
Is Free Speech Racist?
Gavan Titley(Author)
Polity Press
1st Edition
Published on 24. July 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
144 pages
978-1-5095-3616-0 (ISBN)
Description
The question of free speech is never far from the headlines and frequently declared to be in crisis. Starting from the observation that such debates so often focus on what can and cannot be said in relation to race, Gavan Titley asks why racism has become so central to intense disputes about the status and remit of freedom of speech.
Is Free Speech Racist? moves away from recurring debates about the limits of speech to instead examine how the principle of free speech is marshalled in today's multicultural and intensively mediated societies. This involves tracing the ways in which free speech has been mobilized in far-right politics, in the recycling of 'race realism' and other discredited forms of knowledge, and in the politics of immigration and integration. Where there is intense political contestation and public confusion as to what constitutes racism and who gets to define it, 'free speech' has been adopted as a primary mechanism for amplifying and re-animating racist ideas and racializing claims. As such, contemporary free speech discourse reveals much about the ongoing life of race and racism in contemporary society.
Reviews / Votes
"This is an excellent and urgently needed book that offers a key contribution to both academic and public debate on free speech. In a clear, succinct style, Gavan Titley persuasively argues that free speech is often defended in a superficial way, which focuses on speech as a mere channel of ideas and neglects structural inequalities between different speakers."Matteo Bonotti, Monash University
"Gavan Titley's book is an important contribution, embedding contemporary discussions of free speech into critical race theory in subtle and well-argued ways. Titley exemplifies how contemporary racisms are advanced through the defense and absolutization of freedom of speech, and how the latter is used as a blunt weapon to bludgeon efforts to tackle racist expression. "
David Theo Goldberg, University of California, Irvine
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 187 mm
Width: 121 mm
Thickness: 13 mm
Weight
178 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5095-3616-0 (9781509536160)
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Gavan Titley
Is Free Speech Racist?
Book
07/2020
1st Edition
Polity Press
€66.00
Shipment within 15-20 days

Person
Gavan Titley is Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at Maynooth University.
Content
1 Debating racism, disputing speech
2 Closure: who decides what is racist?
3 Culture: who values free speech?
4 Capture: what is free speech being claimed for?
Afterword: So, is free speech racist?