Readers Write: Ask the editors to change the rules

The Island Now

Last week’s editorial (“Our rules for a robust public debate”) should have been written in response to several racist, pernicious letters published in the Readers Write section of this paper. Instead, it came as a response to the Mayor of Great Neck and an opinion piece I submitted almost two weeks ago.

To be clear, Mayor Bral and I were responding to and advocating for very different things. Let’s not conflate self-interested politics with antiracism.

The editors claim “the difficultly of determining what is a fact and what is not” as an excuse for not properly fact-checking their letters. I agree with this claim in certain cases. However, when it comes to racism, the facts are never nebulous. Maybe they’re difficult to hear or engage with, but excusing racism on this basis—because it is too thorny or tedious to challenge—is to be complicit in structures of oppression that have existed in this country for centuries. They will continue to exist so long as people in power remain comfortable with inaction.

And although there are no laws in the U.S. controlling hate speech—in the press and otherwise—it is not “a difficult line to define.” The definition is actually quite clear. According to the United Nations, hate speech is “any kind of communication in speech, writing or behavior that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, color, descent, gender or other identity factor.”

Debating whether Joan Swirsky’s words are implicitly or explicitly racist is not productive; racism is racism, no matter the degree, and should be treated as such. Further, of the two, I’d argue that implicit racism is often more insidious.

To shy away from naming racist behavior and ideology at this moment in our nation’s course is to regress. Whether the editorial board admits it, publishing reprehensible ideas in the newspaper unmoderated or without proper context validates them. They can sit back all they want and hope for readers to respond to “bad ideas with good ideas and the facts.” But shouldn’t we expect better of them?

I refuse to participate in a “marketplace of ideas” or a “robust public debate” that concerns someone else’s rights, humanity or existence.

Conor O’Byrne
Great Neck

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