American exceptionalism is just as prevalent and misguided as it’s ever been.
Its most recent showcase comes from a usual contestant, The New York Times. German Lopez, a writer for “The Morning” newsletter, went into detail on Feb. 23 regarding Chinese censorship in the new hit online game, “Marvel Rivals.”
He exposed the restrictions of certain phrases that counter the interests of the Chinese government such as “Free Tibet,” “Free Xinjiang,” “Uyghur Camps” and “1989” among others.
These actions are wholly condemnable and Chinese censorship of free speech is a large concern for such a fast-rising superpower. However, the American exceptionalist mindset is predicated on the hyper-fixation of a foreign adversary’s issues, even if the same problems exist at home. The United States government, historically and contemporarily, has engaged in censorship on par or worse with China.
The most recent example of this has been the treatment of protestors against the actions of the Israeli government in the Gaza Strip, which numerous experts and international organizations have deemed to be genocide.
The Trump administration has sent the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to Columbia University’s campus multiple times in an attempt to detain and deport students exercising their free speech.
The first of these resulted in the apprehension of green card holder and Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil. The Trump administration cited that Khalil was a serious foreign policy threat, falsely claimed he has links to Hamas and exhibited anti-Semitism. This was the deportation of an individual the government disagreed with, plain and simple.
The Biden administration was also complicit in anti-free speech measures taken during a round of anti-Israel protests last year. This was done through their condoning of the police escalation that took place. Young people who were viewing the hundreds of online videos detailing Israeli atrocities naturally began to organize in protest. In a typical act of right-wing bias, police began to interfere with these largely peaceful demonstrations. Sometimes violently.
Instead of getting a ceasefire deal done or refusing to aid and abet the mass murder of over 50,000 Palestinians, the former president sided with law enforcement officers mass arresting critics of Israel. In contrast to similar actions done by the Trump administration, liberal mainstream outlets such as the New York Times uncritically gave credence to the notion that the protests weren’t rooted in combating the genocidal actions of America’s foreign ally.
These past two administrations don’t even paint the full picture of American censorship in the past couple of decades.
Whistleblowers have been treated particularly harshly. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was sought after and forced to live in exile by the Justice Department for exposing U.S. secrets about the Iraq/Afghanistan wars. These included war crimes and acts of violence against civilians.
The American people have a right to know if their tax dollars are aiding and abetting heinous crimes overseas, but state censorship vilifies you if engage in this.
Chelsea Manning, the ex-military officer who played a large role in Assange’s procuring of the documents, also faced seven years in military prison.
From the actions of today to the FBI’s surveillance of civil rights leaders, the United States has and continues to engage in censorship, disavowing the notion of unique American freedom. Our mainstream media should perhaps consider this before writing articles about a foreign video game’s text chat.
