0 black leaders are calling for an end to the use of the word “nigger”. An end to use its use by all—blacks and non-blacks alike.  Finally, if you ask me, a good dose of commonsense.  For the problem is a very simple one about language, namely that the use of a word cannot be confined to only one ethnic group.  Language isn’t like that at all.  Rather, language is extremely fluid; and the weight that we give to words is a function of the ways in which we use them.  Things cannot be any other way.  So the words which a group uses to refer to its members are necessarily informative to non-members of the group. 

This brings me to the word “nigger”.  Essentially, the black community has tried to say that there is a good and a bad way of using the word “nigger”—even among blacks.  That could be true.  The same phrase can mean different things depending on when and how it is said.  I have, for instance, said to my entire class of 400 students “I love you”.  Not surprisingly, no one thought that this was a declaration of romantic love on my part.  But that same phrase said one-on-one over dinner means something quite different. 

Again, a male student in my 400 member course remarked to me in the spring of 2005 “I love you”.  But I never thought for a moment that this was a declaration of romantic love on his part, since it was in response to some silly question that I had asked and the words were said in the most public context imaginable while we all multi-tasking, as they say.  And I am sure that he would have been stunned had I said anything to indicate that I took him to have romantic feelings for me.

So yes, there could be a good and a bad use of the word “nigger”.  A simple inquiry “What’s up my nigger?” (The “nigga” versus “nigger” spelling is really irrelevant here) could be a good way of using the word; whereas the sentence “You dumb nigger” would be a bad way of using the word.  To be sure, there would still be ambiguous uses.  This is because there is no way to remove the possibility of ambiguity from language.  Tone, context, and a host of other things determine what is called the uptake of a word, which is precisely how the word “bad” went from being only a form criticism to also a compliment.  A woman can say to a man “You are bad,” with a little extra “a” in the word “bad”; and it is clear to both him and her that she means to be complimenting him.

To be fluent in a language is to grasp all of this more or less immediately.  This is why people who are just learning a language are rarely able to joke in that language. 

At any rate, if there are bad and a good ways of using the word “nigger”, then of course non-blacks are going to pick up on it.  It would suffice, for instance, that they use it in the paradigmatically good ways whilst avoiding all the other ways.  So if “What’s up my nigger” is an unequivocally good way of using the word “nigger”, then precisely what one would expect is for non-blacks to use it that way.  And indeed that is precisely what has happened.  I have myself have heard whites address one another that way.

It is just foolish for blacks to think that they have some sort of moral copyright with regard to the word “nigger” and that only they can use it.  Language does not and will not work that way.  And this is the part that no one has wanted to say with regard to Michael Richards. 

Had the word “nigger” been entirely off limits, period, and so no one, black or non-black, was allowed to use it, then Michael Richards’s repeated utterances of the word “nigger” in his diatribe would have had a much greater gravity to them.  For then his utterances would have constituted a complete violation of a moral norm.  Thus, “nigger” would be to blacks what “kike” is to Jews.  I have never heard a Jew refer to another Jew as a “kike” in a joking like manner.  I suspect that nothing short of the occurrence of Hitler’s resurrection would have to take place before Jews would ever use the word “kike” in that way. 

To be fluent in American English is to know that the word “kike” has no positive connotations.  Why, the word cannot even be the vehicle for a very, very, very, very good joke.  The proof of this is that Jews never ever use the word in that way.  There is no inner-circle of Jews where the word “kike” is permitted in a joking way.  And if a person thought this, he would surely have had a most egregious misunderstanding. 

So if Richards had gone on a tirade about Jews while repeatedly using the word “kike”, there would have been no question whatsoever—and from the very start—that he had crossed the moral line.  It would not have mattered what he had ended up saying.  Had he said, for instance, “My best friend and wife is the sweetest kike who has ever lived and oh, by the way, she is Jewish, too,” the uptake would still have been horrendous.  One’s use of the word “kike” is not salvaged by proclaiming that that the person whom one loves is a kike”.

Blacks, then, have endeavored to do the impossible.  They have endeavored to have a word, namely the word “nigger”, that can have good and bad connotations, but only blacks get to use it in both ways. 

What black leaders seem to have understood, then, is that blacks themselves are part of the problem with respect Richards’s tirade with the word “nigger”.  For the leaders seem to have grasped is that if the word “nigger” prohibited across the board, including in rap music, then the probability of a tirade of the Richards-variety occurring decreasing astronomically.  It could not even have gotten off the ground.  It would not even be thought “Oh he is going to use the word ‘nigger’ in the good way, and then discovered that he meant to be using it in the bad way from the very start”.  This is because from the very start, there could, as with the word “kike”, only be a bad way to use the word “nigger”. 

