Free speech in the US faces different threats

• Source: Global Times
• [20:55 November 26 2009]
• Comments

In New York the 130,000 teachers in the public schools are not allowed to talk to reporters before getting approval from the Department of Education.

It's arguable that government agencies and corporations have rights to protect their privacy. But many times people decline to talk for fear of being punished, even when the topic is nothing related to the employer.

One banker recently told me "the company wants to be low key, and we were told not to talk to a reporter about anything." He gave me that answer even though I was only asking about his experience as a new immigrant in the US.

But still, a more dangerous threat to freedom of speech in the US may not be the top down iron hand but the self censorship engaged in by people every day.

This is a country in which a series of laws have been enacted to try to deal with long standing economic, racial and gender inequality. But at the same time this has created over sensitivity and a culture of victimization among some people. As a result, honesty often has to give way to political correctness and opinions have sometimes to be zipped away.

Using "African American" to replace "black" and "undocumented immigrants" for "illegal" may only seem like modest steps toward political correctness, but if a white manager doesn't dare to tell off poor performing black staff so that he avoids a racist label then something is just not quite right.

Sometimes, honesty can lead to a more direct loss.

In New York City, if a hair salon lists different prices for male and female clients on its window, it can be fined $500. This is the case even though everyone knows women's hair usually takes longer to cut than men's.

Of course all of this isn't quite the equivalent of Chinese media censorship.

But the question of freedom of speech can be as much about grays as about black and white.

The author is a New York-based journalist. rong_xiaoqing@ hotmail.com