What Would It Take to Feel Safe?

What would it take to make people feel safe? What message will those who would wage peace offer to this beleaguered planet? There is indeed a threat. I will call that threat terrorist fascism because that is what it is. It thwarts human beings in pursuit of the most basic need identified by psychologists: The need to feel their bodies are safe. This threat is horrible indeed, and the road to ending it is long and hard. I do not know all we need to do to end terrorist fascism, but what I know of history tells me that militarism is less the answer to, than the fellow traveler of, fascists. Nothing will make us safe other than what democracy commands: Ask hard questions, consider all voices as we face this current threat. I often wonder, Could we do a better job in fighting terrorism if we had Arabic-speaking Muslim citizens in the FBI? If we knew more about Arab Americans, could we come up with more effective tactics than racial profiling and mass detentions to get the information we need to make us safe

Public Response to Racist Speech: Considering the Victim\u27s Story

The threat of hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazi skinheads goes beyond their repeated acts of illegal violence. Their presence and the active dissemination of racist propaganda means that citizens are denied personal security and liberty as they go about their daily lives. Professor Richard Delgado recognized the harm of racist speech in his breakthrough article, Words That Wound, in which he suggested a tort remedy for injury from racist words. This Article takes inspiration from Professor Delgado\u27s position, and makes the further suggestion that formal criminal and administrative sanction - public as opposed to private prosecution - is also an appropriate response to racist speech. In making this suggestion, this Article moves between two stories. The first is the victim\u27s story of the effects of racist hate messages. The second is the first amendment\u27s story of free speech. The intent is to respect and value both stories. This bipolar discourse uses as method what many outsider intellectuals do in silence: it mediates between different ways of knowing in order to determine what is true and what is just

Hate Speech: What Price Tolerance? Transcript of the Symposium

Hate Speech: What Price Tolerance? A Dialogue Featuring: Nadine Strossen, president, The American Civil Liberties Union and Mari J. Matsuda, professor of law, Georgetown University Law Center Moderated by Gary S. Gildin, professor of law and director of the Miller Center for Public Interest Advocacy at Penn State Dickinson School of Law Presented Thursday, Mar. 13, 2003 Degenstein Center Theate