinks to the level of brown-shirts on Kristallnach, but it has that nauseating flavor. Much to my dismay, a few of these posts were from users with whom I’d established earlier connections, or it was content they reposted. Others might have appeared on my feed courtesy of an effort to “introduce” users to one another and to promote certain content.

I didn’t save screenshots of the offensive posts I’ve seen on Gab. I probably should have, but here’s a sampling of a few of the wholesome users I’ve blocked:

One recent post expressed anger with so-called “elites”, an understandable sentiment shared by many in an age of corporatist fascism with the imposition of “woke” ideology in many institutions. However, the poster’s real point was to admonish others for not identifying the target of their anger as “the Jews”.

I became aware of another piece of disturbing information about the perpetrator of a mass killing in Pittsburgh a few years ago, and I can’t believe I missed it:

“The man accused of killing 11 Jews in the Tree of Life building posted antisemitic messages on Gab before the Oct. 27, 2018, massacre. In his Gab bio, he described Jews as the ‘children of satan.’”

Related to these murders, Torba reposted this article on Gab not long ago, from the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle. It stated that Pennsylvania Representative Dan Frankel was the target of hateful and threatening posts on the platform. Some of the posts quoted at the link are awful.

But why did Torba repost that article? Well, it motivated a large number of Torba’s followers on Gab to subject the Chronicle to a series of antisemitic replies. This would appear to have been Torba’s intent, but he subsequently removed the repost of the article (along with the hateful replies). That’s a familiar pattern.

Torba’s original comments on the Chronicle article included the following:

“People are done caring about your eternal victimhood complex … Free speech means the right to offend…Stop conflating offensive memes with ‘threats’…Gab is what free speech looks like, the good, the bad, and the ugly are all included.”

Well, you’re right about free speech, Mr. Torba, but subject to an important qualification: “fighting words” are not protected speech under the Constitution. Maybe that’s why you took down your repost, and most importantly the replies. Did you come to your senses relative to the limits of free speech?

It’s not surprising, but the hatred on Gab is not reserved solely for Jews. Since I’ve been on the lookout, I’ve witnessed overt racism of several other varieties on Gab, and I’ve duly blocked those posters. There is also a complement of hatred for individuals falling under the LGBTQ+ banner.

Gab is not the only province of this sort of behavior on social media, but it might be a hotbed. Is it that easy to learn to hate others? Is the distinction between arguing policy versus revilement and ad hominem too subtle for them?

I have Jewish friends across the political spectrum and Jews in my extended family. Few of them are deeply religious. Likewise, many of my friends raised as Christians are not deeply religious. These individuals are entitled to the liberty to practice any or no religion at all. Their choices are no cause for hostility unless they make some effort to impose their views or will upon others. But that kind of theocratic, coercive power seems to be precisely what Andrew Torba and his Christian Nationalist followers on Gab wish to have for themselves.

I’m happy to report that I’ve seen far fewer offensive posts since blocking a number of antisemitic and racist posters. Maybe the platform is “learning” about me. However, there are many well-intentioned people on Gab, and even a few who actively call-out the bigots. I might have to join in that effort. I support Torba’s right to express his views, short of threats or incitement of violence. I have no desire to be affiliated with Torba, however, and I’ll never pay him for GabPro. I’ll remain on Gab for the time being, and we’ll see how the content evolves.

The Twitter Files and Political Exploitation of Social Media

07 Wednesday Dec 2022

Posted by in Censorship, Regulation, Social Media

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I’ve been cheering for Elon Musk in his effort to remake Twitter into the kind of “public square” it always held the promise to be. He’s standing up for free expression, against one-party control of speech on social media, and especially against government efforts to control speech. That’s a great and significant thing, yet as Duke economist Michael Munger notes, we hear calls from the Biden Administration and congressional Democrats to “keep an eye on Twitter”, a not-so-veiled threat of future investigative actions or worse.

Your Worst Enemy Test, Public or Private

As a disclaimer, I submit that I’m not an unadulterated fan of Musk’s business ventures. His business models too often leverage wrong-headed government policy for profitability. It reeks of rent seeking behavior, whatever Musk’s ideals, and the availability of those rents, primarily subsidies, violates the test for good governance I discussed in my last post. That’s the Munger Test (the “Your Worst Enemy” Test), formally:

“You can only give the State power that you favor giving to your worst enemy.”

