Friday, August 09, 2013

Hate Speech Plus Hate Thoughts Equals Hate Murder

The right wing and their conservasheeple are always shrieking about the First Amendment since the conservafools like to use it as a shield to stifle criticism of their reprehensibly racist and bigoted commentary. 

Yes, the United States Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees your right to free speech. At the same time, it guarantees that others with views contrary to yours will get their chance to call your loud and wrong behinds out for the racist and bigoted things you say. 

One other thing the right sneers at is the concept of hate speech and its connection with hate violence aimed at non-white and other marginalized groups.  They can try to deny this equation of injustice all they want, but world history and the over a decade of TDOR memorials prove it far too often.

Hate Speech + Hate Thoughts = Hate Murders.

Diamond Williams TransgenderWe in the trans community have sadly seen the pattern continue to repeat itself and with the elevated anti-trans rhetoric has come an explosion of anti-trans violence in Brazil, parts of Central America and Mexico, Eastern Europe and Turkey.

Their hate speech broadcast on their conservative talk radio stations, broadcast over their conservative leaning video outlets, and written in their blogosphere has real world consequences. 

Those words they speak get turned into action through either repressive legislation or worse, bullying that escalates to violence and murder.  

And it's not just conservatives that engage in it either, we have the four decade old example of trans exterminationalist radical feminists as Exhibit A of that.   (WARNING: TRANSPHOBIC TRIGGER ALERTS)

And oh yeah Southern Poverty Law Center, I ask the question again.  When are you going to declare trans exclusionary radical feminists as the hate group they are?   The trans community and our allies inquiring minds wanna know.

We've all heard the old nursery rhyme of 'sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me.'  Umm, not true.   Sticks and stones can not only break my bones, but words CAN hurt me and words CAN kill me. 

If you claim that's BS, ask the families of the trans people who are no longer here or show up at a TDOR ceremony near you and listen to the long list of names we'll tragically read once again around or on November 20..  

Hate speech + Hate thoughts = Hate murders.    The sooner we burn that into our minds the sooner we can get busy doing the work it's going to break that all too familiar equation feeding anti-trans violence.

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