(April 8, 2009 at 6:26 am)rjh Wrote: I disagree with the first three words since in Jade's case I do not see how the incident would classify as hate speech under the aforementioned definition. Now correct me if I'm wrong and I quite probably am on account of having a colander for a brain and not seeing the footage for years, but as far as I remember she did not make a hateful comment. The comment could not have been hate speech unless of course we extend the definition to cover people not present nor referenced in the speech. However, then once again we again have a problem over a definition too general to be useful.If a person says something like "Black people should go back to Africa" and they are among friends or like-minded people, and nobody present gets offended, then I don't class it as some kind of breach on free speech. I would thus further define "hate speech" as any public display of speech that espouses hate. Perhaps I should have been more clear about that, as it is important. For instance, me and my friends (some even black) have a good laugh at racist jokes because we're all friends and we simply find them amusing.
For someone to make a public statement (as Jade did on national TV) that causes offense to people (and it did, as some protests in India showed if I recall correctly), then it is hate speech. It may have been a stupid remark, she may have not meant it, but at the time it was hate speech and needs to be apologized for. I'm not saying it's all her fault. This would never have happened if Channel 4 hadn't broadcast it.
