<i>They can get you fired, prevent you from getting hired, cost you that contract, keep your kids off the football team or out of the good school, pass laws that make your life difficult</i><p>Right, which censorship can&#x27;t do anything about either.<p><i>When the sheriff, mayor, judge, prosecutor, and jury are all white and all know each other [...] you may not want to trust your fate to their protection.</i><p>No, but rights issues and law-enforcement abuse can be escalated beyond Sheriff Chuck&#x27;s fiefdom. It&#x27;s not perfect - I understand that marginalized people are usually poor and lack agency, however a system exists. It needs improving, but that&#x27;s what we should be focusing on. Not on words spoken but the tools and processes that exist to help bolster individual rights. Those tools protect you as well.<p><i>that blacks don&#x27;t face actual discrimination, therefore the threats are empty.</i><p>It would be more along the lines of <i>if they didn&#x27;t face actual violence due to effective law-enforcement, the threats ARE merely words.</i> So focus on effective law-enforcement, the sticks and stones, not on what people can and cannot say. Otherwise you&#x27;re just sweeping a cancerous sentiment under the rug where it&#x27;ll grow and fester.