Dear Editor:
Your April 12 editorial “Hate speech is not free speech” hit all the right points. Unfortunately, the subsequent pro-Valentina Lisitsa media fallout highlights a crucial lesson. The Ukrainian diaspora should not assume that what we see as “hate speech” will also be called “hate speech” by others. Like it or not, the court of public opinion is swayed by “perceptions,” assumptions and unspoken “truths” and the fact that, for whatever reasons, Ukraine is still a grey area in the public “consciousness.” It is high time for us to reframe the discussion.
That Ms. Lisitsa is pro-Putin and pro-Russia is irrelevant. And descriptions like “disgusting, outrageous, crude” used by many who objected to her comments should merely be footnotes to our central argument. What was needed in Toronto was the following consistent focus: that the objections to Ms. Lisitsa’s Tweets were not that she crudely insults Ukrainians, improper though that is, but that her Tweets are unacceptable to the societal norms and core values of all citizens: her stereotyping and dehumanizing, her anti-Semitism and racism against Africans, her xenophobia and intolerance.
Our uphill battle is to clearly show why the Lisitsa controversy and similar cases qualify for the same universal condemnation that occurred with Mel Gibson, Paula Dean, NBA owner Donald Sterling, “Duck Dynasty’s” Phil Robertson and many others. While there may be two sides to “political” conflicts, there are never two sides to “hate speech.”
New York