Now, all this strikes me as painfully obvious.  And the fact that black rappers have gone on to use the word “nigger” in the lyrics of their songs which are widely listened to by whites is, to my mind, a profound sign of some form of social schizophrenia.  One does not need a doctorate in linguistics to grasp that this is tantamount to legitimating the word across the board. 

If tomorrow women started referring to one another as “bitches” in a kind of positive way—“Girl, you are one smart bitch”—you can rest assured that men would start doing so soon enough.  And then men, themselves, could go on to inform how the word “bitch” is used.

There is the rub.  Blacks have wanted to say that only they get to say how the word “nigger” is used.  That works only if blacks remaining unchanging in their consensus that the word “nigger” has negative connotations.  But to make the word “nigger” part of the language of rap music is to bring it about that non-blacks can contribute to how the word will be used.  Even if no white is ever free to call a black a “nigger”, the fact that whites use that word “nigger” in reference to one another is proof positive that have changed the use of the word. 

Let us face it: Not too long ago it would have simply made no sense at all for a white to say to another white “What’s up my nigger”.  That would have been an instance of a profound category confusion, at best, a fundamental insult, at worse.  Not so today.  The word “nigger” has to be off limits to all if its historical scourge is to be retained. 

At last, it seems that black leaders have recognize this; though, to be sure, their explanation is apt to be but a shadow of the explanation that I have given here. For the record, I find the idea of black leaders a bit obnoxious.  However, there is no need to make that argument here.  For a further discussion of my views regarding the use of the word "nigger" among blacks, see my blog-entry, written in May of 2005, entitled "On Appropriating the Word 'Nigger': Why Blacks Need Whites"

n commenting upon my entry on Michael Richards' tirade, a reader asked whether or not I would deem Richards a racist if, as in the case of Mel Gibson with respect to his antisemitic tirade, Richards had gone into a racist diatribe owing to having become totally inebriated.  As the reader observed: “. . . sometimes drugs or alcohol act as a “truth serum”.  The commentator has raised an extremely important question in general, namely: What is it that makes a person a racist or antisemitic?  I want to answer this question; and, as shall become evident, I hold that anyone of any ethnic group can be racist or antisemitic.  In answering this question, I hope also to say something about the particular question that the commentator posed regarding the difference between Richards and Gibson.

My first observation in this regard is that if the only time any of us would merit a clean moral bill of health is when it is true that we would never utter anything morally despicable about a group when we are entirely inebriated, then I am afraid most of would come up short.  In fact, I am pretty sure that I would fail that test; and I am rather confident that I am better than most in this regard. 

Most of us, I am afraid, have some prejudice or the other that we manage to keep in check.  Or, to put the point another way, while there may be individuals here and there who are entirely free of any horrific misconceptions regarding some ethnic group or the other.  It is simply false that ethnicity as such gives one immunity in this regard. 

While it has become fashionable to say that blacks cannot be racist, this is just plain silly.  Even if we should concede for the sake of argument that blacks cannot be racist towards whites, blacks most certainly can be racists towards other ethnic groups: Asians or Native Americans or Arabs.  And so on. 

But when Farrakhan claims that all whites are devils or when some blacks claim that whites have spread the AIDS virus among blacks, surely what we have is a most despicable mindset on the part of the blacks in question, whether or not that mindset is characterized as racist. 

What makes a person a racist/antisemitic (and, as I said at the outset, I assume that any person can be a racist/antisemitic)?  The answer is not simply that a person has an inappropriate set of feelings about people of some ethnic group.  For it is possible to have such feelings and to recognize that they are inappropriate and, moreover, to be committed to eliminating those feelings and, in any case, making sure that these feelings do not manifest themselves in one’s dealings with members of the group in question. 

To be sure, it would certainly be better not to have inappropriate feelings with respect to one ethnic group or another.  But surely the next best thing is to be committed to overcoming and not acting upon such feelings if in fact one has them. 

The antisemite/racist, by contrast, does not just have inappropriate feelings, but she or he indulges those feelings, and so has no commitment whatsoever to overcoming them.  Indeed, the antisemite/racist will explain evidence that goes against what she or he believes.  The KKK person, for instance, thinks that blacks are inferior to whites and Jews are morally bankrupt; and it simply does not much matter how wonderful any given black or Jew turns out to be.  Never mind that the world has no shortage of whites who are intellectually slow or morally bankrupt.  The KKK person is absolutely committed to the superiority of whites regardless.

So antisemitism/racism admits of a continuum, with the KKK person at one end and others at various points along the way towards the other end.  As I have said, perhaps some are entirely at the other end.  But that would surprise me.  Moreover, from the fact that a person is superb in one area, it does not follow that she or he is also superb in every area with respect to not being antisemitic/racist. 