On the other hand, Musk’s release of the “Twitter Files” last weekend, with more to come, is certainly a refreshing development. Censorship at the behest of political organizations, foreign governments, or our own government are all controversial and possibly illegal. While we’d ordinarily hope to transact privately at arms length with free exchange being strictly an economic proposition, one might even apply the Munger Test to the perspective of a user of a social media platform: would you trust your worst enemy to exercise censorship on that platform on the basis of politics? Like Donald Trump? Or Chuck Schumer? If not, then you probably won’t be happy there! Now, add to that your worst enemy’s immunity to prosecution for any content they deem favorable!

Cloaked Government Censorship?

Censorship runs afoul of the First Amendment if government actors are involved. In an interesting twist in the case of the Twitter Files, the two independent journalists working with the files, Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss, learned that some of the information had been redacted by one James Baker, Twitter’s Deputy General Counsel. Perhaps not coincidentally, Baker was also formerly General Counsel of the FBI and a key figure in the Trump-Russia investigation. Musk promptly fired Baker from Twitter over the weekend. We might see, very soon, just how coincidental Baker’s redactions were.

Mark Zuckerberg himself recently admitted that Facebook was pressured by the FBI to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story, which is a key part of the controversy underlying the Twitter Files. The Biden Administration had ambitious plans for working alongside social media on content moderation, but the Orwellian-sounding “Disinformation Governance Board” has been shelved, at least for now. Furthermore, activity performed for a political campaign may represent an impermissible in-kind campaign donation, and Twitter falsely denied to the FEC that it had worked with the Biden campaign.

Solutions?

What remedies exist for potential social media abuses of constitutionally-protected rights, or even politically-driven censorship? Elon Musk’s remaking of Twitter is a big win, of course, and market solutions now seem more realistic. Court challenges to social media firms are also possible, but there are statutory obstacles. Court challenges to the federal government are more likely to succeed (if its involvement can be proven).

The big social media firms have all adopted a fairly definitive political stance and have acted on it ruthlessly, contrary to their professed role in the provision of an open “public square”. For that reason, I have in the past supported eliminating social media’s immunity from prosecution for content posted on their networks. A cryptic jest by Musk might just refer to that very prospect:

“Anything anyone says will be used against me in a court of law.”

Or maybe not … even with the sort of immunity granted to social media platforms, the Twitter Files might implicate his own company in potential violations of law, and he seems to be okay with that.

Immunity was granted to social media platforms under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (DCA). It was something many thought “the state should do” in the 1990s in order to foster growth in the internet. And it would seem that a platform’s immunity for content shared broadly should be consistent with promoting free speech. So the issue of revoking immunity is thorny for free speech advocates.

Section 230 And Content Moderation

There have always been legal restrictions on speech related to libel and “fighting words”. In addition, the CDA, which is a part of the Telecommunications Act, restricts “obscene” or “offensive” speech and content in various ways. The problem is that social media firms seem to have used the CDA as a pretext for censoring content more generally. It’s also possible they felt as if immunity from liability made them legally impervious to objections of any sort, including aggressive political censorship and user bans on behalf of government.

The social value of granting immunity depends on the context. There are two different kinds of immunity under Section 230: subsection (c)(1) grants immunity to so-called common carriers (e.g. telephone companies) for the content of private messages or calls on their networks; subsection (c)(2) grants immunity to social media companies for content posted on their platforms as long as those companies engage in content moderation consistent with the provisions of the CDA.

Common carrier immunity is comparatively noncontroversial, but with respect to 230(c)(2), I go back to the question: would I want my worst enemy to have the power to grant this kind of immunity? Not if it meant the power to forgive political manipulation of social media content with the heavy involvement of one political party! The right to ban users is completely unlike the “must serve” legal treatment of “public accommodations” provided by most private businesses. And immunity is inconsistent with other policies. For example, if social media acts to systematically host and to amplify some viewpoints and suppress others, it suggests that they are behaving more like publishers, who are liable for material they might publish, whether produced on their own or by third-party contributors.

Still, social media firms are private companies and their user agreements generally allow them to take down content for any reason. And if content moderation decisions are colored by input from one side of the political aisle, that is within the rights of a private firm (unless its actions are held to be illegal in-kind contributions to a political campaign). Likewise, it is every consumer’s right not to join such a platform, and today there are a number of alternatives to Twitter and Facebook.

Again, political censorship exercised privately is not the worst of it. There are indications that government actors have been complicit in censorship decisions made by social media. That would be a clear violation of the First Amendment for which immunity should be out of the question. I’d probably cut a platform considerable slack, however, if they acted under threat of retaliation by government actors, if that could be proven.

Volokh’s Quid Pro Quo

Rather than simply stripping away Section 230 protection for social media firms, another solution has been suggested by Eugene Volokh in “Common Carrier Status as Quid Pro Quo for § 230(c)(1) Immunity”. He proposes the following choice for these companies:

“(1) Be common carriers like phone companies, immune from liability but also required to host all viewpoints, or

(2) be distributors like bookstores, free to pick and choose what to host but subject to liability (at least on a notice-and-takedown basis).”

