Matthew Lee
Staff Writer
After great controversy and backlash, the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Associated Students Senate approved College Republican’s proposal to fund a talk featuring political commentator Ben Shapiro. He will be coming to UCSB to present a speech titled “Prejudice, Lies and Divided People: The Legacy of #BlackLivesMatter.”
Despite great opposition and an emotional back-and-forth between supporters and detractors on the topics of hate speech and free speech, the decision has been finalized. Although we are in the midst of the most divided America in recent memory due to the state of race relations as well as the recent election results, Ben Shapiro’s future appearance is protected by rights of free speech.
UCSB, like most public universities, is a dominantly liberal campus. Millennials overwhelmingly support liberal and Democratic views, but there is always a small niche of conservative and Republican students scattered on each campus. As a person who leans right myself, there is no doubt a stigma and even a sense of judgment against conservatives at UCSB, especially if one is outspoken about their views. There’s nothing wrong with expressing what you believe; this is America and everyone has the right to think a certain way. There’s also nothing wrong with disagreements, political or not, as long people are willing to have a civil discussion or debate.
This being said, it came to no surprise that Ben Shapiro was met with such animosity and opposition by many groups and students, such as the Black Student Union. After all, he is coming to give a speech that directly refutes the values and movements BSU stands for. Regardless, no one sponsored by A.S. should be interrupted from their event in a disrespectful manner. A.S. has already approved Shapiro to speak after hours of furious debate and all students should respect A.S.’s conclusion as they are the student leadership of this campus.
Shapiro is a civilized man that takes his arguments seriously and enjoys discussions and debates with other people, and I respect that about him. Unlike other conservative political figures, such as Milo Yiannopoulos, Shapiro tends to stick to facts, using logic to support his arguments, and rarely attacks liberal contentions using comedy or jokes. He is a serious man with a serious agenda: to inform and educate other people by offering a comprehensive argument of his point-of-view and rebutting any counter arguments using evidence and examples to back up his words.
Shapiro’s appearance at UCSB is one I am looking forward to. He’s a respectable man that takes politics in a serious manner and gets down to the basics of argumentative debate to get his point across. Instead of protesting and trying to drown out the sound Shapiro using a pure numbers advantage like what has happened to conservative speakers in other universities (such as the University of Massachusetts) it would be constructive to see Shapiro’s opposers stand up to him in a civil debate.
It’s always great to witness a back-and-forth, respectable debate between two opposing sides where people are cool, calm, and collected. In the end, we’re all adults. Who wants to see two groups of people yell insults and gibberish over each other? If anyone has a problem with Shapiro, they should bring their grievances to the podium and challenge Shapiro in the same playing field, using articulate speech and evidence to support their point.
There’s no doubt that Shapiro’s upcoming appearance has brought outrage and disdain among many groups of students here at UCSB. But one thing is for certain, the decision has been made and there’s little to nothing anyone can do to change it. As humans, we should respect each other and give credit to people who are brave enough to express their views, even if those views are not agreed upon by a large group of people. If you oppose what Shapiro says, I encourage you to speak up in a civil manner and challenge him in debate.
“As humans, we should respect each other and give credit to people who are brave enough to express their views, even if those views are not agreed upon by a large group of people.”
Call me a fucking fish then, because I have no obligation to respect someone “brave” enough to trash a movement whose purpose is to protect the sanctity of human life. The discourse of “civil” and “calm” debate is such a silencing tactic. God forbid some people show the slightest bit of emotion when discussing the murder of their people by the government.
“I have no obligation to respect someone “brave” enough to trash a movement whose purpose is to protect the sanctity of human life. ”
If you like BLM, you should criticize BLM when it does something immoral or strays from the message. You must make it clear that bad behavior detracts from the cause. To condemn and silence those that criticize would only encourage extremism and rot from within. Or is it that only you get to criticize BLM? Or maybe you think BLM never did anything worthy of ridicule?
The discourse of civil debate is a silencing tactic? I think you should probably get your head examined.
