Public Response To Racist Speech Summary

In “Public Response to Racist Speech: Considering The Victim’s Story” Mari J. Matsuda addresses the topic of hate speech, and the legal rights surrounding it. She argues for the implementation of legal restrictions on hate speech. She makes the theoretical arguments that hate speech can be a causative factor for legitimate harm to individuals; she justifies the need for restrictions on hate speech by citing the various harm that can be conducted by individual that possess such speech. She claims hate speech can cause: psychological effects, internalization which in turn leads to low self-esteem, violence and discrimination, alteration in the mind of others and a feeling of not being protected by a governing body or exclusion from a community. …show more content…
He argues that confident person experiences hate speech differently than an individual that lacks self-confidence; he points out that hate speech isn’t the main factor in and individual self- esteem but, rather the amount of confidence an individual already possess.3 An individual that is confident will view hate speech as petty and nothing to worry about; they will trivialize it because sticks and stones break bones but words have no weight. A person that is not confident will be more impacted by the use of hate speech because they already have a low self-esteem. 3 He even states that “Matsuda argument that it reduces self-esteem seems far too speculative and indirect to warrant criminalizing otherwise protected speech” Arthur also negate Matsuda point about hate speech leading to violence and discrimination by stating “My suggestion is that passing and vigorously enforcing laws against violence and discrimination themselves is a better method of preventing indirect harm than curtailing speech” 3 Overall he argues that violence and discrimination need to be dealt with as a separate issue instead of being thrown haphazardly in the free speech