Option 2 is the very solution discussed in the last section (revoke immunity). Option 1, however, would impinge on a private company’s right to moderate content in exchange for continued immunity. Said differently, the quid pro quo offers continued rents created by immunity in exchange for status as a public utility of sorts, along with limits on the private right to moderate content. Common carriers often face other regulatory rules that bear on pricing and profits, but since basic service on social media is usually free, this is probably not at issue for the time being.

Does Volokh’s quid pro quo pass the Munger Test? Well, at least it’s a choice! For social media firms to host all viewpoints isn’t nearly as draconian as the universal service obligation imposed on local phone companies and other utilities, because the marginal cost of hosting an extra social media user is negligible.

Would I give my worst enemy the power to impose this choice? The CDA would still obligate social media firms selecting Option 1 to censor obscene or offensive content. Option 2 carries greater legal risks to firms, who might respond by exercising more aggressive content moderation. The coexistence of common carriers and more content-selective hosts might create competitive pressures for restrained content moderation (within the limits of the CDA) and a better balance for users. Therefore, Volokh’s quid pro quo option seems reasonable. The only downside is whether government might interfere with social media common carriers’ future profitability or plans to price user services. Then again, if a firm could reverse its choice at some point, that might address the concern. The CDA itself might not have passed the “Worst Enemy” Munger Test, but at least within the context of established law, I think Volokh’s quid pro quo probably does.

We’ll Know More Soon

More will be revealed as new “episodes” of the Twitter Files are released. We may well hear direct evidence of government involvement in censorship decisions. If so, it will be interesting to see the fallout in terms of legal actions against government censorship, and whether support coalesces around changes in the social media regulatory environment.

What Part of “Free Speech” Did You Not Understand?

27 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by in Censorship, Free Speech

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The left has adopted an absurdly expansive definition of “hate speech”, and they’d like you to believe that “hate speech” is unconstitutional. Their objective is to establish a platform from which they can ostracize and ultimately censor political opponents on a variety of policy issues, mixed with the pretense of a moral high ground. The constitutional claim is legal nonsense, of course. To be fair, the moral claim may depend on the issue.

John Daniel Davidson writes in The Federalist of the distinction between protected and unprotected speech in constitutional law. The primary exception to protected speech has to do with the use of “fighting words”. Davidson describes one Supreme Court interpretation of fighting words as “a face-to-face insult directed at a specific person for the purpose of provoking a fight.” Obviously threats would fall into the same category, but only to the extent that they imply “imminent lawless action”, according to a major precedent. As such, there is a distinction between fighting words versus speech that is critical, discriminatory, or even hateful, all of which are protected.

Hate speech, on the other hand, has no accepted legal definition. In law, it has not been specifically linked to speech offensive to protected groups under employment, fair housing, hate crime or any other legislation. If we are to accept the parlance of the left, it seems to cover almost anything over which one might take offense. However, unless it qualifies as fighting words, it is protected speech.

The amorphous character of hate speech, as a concept, makes it an ideal vehicle for censoring political opponents, and that makes it extremely dangerous to the workings of a free society. Any issue of public concern has more than one side, and any policy solution will usually create winners and losers. Sometimes the alleged winners and losers are merely ostensible winners and losers, as dynamic policy effects or “unexpected consequences” often change the outcomes. Advocacy for one solution or another seldom qualifies as hate toward those presumed to be losers by one side in a debate, let alone a threat of violence. Yet we often hear that harm is done by the mere expression of opinion. Here is Davidson:

“By hate speech, they mean ideas and opinions that run afoul of progressive pieties. Do you believe abortion is the taking of human life? That’s hate speech. Think transgenderism is a form of mental illness? Hate speech. Concerned about illegal immigration? Believe in the right to bear arms? Support President Donald Trump? All hate speech.“

Do you support the minimum wage? Do you oppose national reparation payments to African Americans? Do you support health care reform? Welfare reform? Rollbacks in certain environmental regulations? Smaller government? You just might be a hater, according to this way of thinking!

The following statement appears in a recent proposal on free speech. The proposal was recommended as policy by an ad hoc committee created by the administration of a state university:

“… Nor does freedom of expression create a privilege to engage in discrimination involving unwelcome verbal, written, or physical conduct directed at a particular individual or group of individuals on the basis of actual or perceived status, or affiliation within a protected status, and so severe or pervasive that it creates an intimidating or hostile environment that interferes with an individual’s employment, education, academic environment, or participation in the University’s programs or activities.“

This is an obvious departure from the constitutional meaning of free expression or any legal precedent.

