The last time I wrote about this Minnesota ethics train wreck more than a year ago, I began with “Yecchh! Pooey!” I would now like to add, “Ick! Barf!” I hate this story.
The latest revolting development is that a Minnesota jury convicted Shiloh Hendrix of a single charge of misdemeanor disorderly conduct last week for repeatedly calling a black man who confronted and filmed her at a Rochester playground “nigger.” Hendrix also directed the slur at an 8-year-old black boy who had been going through her purse.
Because Hendrix’s speech was the conduct underlying the disorderly conduct charge according toMinnesota law, we have a controversy over whether using “nigger” as this awful woman did falls within the narrow “fighting words” exception to speech protected under the First Amendment.
The six-person jury returned its verdict after four days of testimony in Olmsted County District Court, finding Hendrix, 37, guilty on the count involving using “nigger” in her exchanges with videographer Sharmake Omar. She was not found guilty on the count involving the child. The full sentence: a stayed 90-day jail sentence, supervised probation, 200 hours of community service and a $1,000 fine.
We are told Hendrix did not speak before sentencing. Good.
Ethics Alarms 
“…and there is no conceivable benefit to society of the courts not labeling doing so unprotected by the First Amendment.” Jack, I don’t mind you using the N word rhetorically, but triple negatives like this are a menace to society.
Using words commonly or culturally known as epithets and, somehow, expecting events not to escalate is just plain stupid. If certain people of the same group use a word differently the intention is usually entirely different.
Calling a black person that word is clearly an epithet and fighting words.
She may have deserved worse than her sentence. What an idiot.
A couple of days ago, I rewatched the video of the playground incident that led to this verdict. When the incident is considered in its entirety, I can’t see any way that Hendrix’s “fighting words” disorderly conduct conviction survives on appeal.
Hendrix didn’t walk up to Omar and start taunting him. He approached her–with the camera on his phone already recording–and asked if she’d have the balls to say the same thing she’d said to the little boy. And then he kept following her as she walked away.
Omar quite literally asked for it. Under the circumstances, Hendrix’s slur-and-middle-finger response to him cannot fairly be described as incitement/fighting words/anywhere close to criminal.
While I think I understand the the rationale, I still disagree. An insult, no matter how cruelly intended or loudly shouted, is not itself a threat to anyone’s life, liberty, or property. A mere “invitation to fisticuffs” can still be declined, however much one might want to accept it. This of course, is different from an actual threat of violence, or an act of slander or libel.