One Person’s Grievance Destroys A Message

As the Swift County Fair was swinging into full action last Thursday, hundreds of cars streamed through Appleton on their way to the fairground. Parents with children participating in 4-H programs, grandparents coming to watch them, and families with children looking forward to the games, rides, and food.

At the same time, others headed to Appleton for a hearing led by the leaders of the city of Benson and Swift County, members of the Minnesota Legislature, and a U.S. House representative. That hearing was to focus on the reopening of the Prairie Correctional Facility to house immigration detainees arrested by officers of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. 

Questions about the prison being sold by CoreCivic to the federal government’s Department of Homeland Security and the loss of $494,719 in real estate taxes for the city of Appleton, $110,564 for Swift County, and $78,197 for the Lac qui Parle schools would be discussed.

The group would question where the workers would come from and where they would be housed. There would be questions about safety for the community with the prison being filled and questions about whether ICE agents would be coming into the area to arrest people.

There would be a third group at this meeting as well – people opposed to the arrest of immigrants and the at times violent actions of ICE agents. They had concerns about reports of 50 immigrants having died while in ICE custody due to inhumane treatment and denial of medical care.

While those who wanted to learn more about ICE’s use of the prison gathered at the VFW post building in Appleton with reporters, local leaders, and legislators, a group of protesters gathered on the northern approach to the fairgrounds, a site lined with American flagpoles flying American flags. They had signs protesting ICE’s detentions and criticizing CoreCivic. They waved and shouted to drivers passing by.

Those raising concerns about ICE and CoreCivic had legitimate reasons for raising awareness of an issue they feel passionate about. Unfortunately, one person overshadowed their message. He became the topic of conversation in the VFW and among people at the fair. This one person stole the show. He soured people to the sincere message of the others surrounding him.

He did it by standing among them with a sign using profanity – “F” ICE. He painted all those standing around him, those with the hope of reaching out and changing minds, of motivating action to curb ICE activities and investigate CoreCivic, with the same level of self-absorbed character. 

His sign did not communicate; it alienated. It did not create sympathy; it created hostility toward the group. 

One person’s grievance stepped on the message everyone else was trying to impart. People who may have been persuaded were turned off. People who may have been sympathetic were offended, closing the door to gaining their support. People on their side ended up apologizing to others for his behavior rather than trying to nurture the arguments of their cause. One person hijacked the day and became the protest’s lasting memory.

Don’t think this kind of behavior comes from only one side of the political fence. For a couple of years in a row, a person came to the Swift County Fair proudly wearing an “F” Biden shirt. He walked among children and parents, and people smiling and having a good time, only to create anxiety, anger, and disgust.

These types are starved for attention, seek confrontation, and aren’t interested in communicating a message. They are focused on the insult and revel in the attention they get.

And among those criticizing the ICE protestors last week were individuals at the fair using the same offensive word to describe them. They use it in their daily conversations. It’s a word once rare in civil society that is now heard in every public venue except perhaps a church.

The First Amendment protects the use of the word in public spaces on signs, flags, and even when shouted out.

Profane language protection rests on the landmark 1971 Cohen v. California Supreme Court case. It threw out the conviction of Paul Robert Cohen for the crime of disturbing the peace for wearing a jacket into a courthouse with the words “F” the draft.” It was the Vietnam War era and its unpopular draft of young men.

 “(I)n arguments before this Court much has been made of the claim that Cohen’s distasteful mode of expression was thrust upon unwilling or unsuspecting viewers, and that the State might therefore legitimately act as it did in order to protect the sensitive from otherwise unavoidable exposure to appellant’s crude form of protest,” the U.S. Supreme Court found.

“While the particular four-letter word being litigated here is perhaps more distasteful than most others of its genre, it is nevertheless often true that one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric,”  Justice John Marshall Harlan II wrote. “Governments might soon seize upon the censorship of particular words as a convenient guise for banning the expression of unpopular views.” 

Expecting civility from everyone in our society is unrealistic. We live among people with a wide range of upbringings, demons, and angels, educations, and sensitivities.

Free speech is a powerful tool for challenging government action, as is the right to assemble and voice grievances. They are rights that can be used wisely, peacefully, to create change – think of the Rev. Martin Luther King and his fight for racial equality. They can also be used profanely and violently, destroying the message of change they seek.

Incivility begets incivility. Anger is stoked. Positions harden. Neither side communicates its message to the other as walls rise and bridges to civil conversation are torn down.

If the goal of a protest is to bring attention to an issue and gather support to make a difference, one person with a profane sign destroyed that effort last week.