And being a victim of oppression does not give one any immunity.  To move beyond the black-white-Jewish spectrum: Muslim Arabs at this point in time may be the object of considerable racism.  Alas, I know for a fact that many Muslim Arabs are quite prejudiced against blacks on at least two accounts.  Blacks are deemed, by many Arabs, to be morally loose and intellectually bankrupt.  Painfully, many Muslim Arabs have no intentions of overcoming their racism.  Quite the contrary, they indulge their racism with regard to blacks.* 

Now, I agree with the commentator that what we say when we are drunk can be revealing but a lot depends on the context, this brings me to the case of Mel Gibson versus Michael Richards. 

As far as I am concerned, the problem is not just that Gibson went on a rant about Jews when he was drunk.  Rather, it is that he did this in the in the context of being stopped by a police officer.  That is what makes his antisemitic tirade so terribly stunning.  Whenever I have been pulled over by a police officer for driving with enthusiasm, the people towards whom I have biases do not leap quickly to mind.  If all it takes for a person to lambaste Jews is that he gets a flat tire or he misses a flight or he is stopped by an officer for driving while intoxicated, then that is surely a very good sign that the person is indeed antisemitic. 

I understand that many Jews think that his film, The Passion of the Christ, was antisemitic.  Suppose, then, that he was pulled over for driving while intoxicated by a police officer wearing a specially designed yarmulke for Jewish police officers to wear and the officer says: “In addition to producing an antisemitic film, you have the audacity to drive drunk”.  Well, this amounts to a provocation and that changes everything.  It might not make Gibson less antisemtic, but it would give us an explanation for an antisemitic remark on Gibson’s part—and explanation that we do not have in the actual case. 

Now, Michael Richards did not walk on the stage and proceed to denounce blacks by repeatedly using the word “nigger”.  Had he done that, then we have a problem whatever his state of mind might have been.  Rather, his tirade with the repeated utterances of the word “nigger” came in the context of being heckled by a few blacks in the audience.  This does not justify what he did.  However, it does give us quite a difference between the Gibson case and the Richards case.  We get a difference if both were drunk or using mind-altering drugs.  We get a difference if neither was. 

Suppose that during a cross-Atlantic flight, there is a 15 minute period of horrific turbulence.  If a person started denouncing gays or women or Jews or blacks or Arabs or whomever, we would think that quite telling, whether the person was drunk or not.  By contrast, if more than three-quarters of the passengers on the plane begin denouncing that person in some way or the other and all or nearly all these individuals are of a given ethnicity, it is easy enough to see how that person might say something racist about the members of that group.  Here, too, it would not much matter whether the person is drunk or not. 

Most of us have moral blemishes.  Under normal circumstances, we manage to live without those blemishes being brutally scratched.  But my suspicion is that if a deep enough scratch occurs, most of us would lack the self-command it takes not to say something woefully inappropriate.  I have seen how vicious people can get simply when they are deeply hurt.  The variable of race or ethnicity simply provides another vector along which people can hurt another. 

In order to gain an advantage in court, women have accused the husband from whom they are divorcing of sexually abusing their children.  It does not get much nastier than that.  When people want to hurt others, they will often use anything at their disposal.  At this point in time, it is just plain foolish to suppose that when ethnicity is involved, people will not avail themselves of it when they are absolutely vulnerable and hurt.

Mel Gibson’s rant about Jews at the time he was driving drunk had nothing whatsoever to do with being made vulnerable by Jews.  For instance, far from losing money over The Passion of the Christ, owing to concerns voiced by the Jews that the film was antisemitic, Gibson’s net worth increase about 20 fold: from a mere 30 million dollars to near 600 million dollars. 

By contrast, Richards was before a predominantly black audience some of whose members began heckling him.  This may have produced a most profound vulnerability on his part.  For when it comes to comedy, a predominantly black audience can be exceedingly demanding with respect to the genre of comedy that pleases it—especially when that comedy is coming from a white person.  Thus, on this view Richards may have profoundly missed the mark and did not know how to recover from that. 

For all I know, Richards may be racist.  Just so we have a very real difference between his racism and Gibson’s antisemitism.  That is, we have a qualitative difference between the way in which each revealed himself to be bias.  And we should not overlook this truth, not because either is excusable, as I have not argued any such thing, but because we have difference that is real and fundamentally important between the two. 

