When Free Speech Fails, And Other Stories
Welcome to What You Missed This Weekend, a roundup of the stories from this weekend that you missed while you were out living your life. Inside: when defending the First Amendment isn't enough, the unbearable whiteness of craft food and how walking is a precious escape.
Free Speech Comes At A Huge Price For Many
One could argue that the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville was enabled in part by the ACLU. Would the hate groups have gathered anyway, even if a legal organization hadn't leapt to defend their First Amendment rights? They likely would've — and they probably would've exercised their Second Amendment rights just the same as they did, showing up with a contingent of heavily armed militia types. Instead, hiding behind legal advocacy groups and properly secured permits lends white supremacists an air of state-approved legitimacy, which they can get much easier because, well, they're white.
K-Sue Park's opinion column in The New York Times about the shortsightedness of the ACLU's colorblind speech defense doesn't just slam them for defending hate speech. It's not just that gatherings of white supremacists are hateful events practically guaranteed to incite violence — even if they just stand there and shout slurs, they have an easier time gathering than other groups do. The ACLU, Park argues, doesn't do nearly enough to address the structural concerns that plague marginalized communities that try to exercise their right to free speech.
Anybody who claims to value the First Amendment should take note of Park's criticism. What's more important: the status quo, or free speech for all?
Craft Food Culture's Erasure Problem
Last year, when The Atlantic dubbed Portland, Oregon "the whitest city in America," they weren't just talking about baristas sporting man buns at Stumptown Coffee Roasters. Oregon was settled under disturbingly racist motives, the echoes of which still influence culture and policy throughout the state. While Portland is probably the last cities in the US where a racist group could rally without meeting resistance, it tops the list of where a person might, say, open a "British colonial" style restaurant and act as though the descriptor is a hip culinary label — not something that brings to mind the horrors of colonization and occupation.
Craft and foodie culture are as bound up in the stories accompanying the dishes as they are about the food itself, which Lauren Michele Jackson's piece at Eater captures perfectly. From whiskey to barbecue to coffee, Jackson points out the lies and erasure that underpin the craft culture unique to each scene. Jack Daniels learned to distill from Nathan Green, an enslaved man. A list of the hottest names in barbecue failed to name any non-white folks. Coffee is sold as though it's charity for the people harvesting the beans.
This isn't to say you can't enjoy your Irish coffee while gobbling down some tender ribs — but for your sake and for the sake of the culture, question the story you're being fed along with it.
[Eater]
Walking Isn't Fun For Everyone
I regularly get disappointed in myself because I don't go out enough. I hardly ever just go on a walk through a park or even a stroll around the block to clear my head. This piece at The Outline didn't resolve my personal struggle (I'm no more likely to get up from this chair and jog after reading) but it illuminated that having the choice to walk for leisure or not is itself an extraordinary example of privilege.
The author of the article Simon R. Gardner does more to make his point about walking than refer to those who can't walk or those who are forced to. He leapfrogs from Muir to George Romero to Patagonia so quickly your head would spin if the connective tissue weren't there. Walking occupies many different places in our culture, and you can suss out the disdain or reverence for it embedded in each instance.
Gardner's essay is a wonderful read, and it's probably best reflected on if you go for a walk. I probably won't give it its own time, but I'll surely think about it when I have to walk to the subway.
One Last Thing…
Marching in solidarity and protest isn't leisure (so drop those "protest is the new brunch" signs) but that doesn't mean you can't make it fun. I love this video from the anti-racist protests in Atlanta this past weekend. Why stay at home and sheetcake when you can show up and sing Ludacris?
[Digg]