“God forbid some people show the slightest bit of emotion when discussing the murder of their people by the government.”
No one said showing emotion was bad. It is only when it crosses the line and results in violence or calls to violence that he takes issue with. And furthermore, Black people are not a homogeneous group. Racial identities are being sold to us by the media to try to divide us. Any emotional loss a black person feels, when someone with the same color of skin as them has been hurt, has been inflicted on them by the media and the institutions that push this racial identity bullshit. Black people are individuals, not a herd of sheep.
“God forbid some people show the slightest bit of emotion”
Oh, sweet irony. For years Liberals have labeled anyone who disagrees with them. Racist. Sexist. Homophobe. Uncle Tom. Etc. And now we have a large segment of society who has finally had enough with Liberals and the constant garbage they are spewing, and they’re fighting back. And… you… can’t… stand… it. You can’t stand that people are finally done with being bullied. That we are calling a Spade and Spade and no longer allowing Liberal labels to silence us!
“To trash a movement whose purpose is to protect the sanctity of human life.”
Lying to African Americans about police being racist, propagating hateful rhetoric against law enforcement and white people, hateful and false rhetoric about white privilege, and victimizing blacks by brainwashing them into thinking they are institutionally oppressed, has killed more blacks than any other governmental institution. There are blacks that have always been savvy to this, the true leaders of the black communities but they are silenced by the race baiters and bigoted members of their own communities. BLM constantly pumps raw police shooting statistics, but neglects to include common sense data that would rationalize why these shootings are occuring: such as the fact that blacks are roughly 13% of the national population but commit 72% of all violent crimes. BLM neglects to educate the public that the police patrol poor black communites not only because of the increased rate of violent crime, but at the REQUEST of black community leaders. BLM pumps the statistics of unfair incarceration rates among drug offenders; but neglect to inform their own communities that different drugs such as “crack cocaine” have been vastly more harmful to the black community than other drugs because it is cheap, easily distributed, potent, and simple to make. They fail to educate their own communities of the damage crack did to blacks in the 1980’s and the FACT that black community leaders requested police enforce the trafficking of this drug in black communities. They also neglect to inform the community that incarceration terms for methamphetamine, which is on par to crack cocaine and is primarily a white distributed drug, is treated the same as crack cocaine (a black distributed drug).
BLM pumps “unarmed black men” statistics, such as “40% of unarmed people shot by police are black.” BLM neglects to mention that “40%” is actually 16 people (or 36 in 2015), and neglects to mention that some of those people shot were bystanders and accidentally shot during justified police shootings, or they were violently attacking police officers and trying to take their service pistols, or beating the officer to the point of unconsciousness. BLM neglects to mention that out of about 62 million contacts by police officers, only roughly 500 result in a lethal police shooting which is 0.0008064516129032258% of a chance.
BLM is unable to debate people like Shapiro because they have no factual basis besides their paper thin overall police shooting rate. BLM refuses to acknowledge that police do care about blacks in their communities and prove it by laying down their lives for them every day. This being said, we do need to acknowledge that policing, as well as America entirely, was inherently racist pre civil rights movement and even for years after. But today, look around us at the police officers that serve. I see multiracial men and women that have been abused by left wing media and liberal propaganda. It is time the truth be told, no matter how ugly.
https://www.quora.com/Can-you-rebut-Ben-Shapiros-opinion-on-Black-Lives-Matter
Shapiro’s “facts” are lies. Manipulated and misrepresented statistics. Do your homework. Check our the article “Can you rebut Ben Shapiro’s Opinion on Black Lives Matter.”
Those aren’t shapiro statistics, those are from the FBI, DOJ, and JB. We know you don’t want to believe it. As soon as our black brothers and sisters accept this, only then they can truly save black lives.
It is so easy to throw labels around without a shred of credible evidence, Jessica “NOT so” Fun. “Racists”, “misanthropes”, (and “liars”) are current faves of the progressive crowd.
Shapiro is very inconvenient for folks like you.
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