Gratuitous racial/antisemitic remarks are one thing.  Those that come on the heels of having been rendered extremely vulnerable and provoked are quite another.  I would prefer neither.  But if had to live with one or the other, it is manifestly clear to me that it would imminently rational for me to prefer the latter.  Those who insist that there is no moral difference between the two are either being more than a little naïve or way too disingenuous.** 

In the famous words of George Orwell transposed to the moment: It may be that all biases are equal, but some are more equal than others.

*Between 1996 and 1999, I had the marvelous experience of informally working in a store located on the south-side owned by a member of the Syracuse Muslim community and to be invited to a few homes in that community. 

**It is obvious, I trust, that the remarks of this essay apply equally to homophobia or sexism.  I assume that in none of these areas does anyone qualify for sainthood.  And if anyone should qualify for sainthood in one of these areas, I am absolutely certain that he does not qualify for sainthood in all of them.  As I noted in the initial essay on Richards, the area of sexual desire strikes me as quite informative here.  It is, of course, preferable not to have inappropriate sexual desires.  But if we miss that mark, the fall-back is that of not acting on the inappropriate desires that we might have.  And there is no gainsaying the reality that this fall back is of the utmost moral significance.  Yet, if a person is inebriated, she or he might not have the self-command in this area that she or he would otherwise have.  And if the person became inebriated because someone spiked her or his drink as a cruel joke, then the drunken person's salacious behavior might even be morally excusable.    

lthough there is much talk about being transgendered; and universities seem to be willing to validate the idea, I find that no one has really made sense of it to me—at least not in the sense in which people seem want to legitimate the idea.  No, I am not about to engage in a diatribe against people who claim to be transgendered.  What intrigues me is that I cannot think of anyone reason whatsoever to accord being transgendered the kind of category status that people seem to be willing to accord it. 

Contrary to what someone might think my objections are not on moral grounds.  Certainly, there are far more important moral issues to worry about than a person of one sex going about in public with the demeanor and attire of the opposite sex.  Yet, there is something amiss here.

Consider, for instance, the claim that on the part of a man that he feels like a woman trapped in a man’s body.  Notice that we never hear anyone saying that “He is a black trapped in a white’s body” or that “She is an Asian trapped in a black’s body”.  And if, nowadays, a black claimed to be a white trapped in black person’s body, this would be considered by virtually all as overwhelming evidence that the black does not an adequate sense of self-respect. 

Let us concede this point for the sake of argument.  But what about the other examples?  And what about a black feeling like a Native American trapped in a black’s body?  Then there is this: if having self-respect is incompatible with any sense of ethnic migration, why is having self-respect not also incompatible with migration from one gender to another?

So why do we allow one kind of migration but not the other?  For I would have thought that the two kinds of migration stand or fall together.  Or, in any case, if gender migration makes sense, then ethnic migration would have to make sense as well.  For it is certainly not plausible to argue that ethnic identity is more fixed that gender identity. 

The self-respect point is particularly compelling.  If it is an axiom of self-respect that we be accepting of our racial identity, and so not seek to hide it, then how is it even possible that this same consideration does not apply with equal force to being female or male?

I have never heard anyone raise this consideration.  People who would be utterly aghast if a black or a Latino or a Native American sought to have a different ethnic identity think absolutely nothing of applauding the idea of transgenderdness.  This is thought to contribute to diversity and a more accepting and tolerant world.  But ethnic migration would do the same thing—and all the moral so, since there are so very many different ethnicities that are at play here.

At the practical level, nothing would more readily render phenotype utterly vacuous than radical “transethnicity”, if you will.  We would pretty much have to wait until a person identified her or his ethnicity, as the individual understands it, since phenotype in and of itself would not give us a clue.  There would be Asian folks declaring themselves blacks, and white folks declaring themselves Native Americans, and blacks folks taking the Irish route. 

So, once more, it is something of a mystery to me that it is politically correct to be utterly malleable with respect to male and female but totally rigid when it comes to ethnicity.  I do not for the life of me see how we can have it both ways.

Many in the university talk about transgenderdness as if the final frontier before complete social freedom is achieved.  Yet, these very some folks drink from well of rigor mortis when it comes to ethnicity.

Now, as I mentioned at the outset, I have not raised any moral criticism of transgenderedness.  Indeed, nothing I have said about transgenderedness even touches the issue of sexual orientation.  For there is no incompatibility whatsoever in having same-sex sexual attraction while being completely content with the fact that one is either a male or a female.  In particular, if in the end, talk about transgenderedness makes no sense at all, it will not follow in the least that homosexuality also makes no sense.

Evidence of same-sex attraction is that people have spontaneous and uncontrollable moments of sexual arousal towards members of the same sex.  There is no analogous form of behavior that supports the idea of transgenderedness.  In the respect, one can see how the idea that homosexuality is biologically linked at least has a point to it.  But not so with transgenderedness.

