People Don't Understand The First Amendment

William C. Walker Jr.
May 31st, 2018

Debate over the first amendment is brought back to the forefront this week after a pair of divisive statements from two female comedians. The first was a racist tweet from Roseanne Barr where she compared a former Obama administration advisor Valerie Jarrett to an ape.  The result Barr's very popular rebooted show Roseanne was cancelled by ABC. It's a decision that most applauded ABC for it's swift and decisive action in the face of an act that was blatantly racist.  The second act this week was from Samantha Bee while on her show Full Frontal on TBS. Ms. Bee during a segment criticizing the Trump administration immigration policy called Trump's daughter and advisor a "feckless c***".  If you can't figure out the starred out letters the word starts with a C and rhymes with bunt.  Yikes! Needless to say the act did not sit well with the White House or many right-wing conservatives. Well they wasted no time in comparing Bee's actions to Barr's and screamed hypocrisy for TBS not following a similar course that ABC chose.

Now I'm not going to spend a great deal of time on the differences between the two comments, other than there's a clear difference between vulgarity and racism.  Barr's comments were very clearly racist comparing a black person to an ape has been used by racist from the moment blacks stepped foot in this country.  Bee's comments while vulgar it wasn't racist, in fact one could say it's similar to a vulgar statement Trump made while on an Access Hollywood bus.  This is about those that choose to try and defend both under the statement "It's the First Amendment they can say what they want".  It's clear to me that a lot of people don't seem to understand the First Amendment.  Mainly that people seem to think that The First Amendment protects those who exercise it from zero consequence.  While the First Amendment does indeed protect those from persecution from the government it doesn't mean that there's no consequence from that person's actions.  For example Roseanne had every right to be an bigot and spew her hateful speech, and her employer ABC had ever right to terminate her employment due to her actions.  Just like Samantha Bee can call Ivanka Trump whatever she wants, but she also has to deal with the consequence of her losing sponsors over it.

The First Amendment remains extremely important especially during a time period in this country when those who are in power are openly at war with the press. I just hate when those try to use the First Amendment as some kind of defense for a bigot like Roseanne Barr.  Players in the NFL that are exercising this right to protest police brutality for example is one that exemplifies true patriotism, which is why it was put in the constitution in the first place.  Even in the face of the consequence of the NFL threatening them fines for doing so,  The right to say what you want  will always remain in this country, you'd like to see people use it in very positive and productive ways, like these NFL players, and like those that protested against racism during the Civil Rights movement.  I don't want it to continued to be used as an active shield for those that like to spew hatred and venom, though I want those that choose to do so to understand by all means you have to right, but you also have the right to suffer the consequence.