Skip to main content

Free Speech But Not For Thee


 

Oh, look! Here’s an upcoming seasonal festive event in Elkridge. 

Celebrate the season with us on Thursday, December 5, 2024, as we come together to decorate and light up our community trees in Elkridge! Join your neighbors and community staff for a festive evening filled with holiday cheer. At the Elkridge Fire House, decorating begins at 5:30 p.m., followed by the tree lighting at 5:45 p.m. Over at the Elkridge Library, decorating starts at 6 p.m., with the tree lighting at 6:15 p.m. Decorations will be provided, so just bring your holiday spirit and loved ones to make Elkridge shine bright this season. We look forward to seeing you there! - - Howard County Executive Calvin Ball’s Facebook page 




And, just as soon as the information gets posted, the trolls move in.

They are not community trees. They are Christmas trees. Only in your world, which is a farce, is a lit tree called a community tree. Human beings, and Christians, call these Christmas trees. There is nothing political in this. You stand to gain nothing. Like you bow to your political constituency, there is no bow here. This is just residents looking to celebrate a season called CHRISTMAS!

Well this is a new reason to get offended. Still, not that new because some folks ranted about it last year, too. Their beef? That the County Executive uses the word “community” when they want him to say “Christmas.” 

I have a few questions. 

Is the County forbidding residents to use the word Christmas? To celebrate Christmas? To put up explicitly Christmas decorations? 

No.

Time after time these folks jump on this as though their free speech rights are being violated. Their tone of righteous indignation is cranked up to eleven. But no one is threatening their freedom. No one is taking anything away from them. In fact, it’s the reverse.

They are attempting to keep the County Executive from using a word they don’t like. He is the one under attack here. These trolls have made it their job to police every word and every action and they somehow justify to themselves this hateful behavior. Behavior, I might add, that would earn them censure or at least substantial blowback if they tried it at work, at home, or with friends. 

This particular poster seems to suggest that County Executive Ball is neither a human being nor a Christian because he chooses to say “Community Trees.”

Really? That’s what you want to set the world on fire about? 

Good government realizes that not all people are the same. Good public servants look for ways to make community events more inclusive or, at the very least, less exclusive. People who celebrate Christmas are certainly free to do so but they do not have the right to impose their beliefs, traditions, and celebrations on others like a steamroller or a conquering army.

That’s not joyous. It’s ugly.

Now you may harbor the personal belief that saying “community trees” is kind of silly and/or you aren’t quite sure why it’s necessary. That’s fine. On the other hand, you may be grateful that you are being invited to a community event in December that isn’t dripping with Christian symbolism because you aren’t Christian. It’s hard for those of us who have been celebrating Christmas our entire lives to fully comprehend how much our celebrations can come across as the demands of a dominant culture. 

Holiday celebrations aren’t harmless if you use them to ostracize and “other” those who don’t conform to your expectations. When you think it’s okay to go after the County Executive’s right to Free Speech - - maybe you need to sit down and rethink what exactly it is you are celebrating every December. 


Village Green/Town² Comments




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...
1 comment
Read more

F ³: We Are Not Entitled

  A college student went missing. His family and friends were distraught. The community was encouraged to be on the lookout and spread the word.  Days passed.  They must have been agonizing days for those who cared about the missing student. Thoughts that foul play had been involved cannot have been far from their thoughts.  Then, at last, the student was found. Alive. The news was shared with the public.  So. Much. Relief. A family had been reunited with their child. Even though we know that life is complicated, I think it is okay to accept this as a happy ending and leave it at that.  But the world of social media says no. For every expression of joy at the news came questions and even judgement. It became clear to me that some folks felt entitled to an explanation. They wanted the backstory. It’s as though they felt that, by enlisting the help of the public on social media, the authorities now owed them all the details. Television dramas often weave curr...
2 comments
Read more

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...
1 comment
Read more