THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD
(apologies to Keith Olbermann)
Chris Rincon
Chris Rincon, a former car wash worker in Houston, was fired from his job after racially disparaging comments he made about the First Family on Facebook found their way onto a Tumblr page dedicated to making people who publish racist remarks online lose their jobs. Users on the Racists Getting Fired (and Getting Racists Fired!) blog post screenshots and photos of people who make racist comments online along with contact information for that person’s place of work. Readers are then encouraged to repeatedly contact the person’s place of work and urge their employer to fire them, but discouraged from harassing the individual and their family. That’s what happened to Rincon, who posted a fake story to his Facebook page in December about Malia Obama getting pregnant and proceeding to use racial epithets to describe her and her family after commenters told him the story was fake…. “We just like talking shit about the (racial expletive),” Rincon posted.
It would be easy for me to jump into this debate with guns blazing, opining at some length about how Chris Rincon got what he deserved. Perhaps he did, but there’s another aspect to this argument. As much as I hate to think about defending an ignorant racist knuckle-dragger like Rincon, there’s also this little thing I like to call the 1st Amendment, which guarantees the freedom of speech and expression. Consider that, and one begins to realize that Rincon’s situation, dumbass though he may be, is not as simple as it looks.
As I’ve said far too many times, free speech can be and very often is obnoxious and objectionable speech. I’ll exercise my free speech rights by stating for the record that Chris Rincon is an idiot, a knuckle-dragging racist barely worth the time of day, much less column inches. While I hate the thought that this might be construed as defending him, there’s an issue in play far bigger than Rincon’s egregiously offensive and monumentally ignorant speech.
Rincon has a right to speak his mind, just as those of us who disagree with him have the right to call him out for his offensive racist buffoonery and ignorance. What he posts on his Facebook page is as racist as it is offensive; of that there can be no doubt…but the 1st Amendment guarantees him the right to broadcast his idiocy to the four winds if he so chooses. He didn’t threaten the President and he wasn’t advocating for violent revolution. He may be a dick and a racist, but there’s no law against those things (we’d have more people IN jail than out otherwise). Rincon was simply exercising his 1st Amendment rights, disgusting and offensive though that speech and expression may be.
Here’s the question I believe is (perhaps deliberately) being left unaddressed: Do people offended by what a person says or writes have the right to bombard that person’s employer with demands that he be fired?
Rincon told BBC that he did not deny using the word, but was really bothered by the situation “because I’m not the only person who has views in this aspect.”
“It made me lose my job,” Rincon said. “I have a three-year-old kid that I’m trying to support … They’re basing (their views of) a person off of one post instead of actually knowing the person.”
Set aside for a moment Rincon’s epic hypocrisy: “basing (their views of) a person off of one post instead of actually knowing the person.” Ignore that he refused to extend the same consideration to the Obama family that he demands for himself; Rincon’s self-serving hypocrisy is another debate for another time. No, my concern is with those on the Internet who feel it their right to demand the head (figuratively speaking) of someone “guilty” of expressing opinions they find offensive?
DO people have the right to act on speech they find offensive? Is there a right to endeavor to quash the expression of opinions they find objectionable? If you think the answer to those questions is “YES!,” who gets to make those decisions? Who gets to draw those lines? More importantly, what happens when the table are turned? What happens when you become the target? It’s easy to assume the mantle of righteous indignation, but what’s lost in that feeling of self-superiority is the truth that there’s nothing to stop someone from doing the same to you.
I ask these questions because I know that the tables could very easily be turned, and in my case, because of the nature of what I do, that becomes a very personal consideration. If we don’t stand up for the rights of those with whom we disagree, who will be left to stand up for us?
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Chris Rincon may be an idiot, a racist, and a miserable excuse for a human being…but that gives no one the right to orchestrate a campaign demanding that his employer fire him. Without a doubt, he should be held up to (serious and well-deserved) ridicule…but persecuting someone for (poorly and hatefully) speaking their mind is not just wrong. It’s unAmerican.
Harboring politically correct beliefs shouldn’t be a prerequisite for working at a car wash…or anywhere else. Rincon’s constitutionally-guaranteed right to express himself may yield some bitter fruit, but he still deserves to be able to support his family. The folks on the “Racists Getting Fired (and Getting Racists Fired!)” may be claiming victory, but I’m not certain what it is they think they’ve won. In this instance, it seems pretty clear to me that there are no winners. Unless enforcing political and ideological orthodoxy is to be considered victory.
If that’s the case, the freedom of speech and expression no longer exist.