And here is Ulrich Baer, who is New York University‘s vice provost for faculty, arts, humanities, and diversity (and professor of comparative literature), in an opinion piece this week in the New York Times:

“The recent student demonstrations [against certain visiting speakers] should be understood as an attempt to ensure the conditions of free speech for a greater group of people, rather than censorship. … Universities invite speakers not chiefly to present otherwise unavailable discoveries, but to present to the public views they have presented elsewhere. When those views invalidate the humanity of some people, they restrict speech as a public good.  …

The idea of freedom of speech does not mean a blanket permission to say anything anybody thinks. It means balancing the inherent value of a given view with the obligation to ensure that other members of a given community can participate in discourse as fully recognized members of that community.“

How’s that for logical contortion? Silencing speakers is an effort to protect free speech! As noted by Robby Soave in on Reason.com, “... free speech is not a public good. It is an individual right.” This cannot be compromised by the left’s endlessly flexible conceptualization of “hate speech”, which can mean almost any opinion with which they disagree. Likewise, to “invalidate the humanity of some people” is a dangerously subjective standard. Mr. Baer is incorrect in his assertion that speakers must balance the “inherent” value of their views with an obligation to be “inclusive”. The only obligation is not to threaten or incite “imminent lawless action”. Otherwise, freedom of speech is a natural and constitutionally unfettered right to express oneself. Nothing could be more empowering!

Note that the constitution specifically prohibits the government from interfering with free speech. That includes any public institution such as state universities. Private parties, however, are free to restrict speech on their own property or platform. For example, a private college can legally restrict speech on its property and within its facilities. The owner of a social media platform can legally restrict the speech used there as well.

Howard Dean, a prominent if somewhat hapless member of the democrat establishment, recently tweeted this bit of misinformation: “Hate speech is not protected by the first amendment.” To this, Dean later added some mischaracterizations of Supreme Court decisions, prompting legal scholar Eugene Volokh to explain the facts. Volokh cites a number of decisions upholding a liberal view of free speech rights (and I do not use the word liberal lightly). Volokh also cites the “prior restraint doctrine”:

“The government generally may not exclude speakers — even in government-owned ‘limited public forums’ — because of a concern that the speakers might violate the rules if they spoke.“

If a speaker violates the law by engaging in threats or inciting violence, it is up to law enforcement to step in, ex post, just as they should when antifa protestors show their fascist colors through violent efforts to silence speakers. Volokh quotes from an opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Backmun:

“… a free society prefers to punish the few who abuse rights of speech after they break the law than to throttle them and all others beforehand. It is always difficult to know in advance what an individual will say, and the line between legitimate and illegitimate speech is often so finely drawn that the risks of freewheeling censorship are formidable.”

Who Brought the Melting Pot To the Pow Wow?

11 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by in Censorship, Free Speech

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Chris Rock

I ran into a Chinese colleague in a break room at work and mentioned that I’d seen her engaged in a “pow wow” with a senior staffer, and she asked, “Pow wow?” I tried to explain the Native American origins of the term for a gathering or meeting, and I think she liked that, but I joked that my use of the term might represent “cultural appropriation” (CA). A second colleague who’d entered the kitchen glanced at me with a raised eyebrow. Knowing them well, I’m not sure either of them knew what I meant. As it happens, describing the pow wow as a celebration is more accurate, so my use of the term to describe a meeting was too narrow. In fact, in modern usage by Native Americans, it is a celebration of culture, but meetings take place at these events as well.

CA occurs when aspects of one culture are used in some way by others. It is criticized for trivializing the traditions or symbols of the source culture or because it robs it’s members of intellectual property (IP) rights. I can think of examples of cultural trivialization, such as the “Ugg-a-Wugg” song from the musical Peter Pan. Such complaints strike me as hyper-sensitive, but perhaps the umbrage taken by Native Americans to this song is understandable. Nevertheless, I stand more strongly behind the right of free expression. This song, which is rarely performed today out of respect for Native Americans, was part of a larger Neverland fantasy that has great appeal. And after all, the Indians were good guys in the story!

Works such as Peter Pan and Huckleberry Finn are historical and reflect the times in which they were created. As such, some argue that they should be left in their original form. And I agree, in general. However, in the case of a musical that is performed publicly again and again by various professional and amateur groups, I am sympathetic to the notion that potentially offensive elements can be excised if the changes do not do great damage to the story. If it is not in the public domain, the owners of the story’s rights have the final say.

