Friday, March 09, 2007

Six Guys Named Vinnie

For a people who pride ourselves on our ability to speak freely, we have become awfully sensitive lately. The latest in a series of absurdities that seems to have no end involves the man who is slated to become the next head of the New York Stock Exchange. He is an ardent advocate of eliminating human specialists from the floor of the Exchange and replacing them with computers – an entirely sensible idea, since the specialists’ function is the sort of mathematical job that computers should be able to do faster and with fewer errors.

In making his case in a recent speech, the man decided to use picturesque language. Specifically, he said that he personally would rather have his transactions handled by a computer than by “six guys named Vinnie.” No sooner had the words left his mouth than some members of the Italian-American community attacked him for making an ethnic slur.

What’s going on here? Who says Vinnie is Italian? All the Vinnies I knew growing up were Irish. Vincent Van Gogh was not Italian, nor was Vincent Price. In the funny TV commercial for TV blockers, Vinnie is the guy hit over the head with a shovel, not the hit man. The only Vinnie I can think of that fills the bill is My Cousin Vinnie, a good-hearted Italian-American lawyer.

And should we all assume that the Big Board specialists are disproportionately Italian? If so, so what? I don’t understand the thought train at work here. The speaker was not talking about six drug dealers or six child-abusers; he was talking about six stock-exchange specialists. I doubt that little kids, even in Brooklyn, taunt each other with “Your old man’s a stock-market specialist!” – much less, “Your old man’s an Italian stock-market specialist!”

In the YouTube era, it is possible to catch virtually anyone saying something that someone can consider offensive. If you are living, breathing, moving, and talking, you are leaving a film trail that someone can use against you. It can be any word or phrase that can be deemed “insensitive.” If you didn’t know you were being insensitive, that’s even worse; it just proves you’re insensitive to insensitivity, which is insensitivity squared.

Yes, there are instances when words can be hurtful, but the First Amendment does not protect only unhurtful speech. It is supposed to protect speech that is stupid, inflammatory, and even hurtful. Speech is either free or not free; it cannot be free with exceptions.

What about someone who yells “Fire!” in a crowded theater? Yes, that’s wrong, but not because the word is wrong. The act is wrong. Yelling “Flood!” or “Cockroaches!” would be just as bad. There is no insensitivity at issue here, only the act of creating panic. It’s a fine distinction, but an important one.

It all started, I suppose, back at the dawn of the civil-rights era, although you could also blame the birth of feminism, when Mizz was in and Mrs. was out, and girls were out and young women were in. Suddenly, everyone in America was a member of an aggrieved class, with lawyers urging them on, because you can’t have class-action suits without classes. It would not surprise me to learn that some lawyer is busily recruiting men named Vinnie to pursue a class-action suit against the New York Stock Exchange, which has the deep pockets that are essential in such matters.

Now that we are entering the presidential campaign of 2008, we will be treated to an avalanche of stories about candidates making insensitive remarks. Even now, legions of campaign workers are scouring YouTube and similar sources for ammunition. Mostly, they need victims. Today it is Vinnie. Tomorrow it will be Sol or Pat or Pedro. Since the heinous remark will be caught on tape, denial is impossible, so an apology will follow. We will thus be drowned in a flood of tearful apologies, but they will not be enough for the offended, who will ask – nay, demand - that the offender’s party repudiate the remark or, preferably, boil the offender in oil.

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“I look forward to that happy day when blacks, negroes, colored people, and blacks can all live in peace and harmony together.” -------Steve Martin