Can an Honest Conversation About Race Be Inoffensive?
A controversial Philadelphia Magazine story raises that question by anonymously airing the racial views of white people.
Reuters
In Philadelphia Magazine's March cover story, Robert Huber grants anonymity to various white residents, probes their views on race, and faithfully conveys their answers, even the racist ones.
Why?
His article "Being White in Philadelphia" starts from these premises:
1) Most whites have stopped paying attention to the poorest, most dangerous neighborhoods in Philly due to queasiness about race. 2) Whites nevertheless think a lot about race due to interracial encounters that end in confusion, misread intentions, or bruised feelings. 3) Whites are unnatural, self-censoring, and overly polite as a result. 4) Their self-consciousness and hypersensitivity may signal progress, but is problematic too: public discussions of race are "one-dimensional, looked at almost exclusively from the perspective of people of color." 5) That's understandable, given historical realities; but race is an issue for white people too. 6) A less careful approach that frankly aired white perspectives could broaden the conversation, a prerequisite for getting whites invested in addressing problems so many of them currently won't even engage.
Huber concludes that moving forward, "We need to bridge the conversational divide so that there are no longer two private dialogues in Philadelphia -- white people talking to other whites, and black people to blacks -- but a city in which it is okay to speak openly about race." Is he correct? Knowing almost nothing about Philadelphia, I won't try to evaluate how its whites and blacks interact, what Philadelphia whites are thinking, or how race relations in that city might be improved.
But I can report on the furious backlash against the magazine article. Mayor Michael Nutter has likened it to shouting fire in a crowded theater and has asked municipal authorities to investigate. Jamilah Lemieux, an editor at Ebony, wrote that the piece is "racist" and "terrible," and implies that its author is counting down the days until "the 'hood is less dense with its original inhabitants." Two colleagues of the author excoriate his article on the magazine's Web site: 1) Steve Volk argues that the piece is racist insofar as it is preoccupied with race, "seeing skin color before the person, or wrongly assuming a person's race to be a primary cause of their behavior." 2) Says Jason Fagone, "I don't see how you're going launch a frank discussion of race -- the stated goal of the piece, and a worthy one -- under a cloak of anonymity." And Daniel Denvir ends a lengthy Philadelphia City Paper takedown by suggesting that Huber's article brazenly strokes the "pathetic prejudices and insecurities" of its magazine's elite readership.
The Free Speech Question
Let's start with what needs saying most. Even if every critic of the article is absolutely right, even if it is twice as offensive as they say, Mayor Nutter, given his position and responsibilities, is disgracing himself by so much as questioning whether it ought to enjoy 1st Amendment protection:
In a letter, Nutter tore into the magazine and the story, which quoted anonymous white Philadelphians about their view on race and has been attacked for promoting negative stereotypes and not including the views of minorities. At Mayor Nutter's request, the city Human Relations Commission will conduct an "inquiry" into race relations in the city, following Philadelphia magazine's widely criticized cover story, "Being White in Philly." He also called for a "rebuke" of the magazine and writer, Bob Huber, saying that while he recognizes the 1st Amendment protects "the media from censorship by the government," free speech is "not an unfettered right."
"This month Philadelphia Magazine has sunk to a new low even for a publication that has long pretended that its suburban readers were the only citizens civically engaged and socially active in the Philadelphia area," Nutter wrote. He called the piece "pathetic" and said it didn't rise "to the level of journalism.""I ask the Commission to evaluate whether the 'speech' employed in this essay is not the reckless equivalent of 'shouting, "fire!" in a crowded theater,' its prejudiced, fact-challenged generalizations an incitement to extreme reaction," Nutter wrote.
Quite plainly, the article is nothing like shouting fire in a crowded theater -- a dubious analogy that ought to be retired anyway -- and by threatening the possibility of state sanction, Nutter is violating a natural right, transgressing against the First Amendment, chilling future interracial dialogue, and undermining a basic liberty, free speech. It is ironic that he is doing so in the name of protecting a minority group, because oppressed minorities of all types rely on the inviolability of the 1st Amendment more than anyone, and would be most vulnerable if Nutter undermines it. He remains free to disparage the article, but should apologize to the author, the publication, all Americans, and minority groups especially for implying that there is any question about its legality.
To read the entire article:
Source: The Atlantic/Philadelphia Magazine/ Conor Friedersdorf
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