First Amendment Family

Raised up in Seattle, he’d grown up comfortable. Not unaware but at least far removed from the growing up his grandparents experienced. The kind of experiences that made a person of color want to move far, far away from the land of their growing up.

You should interview them about all that, I said. Find out what they think of the First Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment.

So he did.

We look at Syria and shake our heads angrily over the human right abuses that are being inflicted upon the people of that nation. People who are fighting for the right to say what they think, to express themselves, the right to a free press, and freedom from religious persecution. We wonder how is it that a group of people can be so cruel, so inhumane to another? How can their president Bashar al-Assad remain in power? Who would follow such a tyrant?

But we forget that we are not all that far removed from a pretty inhumane history ourselves.

The following video is an excerpt from conversations one student had with his family about the First Amendment.

What about you? Have you ever been in a situation where you were too intimidated to speak freely? Or a place where you witnessed the persecution of another?