Open letter to

Ari Shaffir,

Please do NOT let these motherfuckers cover your mouth.  The last bastion of hope for TRUE freedom of speech is upon us and you have an invaluable position, toes, dick, and nose over the front line.  

Censorship is heavy.  It’s apparent when searching for any of your social media.  A cluster of coincidental mishaps?  Your post/pages/content are being hidden.  I don’t know exactly how those forces are working — algorithm or affronted humans?  The scary part is that there are no faces behind the censorship.  The shovel keeps coming, throwing more dirt, burying so-called “unwanted” or “offensive” opinions, comments, and ART.  Leaving those of us willing to defend this freedom with dust in our nostrils and no place to aim our rifles.

ART will cross the line of being “offensive.”  Expression will bend the socially acceptable norms, and sometimes that is exactly why people make ART in the first place.  The short, bracketed list of freedoms is a territory which our culture has had to fight to earn.  On the contrary, these freedoms are something the more cowardly of our culture desperately tries to suppress, abolish, and prohibit.  

There’s a strange and wicked sentiment of “safety” behind this stomping of freedom.  It’s a very real and very powerful FEAR that has crippled many and continues to drive mediocrity and pacification.  We have to understand the difference between safety and real danger.  The old adage of “sticks and stones” is as true now as it ever was.  It is one thing to defend against physical danger, it is another thing to silence people for “off-color” ultimately harmless comments.

There is a challenge behind all freedoms — speech is no different.  It may, however, be the most important in our society.  Companies/corporations working blindly off of the greed-based algorithms are quick to sign walking papers.  They’re already embedded with the FEAR of losing advertising dollars and squeezing the profit margin.  They aren’t in the business of protecting freedom.  They want MONEY.  

ART is not about money.  It can be, and it isn’t a bad thing when money comes of art, but in the purest form, that isn’t why art is created.  Art is expression.  Art, especially comedy, is a way to be silly or outlandish or point out flaws in our obviously faulty society.  Art is a way to look at our own cowardly tendencies and step beyond them into the void of uncertainty — toward freedom.  

Hearing the backlash on your [Ari Shaffir’s] purposefully over-the-top video regarding the death of Kobe Bryant, has brought the threat of our fearful society into clear focus.  When protection involves the subjective suppression of art, it begins to sound a lot like any other extremist/cult-like prohibition. The volume goes up in the echo chamber and the seeds of freedom wither and die.

We as a people must eventually decide if we actually want this FREEDOM which we’ve been claiming so proudly.  If left to capitalism, freedom of speech will go silently into the night.  It is going to take individuals, people with conviction, and artists with courage, who are willing to cross the line despite the threat of “outrage” and “backlash.”  The line must be crossed, again and again, until it begins to fade.  And when they arrive with pitchforks and torches, we CANNOT apologize.  This is for FREEDOM.

-Woods