I haven’t had a chance to refute Cameron’s last attempts to take shots at Kanye in The Gustavian Weekly Entertainment portion, but today I will take a bit of a more serious note. A large amount of the conversations that I have been a part of this past week have been about freedom of speech and censorship on the Overheard at Gustavus group.

Now, I seriously don’t want to start anymore drama about this topic, but I do want to take a chance to reflect on my experience with free speech due to this experience. I think that Kanye and Trump offer us a perspective that may be left out and so I’ll use some of their (questionable) antics to make my points about what I believe freedom of speech really entails.

First and foremost, the First Amendment exists to protect the minority voices, the ones perhaps drowned out by the crowd. Whenever the majority claims that their right to free speech is being trampled I always take a good hard look at the circumstances surrounding the events.

The recent incidents with Trump rallies and cancellations due to protests are a good example of this. Now that Trump may face charges for inciting riot with his fiery rhetoric, you can certainly bet that the question of his First Amendment rights will be on everyone’s mind. However, in this situation the First Amendment truly protects the protesters and their right to assemble peacefully. Regardless of who threw the first punches, the protesters had a right to be there, especially if the events were held on their own college campuses.

However, I must place a check on this as well. The freedom of speech and the items granted in the First Amendment do not come with a detachment from the repercussions of those actions or words. Freedom of speech does not spare you from societal ostracization, criticism, or, heaven-forbid, refutation.

This is where Kanye comes back into the picture. Kanye’s feud with Taylor Swift at the 2009 Video Music Awards over the “Best Female Video” will go down in history as one of the most awkward moments in live TV.  Whether or not you believe Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” should have won, the point is that Kanye did have a right to speak his mind, now the question truly is whether or not he picked the right time and place.

It is quite clear that his First Amendment rights did not spare him from public backlash extending all the way to President Obama calling him a “jackass.” One important thing to note is that Kanye apologized and he and Swift (somewhat) managed to settle their differences.

Fast-forward to February 2016 and Kanye was back at it again with putting his foot in his mouth. This time, he made reference to Swift in one of his songs in a manner that frankly, was in poor taste.

Of course everyone blew up at Kanye taking shots at America’s sweetheart. It is interesting though because the people who were the angriest happened to be within the same demographics for the most part. Every reaction video I watched to Kanye’s TLOP found the line to be funny or something not to be taken seriously.

It’s really all a matter of perspective when you think about it. You see, it’s a bit of a paradox for most individuals if the public opinion and censorship is against one’s opinion people will claim to have been silenced. However, as soon as it turns to their favor everything seems to be alright, even if the action taken is the same, just in the opposite direction.

Kanye can clearly teach us that sometimes an apology is necessary. More importantly, no one person’s freedom of speech is above public criticism or the repercussions of those words. I personally look forward to seeing the results of future Trump rallies with the new precedent that has been set with protesters shutting down rallies.

Most importantly, I hope that measures are not taken to curb protesters and their rights. I especially am concerned with protesters being removed from events when they are students at the institutions that are hosting the rallies. If any of the potential lawsuits pertaining to the protests make their way to court, I hope that those hearing the cases will remember whom the First Amendment really seeks to serve.