It's a tough road to hoe out here

but somebody has to.

In the case of what the UW Young Democrats and others call "another racist bake sale," the issue is not, actually, racism. Nor is the issue even affirmative action. It is, plain and simple, freedom of speech.

A couple of months ago I posted on my own blog (archives protected right now) about the "Affirmative Action Bake Sale" held by the University of Washington College Republicans. Coverage of the story by the University's Daily and the Seattle Times, while biased, should at least back me up on what the actual events were.

Basically, the CRs set up a table selling cookies to different races for different prices, reflecting affirmative action policies. Why? Of course, to call attention to the issue. Of course, to visually demonstrate that race-based divisions should make people angry. Of course, to show how affirmative action perpetuates racism. Whether or not one believes affirmative action is a good policy, it is a race-based one, helping to perpetuate notions of inequality.

Students approached the table, began using racial slurs, and then violently tore it down, provoking action by the UWPD. As a result, the arrogant Daily asserted that the CRs attempts at bringing the issue up for discussion were "thinly disguised as a serious social commentary" and that the UWCRs had "decided to pick a fight with most of campus," assuming both that demonstration, when performed by the minority, is invalid commentary, and that most of campus is always on their side.

What's the result? Well, the CRs have debated affirmative action with the YDs. They've been trying to get equal treatment out of the Board of Regents. But what they haven't done is what the opposition wanted them to.

They haven't backed down.

Despite the campus' refusal to take their ideas seriously ("Perhaps they are doing this out of desperation (did we all see how badly they were beaten in the debate?), perhaps out of hatred or perhaps out of ignorance," say the Young Democrats), the CRs are coming back tomorrow to assert a fundamental right.

It's not even the right to pay the same for their cookies as everyone else, whether that's more or less (no, not all Republicans are white and male). It's not the right to make trouble. It's the right to freedom of speech that is granted every day to student organizations who can borrow microphones to scream their Bushphobias and opposition to higher tuition at the top of their lungs from in front of the student building. It's the right to freedom of speech that the Illuminati lady, for whom it's actually illegal to set up on the HUB lawn (the rest of us go through a process to actually register our organizations), asserts on a regular basis as she shoves conspiracy theories in the faces of passers-by. It's the right to freedom of speech that's used by LaRouche supporters on so many corners of campus on any given day. It's a right that's supposed to be universal.

And the UW College Republicans are standing up again to say that the right to free speech is not dependent on whether or not you like what they have to say.

Will the Democrats counter-demonstrate with free speech this time? Or will more violence be permitted, as last time the perpetrators were let go and the Republicans punished? How far will those who fear ideas that challenge them go to stop those ideas from being articulated (except in ways that they can limit and control, like private meetings)?

Tomorrow, we shall see.