Tag: Ann Coulter

On liberals, the left, and free speech: Something has changed, and it’s not what you think it is

When I was in college and in graduate school (so the 1980s and 1990s), the dividing line on free speech debates was, for the most part, a pretty conventional liberal/left divide. (I’m excluding the right.) That is, self-defined liberals tended to be absolutists on free speech. Self-defined leftists—from radical feminists to radical democrats to critical race theorists to Marxists—tended to be more critical of the idea of free speech. What’s interesting about the contemporary moment, which I don’t think anyone’s really remarked upon, is that that clean divide has gotten blurry. There were always exceptions to that divide, I know: back in the 1980s and 1990s, some radical feminists were critical of the anti-free speech position within feminism; some liberals, like Cass […]

Our Negroes and Theirs: When Ann Coulter Tells the Truth, It’s Worth Listening to Her

Everyone’s going after Anne Coulter—and rightly so—for her racist comments yesterday on the “Hannity” show. Asked why liberals and Democrats are up in arms over the sexual harassment allegations that have been leveled against GOP candidate Herman Cain, Coulter said: Our blacks are so much better than their blacks.  To become a black Republican, you don’t just roll into it. You’re not going with the flow… That “our blacks” is especially gruesome. Sounds like the proprietary claim a fancy housewife would make, ca. 1960 (or 1860), about her black maid: “my girl” or something like that. But if you can suspend disbelief—or disgust— for a minute, there’s something in what Coulter is saying that’s worth paying attention to for it […]