Baby, 'What you say?'

I sent out many e-mails to friends and readers of Birches asking for opinions on the firing of a Houston police officer -- fired from his job with the school system because he created a small "Handbook of Ebonics" in which he printed common terms used by gang members, and the meanings of the words.

I got the feeling most people didn't want to touch the question, even anonymously, which surprised me. Most of the people I know aren't ordinarily cowardly.

I even talked to some friends personally and asked them to respond, but they chose not to.

In my opinion, we should not be afraid of free speech, although we have good reasons to avoid threatening speech and hate speech. Society and American law have made some speech unlawful. There are "fighting words" and there are words that make for "imminent threat" or conspiracy. There are also terms that ought to be avoided in nice talk.

But when we censor people, when we punish people for ordinary discourse, we go too far. I think this cop was wrongly fired.
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JERRY: "Where does free speech begin and end? Obviously, it ends at the “school door” in Houston. There are no requirements that administrators and board members are intelligent or wise. They prove it every day."

PAT W: "He misspelled plain English words himself, like "variety." That's what he should get fired for."

BILL FROM WNNCO: "As a person with some low income housing there is often need to respond to questions or comments made by some of the prospective or present tenants. Although I already knew the majority of the terms in the text, there were some that were unfamiliar and are valuable to know. The knowledge of the vulgate terms gives me the ability to respond competently in conversations. I always respond in the 'Queens English,' to the best of my limited ability, simply as a method of coaching others in normal discussions. However there is usually an emphasis transfer problem by not using the F-Bomb and MFer at least three or four times in each sentence. The most rewarding part of the engagement of the Ebonics conversations is the look of amazement on my sons' faces and other acquaintances when they realize that I can speak the language. I certainly wish I had more Hispanic tenants so that I could work on 'Spanish' for my trips to Mexico."

ANONYMOUS: "The guy didn't make any of the stuff up did he? I mean that's how people talk isn't it? What should he be fired for? Whatever happened to free speech? Sounds like his bosses are a bunch of bigots to fire him."

CHRIS: "Yes, Officer Roby Morris should have been fired. Regardless if there was never any malice intended, the appearance of discrimination is there. And as an officer of the law, appearance of any unlawfulness should be sought. In addition, society as a whole has been moving more and more to a sensitive and politically correct environment. I find it difficult to comprehend that Officer Morris would be complacent in today’s racially sensitive setting. Don Imus, Rush Limbaugh (remember him resigning from ESPN?)…speech / print, it will get you in trouble."

DASHMANN: "Has to be more to this than meets the eye. Has he sued to get his job back? Like in the old cowboy movies, looks like this smart-ass was dead right!"

ANONYMOUS: "Now days you just shut up. He should never have opened his mouth."