Anti-Span Video Analysis

In the CNN article, The meaning of tolerance in the Trump era, anti-Trump, journalist, Isaac Bailey, advises readers on how those who did not vote for Trump’s “bigotry and misogyny” should handle their relationships with people that did. The author uses a C-Span video with an admittedly prejudiced veteran and a situation involving religion and homosexuality on the Ellen Degeneres Show, to help define when, “it makes sense to be tolerant of opposing views”, and when, “it is appropriate to separate yourself from potentially soul-sapping relationships”. The C-Span video he writes about of a disabled veteran admitting the wrongfulness of his racial prejudice and asking how he can overcome it, as an example in which one should tolerate someone’s …show more content…
Bailey’s first example, where tolerance is the “right” response, describes an instance in which a racist veteran calls in on a segment of “Washington’s Journal” and asks the African American hostess what he can do to change his racist mentality. While Bailey intended this to be an instance demonstrating when tolerance is the right response; it also actually ends up being an instance that demonstrates why intolerance should never be appropriate, there is no way to predict what someone else has to say. Had the television hostess declined talking to the racist man on the chance that he would say something that would offend her and other black Americans, the compassionate and enlightening conversation that followed between the prejudiced man and hostess would have never occurred, nor would the video have gone viral and positively affected so many …show more content…
The author argues that Ellen Degeneres, who is gay herself, was “pitch perfect” in her choice to disinvite scheduled performer, Kim Burrell, after a video of Burrell referring to homosexuality as “perverted” went viral. While the video of Burrell is harsh and directly relates to Degeneres, who is married to another woman, Burrell’s stance on homosexuality stems from her religious views and her comments were made while she was preaching a sermon. Degeneres certainly has a right to disinvite Burrell if she chooses, but to say that Burrell is not to be tolerated, is wrong, maybe there would have been an enlightening discussion on the issue or maybe it wouldn’t have been discussed at all. Regardless, Degeneres does not have to agree with Burrell’s view, but she does have to tolerate it, just as Burrell has to tolerate Degeneres’ pro-gay position. Oxford philosophy professor, Nicholas Shackel, states it well in his essay on The Fragility of Freedom of Speech when he writes, “Freedom of speech is either the freedom to say things that others find detestable or it is no freedom at all […] we are all obliged to tolerate the expression of what we find detestable”. With the freedom to speak about what we believe, also comes the obligation to listen to things that we don't