berkleebassist

When they propose cuts in Medicare, means-testing Social Security, a raising of the retirement age and a cut in defense spending, I’ll take them seriously and wish them well.

Until then, I’ll treat them with the condescending contempt they have thus far deserved.

Those are Andrew Sullivan’s final words in a new article, entitled Why I’m Passing On Tea, he published today over at his blog, The Daily Dish, in reference to the protesters of the Tea Party.

Then this amazing article by Tim Wise popped up on my radar. He starts off the article with this:

Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure – the ones who are driving the action – we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white.

He goes on to describe a situation where, instead of angry white folks descending en masse armed with various weaponry, racist placards, and the willingness to threaten elected officials and spit on them, but instead it’s angry folks doing all of these things.

We don’t really have to wonder what the reaction would be. There are plenty of examples of the double standard of American free speech, but a comment on the article mentioned Ice-T’s “Cop Killer” song from 1990. It’s a protest song, told from the point of view of an individual so angered by police brutality that he takes the law into his own hands.

The outrage to this song was, to say the least, explosive. Former President Bush Sr. & his wife expressed outrage, as did former Vice President Dan Quayle (who even went so far as to call the song “obscene”), and many others expressed similar sentiments. A store in Greensboro, NC, even had to remove the album from its shelves after local police told management they wouldn’t respond to any emergency calls from that location.

All this over a song. Yes, a song that expresses a very hateful, violent way to resolve a problem, but nonetheless, something that should be protected under free speech. And now we see people walking about with signs calling for the lynching of Congressional leaders.

I don’t see the difference, but somehow, the level of outrage isn’t even close to the same.

(Via @diabola)