After publishing my column, “To be called American has become the insult of all insults”, in the most recent Orléans Star, I received an email from a person who was obviously offended by it, claiming that my words were a form of “hate speech”. Which made me ask, did she read the column, or just the headline?

In her email she asked the question, “How would it be if I switched the word ‘American’ with the word ‘black’, or ‘Jewish’.” To which the obvious response is that one is a race and the other is a religion. “American” is neither. If anything it is a culture.

And besides, the whole point of my column was to celebrate what it is to be Canadian and the pride we all share in being identified as just that.

She obviously missed my point. But her email did awaken a thought in me about hate speech and racism.

There is no question that the outward expression of racism can often cross that fuzzy line that delineates between hate speech and just saying something stupid, or uninformed or misinformed, or just plain ignorant.

Not every expression of racism or expressions against a religion, or sexual orientation can be defined as hate speech.

There was a time when almost every family had a grandparent, or a crazy uncle who would often say something racist, or homophobic.

“Oh that’s just Uncle Bob being Uncle Bob,” someone might say in Uncle Bob’s feeble defence.

However racist, or homophobic his comments were, Uncle Bob was, by and large, harmless.

He wasn’t using his words to express a personal hatred. He was just using them to demonstrate how ignorant he was, even if he wasn’t aware of it himself.

His remarks, however, racist or homophobic they were, didn’t rise above the bar of being either hateful or harmful.

But there are other racists, and homo-phobes, and antisemites, and Islamaphobes whose hearts are filled with hate and whose words are filled with venom.

They, in turn, trigger others who share their racists views and feel empowered to further propagate them.

There is a difference between merely stereotyping people based on their ethnicity or religion or sexual orientation, or even scapegoating people on that basis – something I often refer to as otherism – and wishing them harm.

Racism, homophobia and hatred towards a certain religion is especially prevalent on the Internet where they can spew their hate in relative anonymity, or at least without any risk of repercussions. But racism is hateful and if carried to the extreme, can be quite harmful. Which is why their should be penalties put in place to curb racism, homophobia, antisemitism and Islama-phobia, especially on the Internet and other forms of social media.

Maybe you don’t have to criminalize it, but when racism clears an obvious bar there should be consequences.

I guess the question is, should it be illegal to be a racist?

I’m not sure if I would go that far, but it should at least carry some sort of fine, as should spewing hatred against gay people, trans people or members of a particular religion.

One example would be refusing service to someone simply based on their skin colour, gender or sexual orientation. Or trying to incite others to hate an individual or group based on their skin colour, gender or sexual orientation.

There should be no place in our society for propagating hate towards a group of people based on their skin colour, sexual orientation or religion. To do so should carry consequences. The questions is what should the consequences be?

To simply ignore it and/or brush it off only emboldens and further empowers them to continue to spew their hatred unabated and further degrade our society in the process.

(If you wish to comment on this or any other View Point column please write to Fred Sherwin at fsherwin@orleansstar.ca)