Words, Rhetoric, and Fancy Pictures Have Meaning

Yesterday I read an article in the very popular American Academy of Religion about Hate Speech. For those of you who don’t believe anything that I write, the article is “Curses Left and Right: hate Speech and Biblical Tradition,” by Brian M. Britt. (AAR, v. 78, no. 3). Yes, that is not the proper way to cite a source, but this isn’t a publication that calls for that kind of criticism, so back off Kate Turibian.

Anyway, Britt was claiming that Hate Speech actually has power and can affect people. Despite the protection of the 1st Amendment (that pesky part of the Constitution that allows Yellow Journalism to happen i.e. Fox News, that allows commies to gather and that will not allow our children to recite brainwashing pseudo-Christian prayers in school), Britt is claiming that Hate Speech is not just a string of words but is an action in itself that holds power. He is using Austin which is good, but neglects Wittgenstein, which is bad, but that is a critique of his larger argument. Perhaps that will be for another time.

For the most part I like what Britt is claiming and I thought about this when I read the current criticism of Sarah Palin’s crossfire website picture and the Tuscan shootings. I am not going to say that Sarah Palin is directly responsible for the shooting, but I would say that the rhetoric has become a reality.

Despite the wussy and wimpy back peddling (that must be the Mama Grizzly way) that camp Sarah has been stating (it wasn’t meant to represent a target or suggest a gun; reload meant eat an energy bar, blah, blah, blah) the polemic, violent rhetoric has power and meaning. I don’t think anyone can claim that placing an individual in a crossfire is a benign statement – it is an act that suggests violence, that suggests a sense of desperation, and that justifies a vilification of the other. This is powerful speech.

I’m not saying Sarah Palin, and the many other right wing hyper-conservative folks are guilty of hate speech, whatever that may be. I am accusing them of being at the least disingenuous about their actions. I would love it if someone from camp Palin said something like, “we now recognize that the tone and tenor of our messages have had violent undertones and we recognize that we need to take responsibility for those messages. We implore our colleagues to take more time to consider the possible repercussions of our rhetoric and consider sending the same message with a more honest and life-affirming tone.”

Yet we all know that will never happen, to many big words, to much soul-searching, and to long to write on the side of a bus.