What, then, is the point of these remarks?  As I have already indicated, that a person of one sex should have a demeanor and wear attire that is generally associated with the opposite sex, isn’t worth getting agitated about.  However, many people would have us believe that being transgendered is entitled to, as it were, minority status.  Perhaps it is.  But no one has come even close to making a good argument to that effect.  And that is rather revealing.

smart racist does not commit professional suicide.  So while it may true that Michael Richards is a racist, and I do not claim that he is, we should be careful not to be so content with saddling him with that assessment.  I have no commitment to Richards being a racist.  I have no commitment to him not being a racist.  Rather, it is merely my view that we need a more careful examination of what took place.

In discussing the remarks by Richards at the Laugh Factor in Los Angeles (17 November 2006), not a few of those with whom I have spoken have suggested that he merely revealed his true self.  On this view, the real Richards who is racist finally came to the fore.  Unfortunately, this cannot be quite right.  For the question immediately arises why didn’t he keep his true self undercover this time, just like he has been doing all along; for it doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out that if one is white and in the public eye, then repeatedly referring to a black as a “nigger” is not good for one’s career.  Even a dyed-in-the-wool 140 lb KKK person has enough commonsense not to call a black line-backer a “nigger” to his face.  That would more or less be rather like committing suicide, since one imagines that the black line-backer would tear into the 140 lb KKK man with the ferociousness and strength of a lion going after a dear.

Now, I always say that when a smart person does what is so brazenly imprudent and thus contrary to her or his self-interest, then we probably need to look for an explanation other than the obvious one.  If indeed a 140 lb KKK person called a black-line back a “nigger” to his face, we would all ask what one earth possessed him to do that.  An adequate explanation would not be, and could not be, simply that our KKK person is a racist.  For we already know that.  What we would want to know is what on earth made him, the person whom we know to be a racist, risk his physical well-being by calling a black line-backer a “nigger”. 

This is precisely the case that we have with Michael Richards.  Calling him a racist is not a very insightful as an explanation for his diatribe—in a very public setting no less—using the word “nigger”. 

Now, some people have maintained that a black comedian could have easily gotten away with saying “nigger” repeatedly.  Well, I am not so sure about that.  Even among blacks, there is all the difference in the world between using the word “nigger” in a sketch and calling someone in the audience “nigger”, where this is actually addressed to a particular person.  What is more, the cool, “What’s up, my nigger?” is one thing; whereas it is quite another to use the word repeatedly: “You nigger this” and “You nigger that” and “Nigger you once had nothing”.  And so on.  This would not go over well at all.

Among blacks, there is not the freedom to use the word “nigger” indiscriminately.  If I say to a black “You are nothing but a dumb nigger”, I have hurt him on two accounts.  I have told him that he is intellectually bereft; and I have added insult to injury by calling him a “nigger”.  Whites who think otherwise are either radically misinformed or more than a little naïve. 

It is also said that Richards should be cut some slacks because, after all, black comedians say all sorts of horrendous things about blacks.  Again, my sense is that blacks talk about whites as honkies and as crackers and so forth.  I do not condone this.  But once more, it should be noted that this is never to a specific white person in the audience.  That is, it is never done to denounce a white person in the audience.

I suspect that Richards might have been able to get away with using the word “nigger” had he done it in right way.  The problem, then, is not so much that he used the word “nigger”, but that he used the word to denounce blacks in the audience; and contrary to what many seem to think, using the word “nigger” to denounce a black person is not acceptable among blacks. 

So what on earth would make the white person named Michael Richards go into a diatribe of denouncing some blacks in the audience by using the word “nigger” repeatedly, when it takes not an ounce of commonsense to grasp that this is tantamount to committing professional suicide?  That is the question. 

I do not have an answer, but I am confident that it is not enough to say that he is a racist.  The blacks who do so are, I am afraid, too busy playing the game of being hurt.  The whites who do so are too busy congratulating themselves for being able to call another white racist.  Both ought to be ashamed of themselves.

A man self-destructs on a stage in front of everyone, and all that people can fix upon is that he used the word “nigger” repeatedly in the throes of that self-destruction. 

If in the middle of a lecture I started referring to women as “bitches and whores”, it will be manifestly clear that I will have crossed that line.  But it will also be manifestly clear that my behavior is so out of character that something in my life must be terribly wrong.  This would not excuse my calling the women students “bitches and whores”, but it would shed some insight into why I have done so. 

It could be that I had just learnt that morning that my formerly cancer ridden wife, whom I nursed back from death, is having an affair with someone.  This would not excuse my language.  But it would make sense of it. 

