walrus

Here is a controversy occurring in an area not too far from my own. It has already made state-wide news and I wouldn't be surprised if the national wires pick it up.

At a small tanning bed supply store near my area the owner has put out a signboard. This signboard reads as follows:

"Is Micheal Jackson not guilty because he is a nigger, or has money?"

I personally find the content of this sign repulsive. However, I also believe it falls under freedom of speech. The sign is on private property, but is visible from a major roadway.

The only legal recourse I could see against this sign would be to rule that the word "nigger" violates obscenity standards. However, that is opening a whole new can of worms. It cannot be illegal for one group of people to say a word, yet legal for another. If this sign is ruled obscene, suddenly virtually every hip-hop song ever made becomes obscene.

As I said before, I do not agree with the sign, although I support this person's right to display it. However, if I drove by one day and saw five or six huge black dudes beating the ever-living crap out of the guy - I am afraid I would be too overcome with laughter to phone the police for at least half and hour.

__________________
"If a man isn't a liberal by the time he is twenty he has no heart. If a man isn't a conservative by the time he is thirty he has no brain." - Sir Winston Churchill

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aps

The argument could be made that those are "fighting words" which is an exception to the free speech right.

http://www.ci.slc.ut.us/mayor/speech...guidelines.htm

I would be embarrassed to use that word--ever. Even if I hung out with African Americans and they called each other by that word, I could not bring myself to use it.

BTW, Jackson is guilty. He is a pig.

JustMyPOV

While perhaps the sign could have been worded less offensively, he has every right to display his ignorant language in his window. You can't draw a line when it comes to free speech, or you invite that line to be moved on any sort of governmental whim. On the plus side, whether or not you agree with that or any other court verdict, you're free to say so without fear of persecution.

Canuck

Freedom of speech overrules the obsenity in this case

And all the names on that list are the real obscene thing

What should happen is a real big ass black guy ought to grab the list and track down the people and do a reverse rodney king on them
and then burn the slaon to the ground

chaos must be used in a situation like this the law of the land is obsolete

vauge

It would be interesting to know the race of the owner of the tanning supply store.

It might make for a different perspective, especially if the owner was African American.

If he were, would it be just as repulsive?

FinnMacCool

Its a disturbance. If I put a huge sign on the outside of my house that said Fick You and Your Friends! that doesn't benefit anybody so I don't see how I could possibly hide behind freedom of speech for somethign like that as it creates a public disturbance.

HOWEVER, the same could be said about someone putting a sign of Bush with the words Not My President on it and taken down for being a public disturance thats what bothers me. I'm not so worreid about the current laws (cept the patriot act) but any effort to try and even slightly lessen my freedon of speech makes me a bit frightneed because How far can it go?

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FinnMacCool

Oh whoops. double post.

akyron

Yet hide they do.

Advocating violence during a war protest is quite a spectacle of hypocrisy at its lowest levels.




Fighting words indeed.

These guys are awaiting the delivery of a well deserved beatdown.

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galenrox

Well, the thing about free speech is that people should be able to say whatever they want. He'll pay for what he says, I doubt people will be frequenting that tanning salon as much

Does anyone else find it ammusing that a guy running a store whose sole purpose is making white people darker is calling a man whose skin is lighter than mine a nigger?

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akyron

Yeah its silly.
This guy is a moron even though its a bar not a tanning salon.


MIJAC RACISM REARS HEAD IN GEORGIA

This statement appears on a sign that greets patrons outside a bar in Paulding County, GA. The owner, Patrick Lanzo, says the First Amendment protects his right to have the sign up. The NAACP quickly pounced on Lanzo, launching a petition to urge District Attorney Drew Lane to enact legislation that would force the sign’s removal.

“The sign is racist, hateful, and disrespectful, not only to the African American community, but to all of us who cherish equity and unity in our one human race,” reads a statement accompanying the online petition. “In addition to that, the sign is also a direct slander of Mr. Michael Jackson. No American should have to feel offended, or threatened as they travel through, or within, your county.”

Lanzo, who has a number of racist images in his Georgia Peach Museum bar (including cartoons of Klan members lounging on lynched black men and items disparaging Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.), has been putting up signs for the past 10 years that pose questions about celebrities in the headlines. When asked why he chose to use the N-word on the sign, he said: “Because it’s my choice of word.”



There is a petition to get rid of it but the guy has been there for 10 years. Its likely he will be there annoying people for quite a while. I doubt any petition will have an effect unless the law gets involved somehow....