What Wente Wrote

Wayne, thank you for your concern. If you are concerned about my libel tainting the rabble brand, you are welcome to remove me and my posts from this board. I'm sorry that you are incapable of differentiating between hate speech and racism. I suppose I can only take comfort that you won't be speaking in any human rights courts any time soon. I am far more sorry, however, and in fact incredulous, that you cannot see, based on the evidence given in this very thread if not with your own capacity for critical thought, that Wente's 'anthropolopulism' is explicitly racist, colonialist and dangerous.

But if you would prefer to defend a right-wing, reactionary, divisive hack than stand up for progressive standards of social justice, then I fear for your rabble brand far, far more.

I also find it incredible to suggest what Wente wrote was not racist or that defining racism is just a matter of opinion. The question as always is whose opinion matters.

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Originally posted by Catchfire:
[b]Wayne, thank you for your concern. If you are concerned about my libel tainting the rabble brand, you are welcome to remove me and my posts from this board.[/b]

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Now, now. No one wants to remove you or your posts from babble. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img] Let's all climb down a bit here. It's just a discussion among friends here - it doesn't have to be so high-stakes. Besides, the title of the rabble article itself says that what Wente wrote was racist.

I am simply pointing out that you subjectively calling Ms Wente a racist is no different and no better than Conservatives wishing to ban (or not fund) movies they subjectively label pornography. It is no different and no better than Republicans labelling Iraqis or Americans terrorists and removing their rights or liberties. It is just the mirror image of the same shameful behaviour that couches censorship and repression in inflammatory language and difficult to defend accusations.

You may not feel your charge of racism is subjective, but many Canadians, me included, would beg to differ.

I would hate to think that if the Left were in power, columnists like Margaret Wente would be silenced for openly discussing an issue of public interest. But, that seems to be the behaviour that is being modelled. That is deeply unfortunate and saddening.

Freedom of speech doesn't stop where your sensibilities begin. If we want to provide a true alternative to mainstream power and mainstream media we might want to begin by not aping them.

Regarding censorship.... Let's distinguish between two kinds of censorship.

(1) Government censorship. This is when the government disallows (by making illegal or even criminal) certain kinds of speech/writing/expression. A very limited amount of government censorship seems, to me, acceptable: the government may acceptably disallow direct threats, for example.

(2) Private censorship. This is when a private entity disallows -- or simply refuses to publish -- certain kinds of speech/writing/expression in that entity's name, or on that entity's bulletin boards, etc. This is entirely different from Government censorship. If the NDP disallowed anti-union remarks on its bulletin boards, then the NDP would be acting in an acceptable way. I would be very concerned if the government disallowed anti-union remarks: I should be able to publish such remarks on my own blog, or on pamphlets produced with my own resources, etc.

Babble engages in private censorship. This is perfectly acceptable: it is up to babble what I can or cannot publish on babble. Editors engage in private censorship all the time: they certainly do not print every letter to the editor, for example. Nor do or must they allow every columnist to have free reign to publish whatever the columnist wants.

I am strongly against government censorship, except in extreme cases.

As for private censorship, that is up to the private organization. If Babble decided to ban all uses of the word "harumph", that would be Babble's prerogative. I might write a letter to the people in charge at babble, urging them to retract their anti-harumph decision; but babble would not be abrogating anyone's human rights. If the government, on the other hand, decided to ban all uses of the word "harumph", then the government would be abrogating our human rights.

As for Wente...

What she wrote was offensive, but not the kind of thing that the government should disallow. She should be legally allowed to print pamphlets with such remarks, write them on her blog, etc. It would be a serious abrogation of Wente's human rights, I believe, to declare her remarks illegal. Government censorship should be very limited.

But the G&M had every right to refuse to publish her remarks; just as Babble has every right to refuse to publish Wente's remarks. It would be no abrogation of human rights for the G&M or for Babble to do so. Indeed, one would hope that Canada's newspaper of record would engage in some appropriate private censorship and refuse to publish such remarks. They have no moral duty to publish just anything one of their columnists writes.

I think rabble is doing its job by running Ben Powless's piece in holding a mainstream media voice accountable for expressing ignorant, racist and prejudicial writing about the most marginalized people in the country.

I would agree with calling for the Globe to
have more diversity of columnists, to allow space for rebuttal by Aboriginal leaders etc. And I can certainly understand how an Aboriginal person in particular would want to call for Wente's firing after reading such drivel - though I also appreciate that there are other approaches for responding to this.

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You forget this is babble, where casual accusations of racism are commonplace

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Probably not as common as casual denials of the same.

Sorry, I just read through Wente's column once more, and I think it was erroneous to call he belief's 'racist'. They are actually [b]white supremacist.[/b]