Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

     Free-expression and freedom-of-speech are not the same thing.  In America, no one has a right to total free-expression.  What the constitution says is that,

     Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech…

     No accident that this is in the Bill of Rights; the 1^st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  In America, freedom of speech is a right, privilege and a responsibility.

     Freedom-of-Speech protects citizens from government trying to silence a citizen’s expression of ideas and claims.  Freedom of speech, however, protects no citizen from rebuttal from other citizens.  So Freedom-of-Speech does not protect “free-expression” because free-expression does not require you to identify yourself.  Free-expression does not even require that you stand by and represent your ideas.  That’s why free-expression is almost always done unseen, in the shadows.  

     The KKK wore hoods to hide their faces, and they only rode out at night. That shows you that free-expression is immature, and is the dark tunnel that immature citizens live in and prefer.

     Free-expression, you see, allows people to hide and not have their claims challenged.  Freedom-of-Speech is a right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.  As with all other constitutional rights, then, Freedom-of-Speech is an American privilege and responsibility.  So citizen, identify yourself and then speak so that other citizens may hear your claims, make judgments about your reasoning and the validity of what you say.  In doing so, your fellow citizens may choose to use their Freedom-of-Speech to challenge your ideas.

     The mistake that Americans have been making lately is this one. For some reason we have been saying that since Americans have freedom of expression, there is nothing to be done.  That is what some have said.  So that’s why we sometimes end up with the odd situation that when someone makes ugly racial, anti-gay and lesbian, anti-some-group statements,  people act as if there is nothing to be done. 

    Not so because, we Americans have the right to Freedom-of-Speech.  Lately, we have been acting as if we think that that freedom means that we have to shut up in the face of someone else’s ugly use of Freedom-of-Speech.  No we don’t…

     No we don’t because no one has a right to free expression, we all have a right to freedom-of-speech.  

   Starting at 8pm, Tuesday, August 16, 2011, on the campus of NCSU we had an event called “Respect the Pack.”

     That event was put on to protest and challenge all the offensive, negative group-hate graffiti that shows up in the Free-Expression Tunnel. Our protest that night was significant.

     We were expressing our Freedom of Speech to say that we value each and every student on our campus.

      We were expressing our Freedom of Speech to say that when someone writes racial graffiti, that does not reflect the opinion of the whole campus. 

     We recognize, you see, that the hate of a group expressed in graffiti is really an attack on students of all racial and religious stripes because it shows that there is intolerance and hate on our campus.  Who wants to live in a place like that?  How can a person go home and proclaim their pride in being a student at a place that is so hateful?

     When we recognize and understand that one person’s freedom-of-speech does not negate other Americans’ freedom-of-speech that means there is something to be done.  That means we can raise our voices in opposition to group-hate.

    Wait… wait… but white students at North Carolina State University were upset too!

    Yes indeed they were.

    You have to understand, we no longer live in a society of racial hierarchy.  Even people who wrongly believe in the superiority of one race over another… even those people have to interact with people of other groups who have equal-status with them, or authority over them.

    As importantly, white students at NCSU are not all of one mind about race.  So yeah, some simpleton writes racial graffiti, but that does not reflect the opinion of the whole campus.  Among all of the students there are different racial, moral codes, and interpersonal relationships.   No surprise then that racial graffiti is taken as an attack on students of all racial and religious stripes because it shows that there is intolerance and hate on the campus.  Who wants to live in a place like that?  How can a person go home and proclaim their pride in being a student at a place that is so hateful? It was all that that in this case of racial graffiti, had awakened a sleeping giant.

    These are college students with classes to go too, reading and projects to do, papers to write, exams to take. In the midst of that life, these young people wanted to speak out against intolerance. Yet, they refused to use their busy lives as an excuse for not working for change on their campus.  And as students from a number of racial and ethnic backgrounds developing a coalition, Wake Up! is part of a great American tradition of protest to improve the nation.

    Intergroup coalitions have always been part of the social change movements that mattered.  One example from the civil rights movement SCOPE (Summer Community Organizing and Political Education) a project sponsored by the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) in the summer of 1964.  More recently is the example in NYC when people from many different groups showed up with colorful umbrellas so that gay and lesbian couples would not have to face anti-gay and lesbian protests.

    At the end of last semester (Spring 2011), I won a faculty award for my work on diversity on our campus.  Nothing pleased me more than to be in the company of a racial, ethnic and gender mix of people who also won awards for their diversity work on our campus.