What I do know is that if the only thing that people could say is that I am now sexist and that I have been sexist all along, my response would be that they are more interested in pointing a finger of accusation at me than attempting to understand me. 

Let me be clear.  To understand why something happened is not thereby to excuse it or to forgive it.  But there is a world of difference between merely being accusatory and actually understanding why a person behaved as he behaved.

We might easily accuse the 140 lb KKK person of being a racist for calling the black line-backer a “nigger” to his face.  But we have some insight into why he did that if we know that his wife had just been raped and killed by several black football players, though we do not excuse the KKK’s racist remark.  

Racism as such is not the explanation for Richards’s behavior.  I suspect that some very deep pain is.  This holds even if we allow that Richards has always been a racist.  For one thing, none of us is perfect.  Racism, like sexism or antisemitism, is not an all-or-nothing of matter.  Like the others, racism admits of degrees. 

No doubt all of us have feelings that we should not have.  But if we manage to keep those feelings in check, then that is to our credit.  If I have great sexual desire for Joachim’s wife, but I never in any way let on that I have such feelings for her, then I am doing what is right although my feelings are inappropriate. 

If Richards has been a racist all along, then it is no small feat on his part that he has been so masterfully able to keep his feelings in check.  For that, he deserves credit.  Thus, we can ask: What happened that Richard was no longer able to keep his racist feelings in check, and so engaged in a diatribe in which he denounced blacks by repeatedly using word “nigger”? 

I suspect that Richards knows what happened.  But I also suspect that Richards knows that revealing the explanation will only make matters worse.  Why?  Because we live in a society that takes more delight in being accusatory than gaining insight into a person’s behavior.  A man has a total melt-down and all people can seem to fix upon are the word “nigger” that he repeatedly uttered while the melt-down was taking place and then content themselves with calling him racist. 

If this is right, then what seems like a tremendous concern with social and racial injustice, given all the finger pointing, is really none other than a great many folks being more than a little self-absorbed.  Is it not conceivable that determining what occasioned the Michael Richards's melt-down is at least as important as saddling him with the charge of racism?  But one shouldn't expect self-absorbed people to think that. 

f it is true that actions speak louder than words, then American society has got to be one of the most hypocritical societies on the face of the earth, singularly lacking in a sense of perspective.  On the one hand, we go on and on about protecting our children.  On the other, we seem to lack the moral resolve to do just that.  Insofar as it is indisputably true that children are the future, it seems to me unquestionably clear that we must make a concerted effort to protect them.  This brings me once again to the enormously popular website, MySpace.Com

As you may know MySpace.Com is extremely concerned with copyright infringement.  So persons who post videos with copyrighted music playing in the background must remove the music if they want their videos to remain available. 

The very, very important point here is that MySpace.Com is itself taking whatever steps necessary to insure that there is copyright infringement. 

Yet, the very same sight that will pursue copyright infringement to the hilt, nonetheless allows convicted criminals on death row to have a regular MySpace-page.  The criminals do not have direct access to the internet.  Rather, they have friends and families that create the site for them. 

I understand the concern of free speech.  There is also, however, the issue of the normative force of punishment.  This should not be obliterated. 

It is not in any way a good thing that so powerful a medium as the internet should blur the distinction between law-abiding citizens and the guilty.  Something has gone wrong when a person who is in prison for being a serial rapist or murderer, say, can appear like a “normal guy” on MySpace.Com because his family “loves” him. 

There is a difference, surely, between writing about John Doe, the convicted murderer, and presenting a MySpace page that stands as the persona of John Doe, the convicted murderer, except that nobody knows that he a convicted murderer.  A family, or a friend, or anyone else should be free to write whatever they please (matters of defamation and the like aside) about those in prison for having committed heinous crimes. 

Just so, no one in prison for having committed a heinous crime should be allowed to have a MySpace-page.  Nor should anyone be able to maintain such a page in the name of the criminal where it appears to anyone browsing MySpace that the person’s page is just another webpage among a multitude of others.  This is because the effect of doing so is that a morally significant distinction is annihilated—a distinction that is crucial to the very fabric of our society. 

The distinction between the innocent and the guilty is a ground-level distinction that is a cornerstone to right and wrong.  This is a distinction that must be validated rather than obliterated. 

Most significantly, we cannot raise our children properly without this distinction.  Thus, it is one that society needs to validate at all levels.  And this society can do only if the criminal is not allowed some privileges that the law-abiding citizen is allowed, where this pertains to more than the liberty to move about freely.

Now, to be sure, criminals are human, too.  This is a truth that we must never forget.  But from this immutable truth, what surely does not follow that we should ignore the distinction between guilty and innocent.  Nor, a fortiori, does it follow that criminals should have exactly the same privileges with respect to free speech as innocent citizens have. 

