So I am asked when can a person be "labelled" as racist, xenophobic and so on, and when it is a matter of freedom of speech. The solution to this question resides mostly in the question itself. You have freedom of speech when you speak. Either from the perspective of a joke or even personal beliefs, speaking in a certain way about a race or nation will most of the time fall under free speech. The exception to this "rule" is the role the person exercising the right of free speech fulfils. To give an example, a joke a saw recently went like this:"Q: What is the difference between Hitler and Usain Bolt?
A: Usain Bolt can finish a race"
Funny or not, it is for you to decide. If I repeat that joke, it is an issue of how my interlocutor takes it. But it is in a wide way, a free speech. Now,if that joke is repeated by a country's president,there is an issue. What gives me the right to hide behind "free speech" while a president cannot? The very function and responsibilities we undertook at some point in our life.
Take note, the content of free speech isn't meant to be liked by ALL the people. The term itself offers this premise. Any offence taken by someone exposed to the described pattern of free speech, is the responsibility of the offence-taker. Judging a person for conflicting your views and even worse,acting on that judgement,in the lack of absolute truth, shows nothing else but daunting immaturity.
Free speech turns into racism and xenophobia swiftly when a person, no matter who they are, perform actions on these personal beliefs. When it is no longer a speech, but actions, physical under form of violence or written, passed as "laws", then it is clear how to label the person at hand.
Another important part of this is the minority. A lot of people live under the impression, and it is a false one at best, that a person or a group of people that are usually the target of racist and xenophobic content cannot be themselves racist or xenophobes. Slavery is as racist as a person being attacked because they're "white in the wrong neighbourhood". Antisemitism is as racial and national sickening as it is demolishing Palestinian houses to make room for Jewish residential buildings.
And that's that. Just a small glimpse of a very wide and content broad subject. At the end of the day, this post, along with many others, have no other purpose than to put in perspective how you can be a better person. What is a "better person"? Well,
that is a story for another time.