    So yes, when offensive racial and anti-gay graffiti was found in our “Free-Expression” tunnel, white students were upset too.  Not only that, but with black, Arab, Hindu and Puerto Rican students as equal partners, white students started organizing themselves to stop the foolishness. That is how the interracial, interethnic student advocacy group “Wake Up! It’s Serious: A Campaign for Change” was born.

   Since Americans have freedom of expression, there is nothing to be done.  That is what some have said.  So that’s why we sometimes end up with the odd situation that when someone makes ugly racial, anti-gay and lesbian, anti-some-group statements,  people act as if there is nothing to be done.  We Americans have the right to freedom of expression.  We seem to think that that freedom means that we have to shut up in the face of someone else’s ugly use of freedom of expression.  No we don’t because we don’t have a right to free expression, we have a right to freedom-of-speech.  All of us have that right.

    I am happy to report that Americans are beginning to realize that. 

   There’s a group of Americans who turn out to yell and scream at the funerals of soldiers.  Members of the Westboro Baptist Church say that the death of a soldier is god’s punishment for the sins of America.  So they come out to a funeral to make that point in front of a family burying a loved one who served our country. And they have the freedom-of-speech right to do so.  Indeed the Supreme Court ruled that they cannot be stopped from doing so, based on freedom-of-speech. That was the right reading of our Constitution.  But that does not mean other Americans cannot use their freedom-of-speech to shout down this mean spirited behavior at the funeral of soldiers. 

    That’s what happened when the Westboro Baptist Church members showed up at the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards (former wife of presidential candidate John Edwards).  Since Ms. Edwards had been in support of marriage rights for gays and lesbians, members of the church came to her funeral to shout out that she was damned. But members of that church found themselves peacefully blocked by a “…line of love.”

At the funeral of Ms. Edwards, when that church group assembled where permitted, other Americans were there to block their position.  This has started to happen at the funerals of soldiers; people line up early early to stand in front of the assigned position of the Westboro Baptist Church, to block their signs from the sight of those attending the funeral.

    That is also legitimate freedom-of-speech. 

    So too was what people did in New York city on the first day that gays and lesbians could be legally married in that state. Knowing anti-gay and lesbian protestors would be there, people, some strangers to each other, some straight, showed up with colorful umbrellas.  With those umbrellas open they took positions that blocked the view of the protesters from those couples who, in love, had showed up and lined up to get married.

    That was also legitimate freedom-of-speech.

    One person’s freedom-of-speech does not negate other Americans’ freedom-of-speech.  Let’s not forget that because when we do, we allow ugly speech to rule the day.

    Why object?  “What’s the big deal,” some students asked.  Even some professors wondered about the level of risks some African American students had been willing to take.  Speaking with a degree of accuracy, some said “I’ve seen worse graffiti on the stalls in men’s bathrooms on campus; so why this big reaction to this particular racial graffiti?”

     Yes we have seen worse things in bathroom stalls.  So I asked myself, what are we not teaching these African American students who are so outraged as to be ready to break the law?  Here the law was not unjust or immoral.  The law in question had to do with physically blocking other students’ access to a tunnel to their legitimate destinations on campus.  Why were students willing to risk being arrested for that?

    Then it occurred to me that for these African American students, like for all the other students, this is college.  This is college and university life that was supposed to be the “…best time in their lives.” For all of our students, and college students everywhere, this time is supposed to be that time between being a child, a minor, and being a real adult (full-time-job, paying rent and all that).  So this is supposed to be football and basketball games, parties, frivolity, while taking classes to get that degree.  But now, with public, offensive, racial graffiti aimed at your group, it’s not that.  Damn, the real world is already here and so the dream is deferred; sadly, probably forever.

     That is why African America students were demanding something even they knew was ridiculous; a guarantee that this will never happen again; or at least while they are still a student here.  Those students are angry at the loss of the college dream; at the loss of their innocence.  So that’s why they say “…oh it’s on…” as a threat, but an empty threat. 

     What happens to a dream deferred is what Langston Hughes asked:

     “Does it stink like rotten meat

     Or fester over like a syrupy sweet.

     Maybe it just sags like a heavy load…

     Or does it explode.”

    A dream deferred in the name of “…free expression.”  But it is a dream deferred only for students who are members of certain American groups.  Is that really the point of “…free expression,” or the result of completely confusing the idea of “…free expression” with the constitutional right of Freedom-of-Speech?