Pamela Geller in Brooklyn: Free Speech, Hate Speech, and the Futility of Arguing with a Bigot

http://religiondispatches.org/pamela-geller-in-brooklyn-free-speech-hate-speech-and-the-futility-of-arguing-with-a-bigot/



Pamela Geller at Brooklyn College on April 22, 2015.

Author’s Note: I wrote this article before the tragic and unacceptable attack in Garland, Texas, last night, at an event associated with Pamela Geller. Given what happened, and the conversation around Islam and free speech, I asked the editors to go ahead and publish my original article—because it shows that I, a Muslim, went to her event, heard her out, and then came home. It should be noted that this was the exact approach taken by every mosque in the Garland, Texas, area: To not only respect Geller’s right to free speech, but to decline their own right to peacefully protest.

Wednesday, April 22, 2015
6:24pm

They’ve already started lining up, braving the rain. I take a good long look at the lot of them, drenched but energized, and know I can’t. I don’t even have an umbrella. I do however have an RSVP. I’ll wait it out at the closest Starbucks.

6:27

My Starbucks name is Dwayne.

6:30

There’s a long line here too, full of bored coeds fiddling with their phones. I debate ordering a classic coffee cake, still one week away from discovering that ‘coffee cake’ isn’t a kind of cake made with coffee, just cake you eat with coffee.

It doesn’t seem like anyone here (most of whom are Brooklyn College students) has any idea she’s speaking, or even I’d guess who she even is. Not to mention that the title of her event, ‘The First Amendment and Social Criticism,’ sounds like a snoozefest.

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