Any speech can be offensive
Two recent S-R articles from July 11 illustrate something sad about our culture. In Jim Kershner’s 100 Years Ago Today, police were arresting Spokanites for wearing IWW union buttons in defiance of a new state law prohibiting their display.
On the same paper’s front page, a student wearing a MAGA cap in a GU classroom disturbed his instructor enough to publish his displeasure in a law journal. Are we going down a path our lawmakers decreed a century ago? Can any form of speech (cap, button, t-shirt, bumper sticker) be so offensive that it constitutes vile, hate speech even when not directly apparent?
As a writer myself who tries to use proper English, I’m particularly offended by people using the six-letter n-word in rap songs or just plain talk, or who incessantly utter the f-word or display it on T-shirts for any and all to hear and see, which in my salad days was not only crude but illegal. (The f-word, not, sad to say, the n-word). Should we confront these users of bad language or just shrug it off to bad manners? Much as I’d like the former, I feel my better option is shrugs, not slugs.
Dale Roloff
Spokane