I do not hold that we should be committed to the exact intentions of the framers of The Constitution.  Yet, it seems clear to me that we should not be ludicrous in our application of a principle.  The idea behind free speech is that citizens in good standing should never have to fear for their well-being in expressing their opinions.  The thought was never that there is a realm in which criminals should have exactly the same privileges as law-abiding citizens; otherwise, the humanity of criminals is being diminished.  In particular, the thought was never that freedom of speech constituted that realm. 

Who is in prison for a heinous crime and who is not is public information.  There is no reason on the face of this earth why cyberspace should not be required to reflect this reality.

And all that this requires is that no one who is in prison for a heinous crime can be portrayed on the internet without that fact being an integral part of the portrayal.  Families do not get to represent, on-line, their loved-ones in prison as saints.  Religious folks do not get to intone that everyone needs to be forgiven; hence, religious folks do not get to portray rapists and murderers, on-line, as innocent folks just like everyone else. 

Danielle Allen is reported to have said “The way I look at it, if we can’t forgive, then we can’t be forgiven”.  And the she adds, referring to 4 death row inmates, “These are my personal friends”. 

Needless to say, the use of religion to justify being oblivious to the moral pain of others is absolutely abominable.  Ms. Allen has no right to speak for others or to carry-on as if she is the arbiter of how much damage families have suffered as a result of the heinous crimes committed against this or that family member.

In any case, not even the religious have the right to blur the distinction between the innocent and the guilty.  If Allen wants to claim 4 death row inmates as personal friends, then that is all well and good.  She has no right, however, to obfuscate matters for others. 

The fundamental point here is that MySpace.Com could easily enough implement a few rules governing who can have a webpage on the site and the conditions under which they can do so.  Here is one, call it a Declaration of Sentencing rule: “No one on death row can have a webpage unless that the fact that she or he is on death row and the reasons for the verdict are prominently displayed at all times on the webpage”.  This information is public; it is purely factual.  No commentary would be necessary.  Indeed, it would even be inappropriate. 

With this Declaration of Sentencing in place, people can go on to say whatever they please regarding their loved ones on MySpace.  But at least there would not be any form of misrepresentation.  Besides, a most important opportunity for moral learning would occasionally present itself.

But this makes too much sense—too much moral sense, that is.  So MySpace.Com will continue to be relentless in its pursuit of those who engage in copyright infringement by posting a video with music in that background which they do not have permission to play in a public venue. 

In the meantime, those who have been convicted of having committed heinous crimes can be portrayed on MySpace.Com as saints by their friends or religious zealots. 

Sounds like a society desperately in need of help in terms of what is priorities should be.   

f you were to give me a copy of O. J. Simpson’s proposed new book, If I Did It, to be published by ReganBooks: I would be downright insulted; and I would not keep it.  At best, I would throw it in the trash.  If I could burn it in some public way, I would.  My doing so would be symbolic of the utter moral opprobrium I have for the man.  The man who had a history of wife battery, and who murdered two people: his estranged wife and the mother of his children (Nicole Brown) and her friend Ronald Goldman. 

Now, I understand that a verdict of not-guilty was rendered.  I further understand, and fully accept, the principle that a person cannot be tried twice for the same crime, given that a verdict of not-guilty has been rendered. 

But if any man can be accused of flaunting the fact that he snatched a verdict of not-guilty from the clutches of justice, it is O. J. Simpson.  There is a kind of moral posture that is appropriate in this sort of instance that Simpson has never ever portrayed.  On the one hand, there should have been the public expressions of relief and appreciation that his moral character had been vindicated.  On the other, there ought to have been absolute outrage on his part that the killer of the mother of his children was still out there.  

As to the first, Simpson’s demeanor from the outset was that of a child who had managed to take cookies from the cookie-jar without getting caught.  Simpson had beat the system; and his demeanor made it abundantly clear that it was in this fact that he mightily reveled.  That is how he behaved then; that is how he behaves now.

As to the second consideration, namely that the murderer of his wife remains uncaught, one has to be an irredeemably callous person in order to be indifferent to that fact.  I understand that we sometimes take a devilish delight in the suffering of those whom we despise or whom we feel have wronged us.  But we tend to draw the line at death.  This is especially so when it is the life of a mother who is still caring for her young children. 

True, he was not and is not (as a presumed innocent person) under any legal obligation to be concerned with finding the murderer who is still running free—to this day, no less (since Simpson is innocent).  But so what, there are lots and lots of things that we have no legal obligation to do, but which we morally ought to do and can be considered morally despicable for not doing.  If I more than have the means to do so; and you have just lost your job (due to no fault of your own), then I surely ought to lend you the $20 you need to buy some food for your children, though there is not a law on the books that obligate me to do so. 

