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

Introduction
created the necessary atmosphere for mastering the anachronistic
minutiae of kite fees, court attire, and the conveyancing monopoly.)
Second, for more than 20 years Cardiff has been a centre for sociolegal
studies, not only in Britain but throughout the world. The
Journal of Law and Society was founded there in 1973, just three
years after the law school was established in the Faculty of Social
Science, and quickly became one of the leading international
journals in the field. Cardiff has hosted numerous conferences; its
curriculum introduces undergraduates to sociology of law; and
many faculty members engage in sociolegal research. Since my
approach in these lectures is more sociological than legal, Cardiff
offers a hospitable environment. Finally, it seems fitting that lectures
about insiders and outsiders, dominant and subordinate cultures,
should be delivered in Wales.
There is something anomalous about an American law professor
addressing a British audience on the superiority of their laws and
customs (which may be why I am only the second to be invited and
the fifth from outside Britain). Because I naturally have drawn on the
American experience and literature, I fear that many of my examples
may appear arcane and exotic. Yet I believe there are common
lessons to be learned. Status inequalities do not respect national
boundaries; indeed, the massive increase in international migration
has aggravated and complicated those inequalities. My first lecture
deals at length with the conflict surrounding The Satanic Verses; and
its other two topics—pornography and racial hatred—have provoked
almost as much controversy in Britain as they have in the
United States. I believe that the struggle for respect will continue to
intensify in both countries. The United States often seems about a
decade ahead of Britain in the construction of social problems (and
California a decade ahead of the rest of the United States). When I
moved to England in autumn 1965, after a summer as a civil rights
lawyer in Mississippi, I was asked to speak about that experience to
local Labour and Conservative Party meetings and at conferences.
Those audiences always assured me that race was not a problem in
Britain—an opinion I found hard to reconcile with the "no coloured"
signs I constantly encountered in seeking a flat in London.
Within a few years, not surprisingly, Britain heard Enoch Powell
warn of "rivers of blood" and witnessed violent racial conflict,
which has continued to escalate. At the same time, Britain is ahead
of the United States in acknowledging the ways that speech reproduces
status inequality and seeking to do something about them.
I have not re-written the lectures for this book (although I had to