Defining Our Era?

Wokeism. Cancel culture. The dangers are all around us--and seem to be growing. Is this how history will remember us, as people who treasured freedom of speech, well as long as it doesn't offend anyone? No micro-aggressions allowed. Freedom of speech (and all of expression) is easy to embrace if we agree with the speech. It becomes far more troublesome when it involves ideas we hate. But that's when freedme of speech is most necessary. Voltaire purportedly said more than 200 years ago, "I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." But today is different. People from all walks of life are getting penalized, even fired from jobs, for what they say and have said in the past, as long as decades ago in some instances. Some, for voicing views others find disagreeable, have had their home and business addresses posted on social media (Yet another reason to despise social media.), opening them up to the woke, cancel culture mobs. I read a recent poll where a significant majority of Americans highly regard the freedoms of the First Amendment. At the same time, a majority indicated they have refrained from expressing an opinion because of fear of the consequences from the mob. All this in the United States of America! No US citizen should fear to express him/herself. Not to mention years and years ago; who didn't say or do something stupid when a kid? This was carried to an extreme (which seems to be becoming more the norm as weak, cowardly, and ignorant leaders cave to the mobs) earlier this year. A journalism professor at a state university was suspended and then fired (There was a separation agreement with the help of a rights organization.) from his position because a student, just one, posted on social media that he, the professor, was a racist. Over the years, this professor has taught several thousand students, but only one, just this one of them, has made such a disparaging remark. To this student (I have no idea if a he or a she, black or white, or whatever.), the professor is "racist" because he used the "N" word in class. Making it worse, he used it more than once. In fact, he has uttered it many times in the course of teaching this class over the years. Aha! But wait a minute! What this professor did, many times, was quote directly, verbatim, from a US Federal Court of Appeals opinion, one written by Judge Damon Keith. In case you don't know, the late Judge Keith possessed one of the greatest legal minds this country has ever seen. He was a decades-old civil rights activist, going back to the '50s and '60s. Oh, Damon Keith was a black man. I know the word "icon" is tossed around far too casually these days, but Judge Keith was a legitmate icon. Yes, in his opinion, Judge Keith wrote the "N" word several times, citing the plaintiff and knowing it was central to the case--one concerning free speech! The instructor merely read from the Appeals Court's ruling, nothing more and nothing less. When this student's social media (Don't you just detest that term!) post was brought to the attention of the university's administration, the professor was suspended upon review. He was given no opportunity to explain, that he was quoting from Judge Keith's opinion, using the judge's own words. Several months later the professor was given the ziggy, still not allowed to defend himself. This is merely one example of cancel culture run amok, with just plain rotten consequences. So many things are wrong here, spelling out the dangers Americans and freedom of speech now face from the woke crowd. First, the professor should have been invited in to explain the episode. The issue should have been dead as soon as he did. But he wasn't. Second, this student should have been questioned by university officials. The line of questioning should have focused on the student him/herself. Did he/she not know what the professor was doing? If not, if still offended, the officials might have suggested the student find another school to attend. (Long ago, in a far different context, after one of my very sub-par papers, one of my professors suggested just that. "If that's the best work you can do, I suggest you transfer to another school." Gulp!) After all, if this is how limited this student's thinking skills are..... Third, a return to the college administration. Talk about ignorance to the point of stupidity! What college official, presumably with one or more college degrees, would take such action--to suspend and then dismiss this professor for this? Was there any any examination of the situation? My guess is there wasn't. The college administration didn't know about the legal giant Damon Keith, he from their own state! Could the officials be such dolts they didn't recognize this professor's attempts to get students to think? Are they really that ignorant? Their actions lead me to believe they are. Instead of the professor losing his job, the university officials responsible for that should have been canned! Their incompetence is an embarrassment to the school. Perhaps both this student and the college officials operate under the premise of "No thinking allowed." Apparently we have reached the point where people must be careful, extremely cautious, about what they say about their beliefs and views. Does the fate of thinking people now lie in the hands of people, including bosses, who are either unable to think rationally or too cowardly to stand up to ignorance and stupidity or both? Are the mobs coming after us next? After all, in their ignorance, they have torn down monuments to even Abraham Lincoln.