The IP argument is flawed to the extent that IP arguments are always flawed: ideas are non-rivalrous and non-exclusive. Moreover, even IP rights recognized under U.S. law are limited to individual “property”; they do not extend to the traditions and symbols of various cultures that coexist in society.

Another area emphasized by critics of CA has to do with historical grievances against a dominant culture, often without regard to current circumstances. Apparently, such grievances place the minority culture off-limits. Under this view, cultural exchange is fundamentally bad, which is fundamentally absurd. It has the faint ring of “separate but equal” — paradoxical given the avowed desire among critics of CA for an end to racial and social division.

While European colonialists certainly exploited the native inhabitants in many lands, today’s liberal order in the West is attractive to members of different cultures around the globe.They adopt similar institutions and practices at home, and some of them bring their cultures to us. We all gain in the exchange.

Strong condemnation of CA has been all the rage on college campuses over the past few years (see several of the links here). It reflects a hyper-sensitivity about the normal mixing of cultures. Cultural exchange tends to elevate appealing aspects of all cultures into the larger society. Should we really condemn any of the following harmless activities?

  • Yoga classes at the Jewish Community Center?
  • Cinco de Mayo celebrations by non-Mexicans?
  • Caucasians celebrating the Chinese New Year or Moon Festival?
  • St. Patrick’s Day celebrations by non-Irish, non-Catholics?
  • Flower Drum Song or The King and I?
  • Caucasians playing Delta Blues?
  • African American Mardi Gras Indians?
  • Caucasians watching Bollywood movies?
  • The Grateful Dead at the Pyramids?
  • Caucasians cooking “ethnic” foods?

I grant that respect dictates avoiding use of another group’s sacred symbols. Beyond that, it is difficult to conceive of any objections to activities like those above. They are all forms of cultural cross-pollination, even if they seem to trivialize in some cases. This sometimes  involves cultural interpretation by “others” that might not be accurate, but that is always the case when cultures mix. People incorporate or adapt features of other cultures that they enjoy, which is hardly a sin.

Curious about pow wow, I found the following qualification in the Wikipedia entry for pow-wow:

“…the term has also been used by non-Natives to describe any gathering of Native Americans, or to refer to any type of meeting among non-Natives (such as military personnel). However, such use may be viewed as cultural appropriation, and disrespectful to Native peoples.“

Well, well, well! Pow wow is used in conversational english to lend an air of informality or lightness to certain proceedings. It may simultaneously convey a serious diplomatic purpose and an opportunity to resove differences. Sometimes, non-Natives might even use the term to sound clever, like using the French term soirée rather than “party”. Or perhaps they are amused by the image of corporate managers seated akimbo around a camp fire, passing a peace pipe. Or any pipe. Trivial? Maybe, but if that possibility outrages Native Americans, it strikes me as an over-reaction. After all, the joke is partly on “the suits”, and there isn’t much the Indians can do about it under the law.

I have always been fascinated by American Indian history and culture. I do not use the term pow-wow in disrespect. I use it because it’s colorful and I like it. The cross-pollination of language and culture is borne out of the utility of a particular word or practice. It can hardly be bad that a few shards of Native American language and culture are incorporated into broader American society.

My sister has a beautiful scarf bearing the profile of an American Indian in full head dress. She has always had an interest in the art and culture of the American southwest, which has benefitted from the heavy influence of Indians who are native to that region. So it was unsurprising to me that she would be drawn to the beauty of the scarf. It is a work of art and she does not wear it out of disrespect for American Indians.

Certain acts of CA are thought to intersect with racism, however. How about the Washington Redskins football team name? The team logo and merchandise use Native American symbols. The same goes for the Atlanta Braves and other teams. However, the term Redskin almost certainly has overtly racist origins as a description of an enemy thought to be savage, much as “Nips” was a derogative used by Allied soldiers in World War II as a term for the Japanese.  Defenders of the team claim that “Redskin” is not meant to trivialize or denigrate Native Americans, but instead to recognize their honor and ferocity in battle. The team owner and many fans insist that the tradition of the team name should continue in tribute to American Indians. Nevertheless, the name is understandably objectionable to Native Americans today as a crude description of their genealogy. My friend John Crawford tells me of a proposal to change the team logo to a red-skinned potato, but apparently the idea was rejected by the U.S. Patent Office.

In all of these matters, free speech outweighs all other considerations. While cultural appropriation is sometimes regarded with hostility, that does not give the aggrieved special rights to prevent it. The same is true of racism, however regrettable it is. Even so-called hate speech is protected under the U.S. Constitution, short of “fighting words”. Critics of cultural appropriation can seek to educate, influence, boycott and to shame those believed to have run afoul of their standards. In most cases, however, I think the best advice is to chill out.