Larger Issues (John Speaking)
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Those are all things we can do on campus. I think they are all worth doing. What I worry about is that a concentration on hate speech on campus or in society will distract attention from issues that are more important to ordinary African Americans. I don't think our debates about speech have much to do with their problems. Consider these conditions:

• A disproportionate number of blacks still live in poverty.
• The unemployment rate of blacks is always considerably higher than that of whites.
• We have a large underclass of chronically unemployed people, disproportionately black, living in poor, high crime, drug infested areas.
• Homicide is one of the leading causes of death among young black men. In most cases, these killings are black on black.
• A large percentage of black kids are being raised without two parents in the home. That's a recipe for poverty. It's usually the mother who has to care for that child; and no matter how strong she is, she is not going to bring in the money that two parents would.
• The lower level education of many black children is very poor. A disproportionate number of blacks are functionally illiterate.
• Segregation in housing is still the rule; and furthermore, the housing of many blacks is of poor quality.

All of these problems are resistant to change. Most have been reinforced by recent economic changes like downsizing and the increased use of computers at work. We need better analyses of what's happening and better solutions to apply.

Now my question is: What has hate speech got to do with any of these problems? I think the answer is "very little." I think Vera and Malik are overestimating the importance of speech in both the creation and persistence of these problems. And to the extent that we concentrate on speech, we are not concentrating on the real causes.

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