The article says that the Missouri State fair is subsidized by the state in an amount in excess of $500,000 a year. Presumably the state has given the Missouri State fair the power of police over the grounds and other arrangements which make affair at least a quasi governmental operation. There is no place in America for censorship on behalf of the sovereign, especially by the sovereign.
The essence of that idea was enshrined in the Supreme Court's opinion New York Times vs. Sullivan, which protected the media even when it libels those who have not even attained the exalted position of sovereign, merely because they are celebrities.
We now have in a companion thread the story of a poor Swiss shopgirl being harassed because Oprah Winfrey, with her multibillion-dollar power of the press, says she was slighted. The companion article reveals that the shopgirl says that Oprah simply misunderstood what was said, not unlikely when there is a language barrier. But the point is we have now so institutionalized African-American sensitivity that we have created a monster. The subjective reaction of sensitive African-Americans should never be elevated over the Constitution of the United States.
Black Celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and especially black presidents like Barack Obama should not be occasions for the distortion of my birthright-or yours.
Since writing the above an additional report has emerged alleging that Oprah Winfrey in 2005 made a similar complaint while in Europe coincidently just before one of her movies was to be released. The author notes that Winfrey is involved in another movie production now. The implication is that these are stunts for publicity. If so, it illustrates one more reason why it is so dangerous to institutionalize African-American sensitivity. We are pandering always to the subjective reactions of African-Americans to whatever stimulus seems to trouble them today.
When we act as a government, even through quasi governmental agencies like the Missouri State fair, to deprive people of a livelihood because we disapprove of their political speech, we are proceeding down a dangerous path. When it happened in Hollywood the left has never let the world forget it decrying for the next half-century the so-called Hollywood blacklist.
The left will never let us forget McCarthyism but we are now suffering from McCarthy in blackface.
