Edward 1 Ellen Edward Professor Ms.

Garvey WRD 103 19th Novemeber, 2012 Response to Alexandra Wallaces Right to Freedom of Speech

Freedom. Speech. Two words that were brought together to give liberty to the American people. An idea thought out by the founding fathers. An idea, I imagine, that they never thought could have caused so much strife 100 years down the road.

I was recently introduced to a video made by a former UCLA student, Alexandra Wallace. Publicly deciding to take a little less than three minutes of her life to share unlawful events with the world, Alexandra claims there to be major injustice taking place at UCLA, in which it has clearly been affecting her life in unimaginable ways.

Alexandra decided to construct a video response to the unlawful events that take place in the library at UCLA. Throughout the video, we see that Alexandra clearly states her thesis, her argumentative claims and her conclusion. Providing evidence to the claim that, this wasnt just a video she thought shed make at the spur of the moment. Therefore, to think that this video would be taken lightly is just a bunch of malarkey. What Im saying is, yes, I believe that she intended for the video to be shown around her social circle. Throughout the entire campus, however, is

Edward 2 debatable. Regardless, fact of the matter is, just like the plague, it spread. Unavoidably.

Starting off with a disclaimer, she makes sure her audience knows that she is not the most politically correct person, which immediately made me think, if youre going to sit there and enlighten us for the next 2 minutes or so and offend some people with your political un-correctness, I dont knowmaybe that should be some sort of indication to not make the video.

Before I get ahead of myself, I should probably explain to you just what this video entailed. Its about how Asians at UCLA are a disturbance to the public in libraries, or to put in other terms, its about an ignorant American female singling out the Asian race by making distasteful comments about their culture.

When looking back at the video, I realized that Alexandra managed to go the whole 3 minutes or so without saying one positive thing. Instead, she decides to make ching chong, ling long derogatory slurs and makes racial generalizations by saying shes never seen anyone other than Asians talk on the phone. All of this immediately raised my eyebrows, as it just shows how ignorant and just how blatantly offensive shes being.

Now, Im not sitting here not saying Asians dont in fact talk on their phones while theyre in the library. Sure, Im big enough to admit that Ive had moments where

Edward 3 that has happened. I can even go as far as saying that some Asians know theyve committed such a crime, or have known others of their race to, but in my experience, it has always been solved by me politely asking them to take their phone call outside or not at all because those are in fact the rules of the library. Its just the matter of educating some who grew up in a different culture, or someone who doesnt know proper American manners, as Alexandra simply puts it in her video.

As I was watching the video, I sat there thinking that what she said couldnt get any worse, and every-time, without fail, as each second went by, Alexandra managed to prove me wrong. There was one instance during the end of the video where she completely crosses the line by mentioning the natural disasters that have been happening in Asia. Alexandra goes on to say that when she tells one person to keep it down, another one from over there somewhere begins talking, I swear theyre going through their whole families just checking on everybody from the tsunami thing, she ends up saying. This just left my jaw struck wide-open, and I was shocked. Its not just offensive, but it should have never been said. Its obvious that even throughout all the education Alexandra has been through, cross-cultural awareness, was never taught, or just simply never stuck.

So lets take a defensive stance on Alexandras behavior and bring this back to her freedom of speech. Did Alexandra have every right, according to the United States court of law, to make a video expressing her thoughts? Short answer, yes. Alexandra could have made thousands of videos, about all sorts of races, and she could have

Edward 4 walked down the street freely with no consequences to her actions. Thats the beauty of America. Thats the beauty of liberty. But lets channel our morals. Is it morally right to single out one race and make generalizations and racial stereotypical claims that are made to offend? Our society doesnt think so. Society has made racism a subject that is never to be taken so lightly. In fact some countries around the world, such as Singapore and Sweden, have deemed racism an actual crime against their court of law. Is it a crime though? Id say it is, because it purposely puts others in danger, just like if you were to mug a person.

What many people wanted to know after hearing Alexandras video was how the UCLA administration handled the situation. It was reported that UCLA Chancellor Gene Block sent an email to students and released a video response stating that Alexandras views are in no way reflective of the UCLA community as a whole. The university also stated that they would examine Wallaces video to see if it violated any part of the student code of conduct, but also cautioned that that the code does not usurp the authority of the First Amendment.

Honestly, I would have handled the situation just as they did, reaching out to other students to ease their emotions, whilst doing extensive research to see if Alexandras actions are punishable by the Universitys codes. Clearly handling the situation, or what they could of it. And, all in all, I think thats what irks me the most, there ended up being no consequences to her actions simply because of the First Amendment.

Edward 5

We are all aware that college is the first real life like environment that tests our own personal morals and beliefs. Unlike high school, in college you are more than likely going to run into a girl protesting animal cruelty, encouraging you to turn vegan, or a tree hugger, who strongly wants to preserve one of earths oxygen sources. College is the place where, by simply forming an organization and pinning up posters onto bulletin boards, you can easily find people with interests as obscure as your own. Bu in turn it also means, its easy running into someone opinions that differ from your own. And as much as it may offend others, I think its important to have such a diverse body of students, to show what the real world is like. I do however think it has its limits, and Alexandra crossed it.

So yes, in America we all have the right to believe what we want to believe, and to say what we want to say. But proudly, I stand firm in the corner that says, not if it infringes on the rights of another individual, and Alexandras video clearly did.