No, Mr Allison freedom of speech does not give someone the right to be racist and sexist

Is it ok to have racist and sexist views and even voice them on Social Media? Andrew Allison is head of campaigns at The Freedom Association. He suggests in the Opinion column in the Yorkshire Post on Monday 22nd August titled ‘Andrew Allison: Thought police are £2m threat to free speech’, that it could and should be. Mr Allison is rightly questioning why the Met Police are about to spend £2m on setting up a unit to ‘investigate inappropriate comments on social media.’ He refers to the volunteers who are going to assist as ‘busybodies’.  He states that it is very difficult to decide what is offensive or inappropriate. I would not disagree. There needs to be clear guidelines and ultimately a court must decide.

It is very difficult to keep policies and laws up to date when the use of social media as a tool of discourse changes so rapidly. The history of Twitter is recent. It came about as a way of letting your ‘friends’ know what you are up to and the 140 characters was based on SMS messaging of 160 characters, allowing space for a username. It was free to use. It is now one of the most popular social media platforms. I am a keen user of Twitter. I follow a few friends and family, but my real use is to see news as it breaks, follow historians, criminologists, educators and police accounts. I use it to help in my work and to let people know about my thoughts and research. It is a marketing and media tool. There have been examples recently where I have seen people I follow getting ‘Trolled’, which is a polite way of saying they are being harassed, bullied and abused online. This is usually because they fight against sexism and a misogynistic culture.

What concerns me about Mr Allison’s opinion column is that he justifies his views by harking back to the days when he was growing up and jokes about the Irish were prevalent, even from Irish comedians. He refers to the jokes as being old fashioned now, but not warranting any criminal record. I am probably around the same age as Mr Allison. I grew up with English, Irish and Scotsman jokes. I also grew up with jokes about Chinese people, black people, people from the Indian sub-continent, Africans, Germans, French and Italians. Well, indeed just about anyone who was not white English. My views changed, and society has thankfully changed. Let me try and make it clear to Mr Allison. These jokes about other cultures and races were invented by the English to make the English feel superior to all other nations and cultures that we had either conquered, occupied or beaten in war. Why do you think that just about every nation wants to beat England in sport? ‘Jokes’ were there to keep the other cultures down e.g. Irish people being less intelligent and so on. Yes, Irish comedians did make jokes about themselves and their countrymen. This is often referred to as pro-racism. The person will make jokes about themselves or others from their culture or race in order to be accepted or fit in to the dominate culture. Irish comics were trying to make a living in England. I would hazard a guess that they might not have done quite as well if their acts had been jokes about English people being stupid.  It is no surprise that Mr Allison does not mention that jokes about non white people were prevalent. I presume that there may be two types of racism at play here, acceptable racism and non-acceptable. Let me help on this point, all racism is wrong and hateful and should be dealt with under the law.

His next point is that if someone makes comments about Islam they can expect to have their collar felt, but mention Christians and it is open season. Christians have to take it on the chin is his comment. It is simply wrong. Hate crime cover all religions and beliefs. Mr Allison might want to take a look at the True Vision website to find out more. Britain, despite the fact that it is becoming an increasingly secular state and attendance at Christian churches continues to decline, is based on a culture of Christian values and laws. In the vast majority of areas in the UK, Christians can move around without fear and enjoy all the freedoms society brings, because most Christians understand the societal norms, even if they do not recognise them.

Mr Allison’s next target is sexism. There is a whiff of the Donald Trump is his opening sentence, ‘If you believe that women shouldn’t have careers and should not be allowed out of the house unaccompanied (a view prevalent in some parts of our society) you could rightly be accused of sexism.’ He says that holding sexist views should not be a crime. In many ways Mr Allison is correct. We all have views that are prejudicial against one group or another. In an ideal world we would not be prejudice, but we are products of our upbringing and the values and norms instilled into us. What we cannot be is discriminatory. Some of us manage to change with the times and adapt, even embrace diversity. It has been a difficult journey for many. I was a police officer for over 30 years. When I joined the police service, many of the officers I worked with were, racist, sexist and homophobic. Luckily, the force I proudly worked for changed, but there are still individuals who hold these views and behave inappropriately, even illegally. The service should continue to remove these people, be they police officers or police staff. A recent example of an officer misusing Twitter was PC Graham Wise of Cleveland Police, sacked for Gross Misconduct. 

Mr Allison speak from a very ethnocentric perspective. He might like to walk in someone else’s shoes for a while and see life from a different perspective. It would make little difference, as he can always return to the safety of his world.

Freedom of speech in a democratic society is a right and a right that we should hold dear. With any rights comes the responsibility not to abuse them. We should be able to challenge ideas and even offend sometimes. I have no doubt that my blogs do not always meet with everyone’s approval. What we should not do is hate, bully, intimidate and harass.