O. J. Simpson ought to have made an effort to find the murderer of his wife.  At least, there ought to have been a show of concern if only for the sake of his children.  In writing these remarks, I suspect that I have felt more concern for his children than he has.  That is an awfully harsh thing to say.  But I am afraid that it is true.

As I have indicated, Simpson has continually flaunted the fact that he beat the system; and this latest endeavor on his part, a book in which he offers a hypothetical account of the murder of Nicole might have happened, is completely beyond the pale.  The reports repeatedly suggest that this hypothetical account is so descriptive that one has to have a lobotomy not to infer that he committed the bastardly deed.  In fact, the account is referred to as a confession.  So there he goes again: flaunting the fact that he got away with murder. 

He cannot be tried again.  He should not be tried again.  Just so, he should not profit from evil.  If ever there were a person in recent times from which there should radical disassociation, O. J. Simpson is that person. 

Why radical disassociation?  The answer is very simple.  We have a moral obligation not to commit wrongdoing; and we have no less of a moral obligation not to be complicit in wrongful behavior.  It would be morally fulsome of anyone to lend money to someone, knowing full well that this someone wants the money in order to buy a gun so that he can commit a murder or rob a bank. 

If, for the moment, we suppose that Simpson did not murder Nicole, what we know without a shadow of a doubt is that he has been masterfully indifferent to her death, and so to the death of the mother of his children.  That makes him pretty wicked, which is reason enough to maintain quite some distance from him.  In a Dr. Laura Schlessinger like manner, I ask: Would you want to introduce such a man to your children, I can only hope not.  And that is just on the basis of his strident callous indifference.

When we add to this that the likelihood of his having killed both Nicole and Goldman is about as certain as we can get in this uncertain world, then to associate with him is really to associate with evil personified.  But to publish a book in which he describes hypothetically their murder with so much flair that there is no room to maintain a distance from reality and then to give him over three million dollars for the manuscript is not just to associate with evil but to reward it mightily. 

Then we wonder why our children are like they are, as if the example we have been setting before them is one of saintliness. 

As Jean-Paul Sartre observed, the best indication of what we value is what we freely choose to do.  A loaded-gun pointed at my head will excuse lots of behavior on my part.  But I have no one to blame but myself for being drunk if I go to the liquor store, buy 2 six-packs, and drink all 12 bottles while watching television at home.  There are several steps here, any one of which I need not have performed.  After the 2nd beer, for instance, I could just as easily have said: Enough !

ReganBooks is giving Simpson over three million dollars for the manuscript If I Did It.  And Fox TV claims that it is going to air two segments on Simpson.  If this does not constitute enabling a man to profit from his wrongdoing, then I do not know what does. 

I would love to have ReganBooks and Fox TV explain this to children, all the while saying that children should value living an upright life. 

Oh right, I almost forgot: It is newsworthy and the people have a right to know.  Well, there you go.  What looked like promoting evil merely amounts to reporting it.  Voilà.  It is all good. 

Well, this line of thought might have some credibility were it not for the more than 3 million dollars that are an inextricable part of the equation.  ReganBooks surely wants to recoup its financial investment; and the Fox TV interviews will mightily serve that end.  What do we want?  Book sales.  Lots of books sold; after all ReganBooks wants to make more money than the 3 million it gave Simpson.

Therein lies the very heart of my problem.  There is no amount of hand-waving that will change this reality.  And it is this reality that sets a most fulsome moral example for the young in society, precisely because it stands as a most vivid and robust examples of what we really value: money over moral values. 

A final comment: Many will insist that it is not our place to judge.  Well, this has become a tiresome excuse for tolerating evil.  What conclusion might I draw about a supposedly innocent man showing more brazen indifference over a period of 10 years to the fact that the mother of his children has been murdered than most of us show when a dog has been hit by a car?  And what exactly is the point of Simpson publishing a book that describes in gruesome detail this hypothetical case of committing murder?  If he wants to write murder novels, then let him do that.  But if not tasteless, then what conclusion might a person reasonably draw about what Simpson, ReganBooks, and Fox TV are doing?

To say this is not to judge.  Rather, it is to draw precisely the inferences that are warranted given the wealth of behavior that Simpson has been displaying and given the wealth of behavior that is now being displayed by all three parties.  If there were no money involved, I would draw a very different judgment.  And that, too, would be appropriate to the reality of the moment. 

If we may not rightly conclude that Simpson is profiting from wrongdoing with the help of two powerful corporations, namely Regan Books and Fox TV, then it is about time to revive the theory that the earth is flat!