SCHOLAR: FREEDOM OF SPEECH

One of the main themes of the video, “Zero Tolerance,” was that the police are representation of society and their values. Therefore, if the police are racist then it is indicative that society is also racist. In Sociology, I believe that racism is a social construct. It is a way to exploit the short comings of various races. I believe that we as a society should continue to promote zero tolerance on this subject matter as it can be considered hate speech. Although that may be the case I also do consider that freedom of speech is necessary.

A social construct is a construction of reality by the society. They make preconceived notions about a certain subject matter and then it is shared with the society wherein that it proliferates popular culture which then results in a social construct. Social constructs are also considered stereotypes. There are many stereotypes in society today and they are a result of social constructionism. With pertinence to the video, I see they mentioned police racism as one of the topics. Police need to be very careful as to not be racist as they are the reflection of society cohesion.
Social constructs are a way for others to destroy the image of another. These people use these social constructs to create in people a self-fulfilling prophecy which evidently alters a person’s path. If one encounters these stereotypes often and they are in an environment which supports this discrimination there is a high likelihood that they will be affected by these negative statements.

I still do believe that society should continue to promote zero tolerance on the subject matter. We as a society should be communicating in a respectful manner. Although I say this, I would like to emphasize that explicit language has been used in the past to proliferate culture, such is the case with Hitler’s regime. We need to be able to find contexts wherein that language can be used in such a way that it does not interfere with the competitiveness of information delivery. In this day and age, we have become a sensitive society, so sensitive in fact that we have been shutting down conversation that possibly promote advancements in our society. In order to have competitive information we must be able to communicate in such ways that it does not shut down our channels of communication. Therefore, I recognize the importance of the concepts of hate speech in our country but I feel we need to be able to develop a method to deal with it which does not shut down communication. The Americans have the first amendment and it is evident that they are the hegemon nation in which all societies base their decision. I feel they are the super power because they have a system which promotes competitive communication through the first amendment. And this competitive information allows their society to continue to progress and maintain their hegemony.
I feel that one of the ways we can improve upon our sensitivity is through promoting an increase in the confidence of the people. People who shut down communication due to their being offended are really selfish and are victimizing those who actually may have important things to say. This is a two-way problem but really, who is the victim here? Is it the one that is directly offended or is it the one who is indirectly offended? The one who is directly offended is the one who shuts down the communication. The indirect offended is the person being shut down. This really is a matter of confidence. We need to be able to fix the confidence of our people so that they do not get offended and this can be down through the media. Worst case scenario is that there will be a boom in the security industry like the needing of security guards or surveillance.