speech and respect - College of Social Sciences and International ...

The Excesses of State Regulation
inciting skinheads to murder a black immigrant, White Aryan Resistance
leader Tom Metzger vowed to continue his racist
propaganda. 3
Punishment confers visibility. 4 Frank Collin and his pitiful band of
neo-Nazis would have languished in obscurity had Skokie not tried
to stop them from "marching." When the KKK demonstrated at the
Colorado statehouse to vilify Martin Luther King's birthday as a "Day
of Infamy for America," 400 police had to protect the hundred
Klansmen from a thousand opponents, who fought the cops and
trashed nearby stores, producing extensive media coverage. The
state Klan leader welcomed the incident as "a million dollars worth
of publicity." Each weekend, when Klansmen drop The White
Patriot and other racist literature on residential doorsteps, "somebody
usually gets mad and makes a few calls. And bingo! We're
back on television." 5 Sentenced to six months imprisonment for 18
counts of racist slander on the Stockholm Community radio
network, Ahmed Rami emulated Hitler's Mein Kampf by writing a
500-page book about his persecution, entitled "Jewish Witch-Trial
in Sweden." 6 Jean-Marie Le Pen and the National Front gained
publicity and even sympathy during regional French elections when
demonstrators prevented their plane from landing, mayors banned
their gatherings, and police disrupted marches. 7
Black rappers have capitalised on the repression of their outrageous
lyrics. When 2 Live Crew were prosecuted for obscenity after
performing at a Florida nightclub, group leader Luther Campbell
used the trial to promote their next video, soon to be premiered on
MTV: "It's about how 2 Live Crew gets punished and sent to Cuba
and Castro is waiting for them." Sales of the album on which their
nightclub act was based had peaked at 1.2 million until bom-again
Miami lawyer Jack Thompson began a campaign against it, sending
copies of the lyrics to Florida Governor Bob Martinez and the sheriffs
of 65 counties. Sales promptly jumped to 2 million. Broward County
Sheriff Nick Navarro—nicknamed "Prime Time" for his frequent
media appearances—put undercover deputies on the case. The
rapper and the sheriff appeared on Geraldo Rivera's television talk
show, while Phil Donahue paired the rapper with the Christian
lawyer. 2 Live Crew responded with a new album, "Banned in the
USA," described as "a rap ode to the First Amendment." 8 The lyrics
of Ice-T's "Cop Killer," recorded a year before the Rodney King
beating trial, seemed to foreshadow the Los Angeles riots: "I got my
12-gauge sawed off/I got my headlights turned off/I'm 'bout to bust
some shots off/I'm 'bout to dust some cops off." After the worst civil
104