Host: Shae Tatum’s funeral in Underhill.

NNN Commentator: This is the wildest thing I’ve ever seen. Protesting at a child’s funeral?

Guest Activist: There’s a history of counterprotest. Remember, the “God Hates Fags” contingent showed up at Matthew Shepard’s funeral.

Commentator: What is the point? It’s insult to injury. What do they hope to accomplish?

Guest: It’s a stunt.

Commentator: It’s twisted.

Host: And yet, legal. First Amendment protections.

Commentator: Hate speech is not protected. This is hate speech.

Guest: We have freedom of beliefs in this country. That doesn’t mean we have to tolerate cruelty.

Commentator: We tolerate a lot in the name of religious faith.

Guest: When a serial killer says God made him do it, we don’t let him off the hook for his crimes. Are we supposed to accept murder as a protected aspect of faith?

Host: That’s a false parallel.

Guest: Actually it’s not.

Commentator: But the white supremacists will turn around and say the same. That the mere presence of diversity impinges on their beliefs.

Guest: It doesn’t. It’s not the same.

Host: Why not?

Guest: Because exclusion and liberty can’t co-exist. Exclusion means you don’t have liberty and justice for all. Full inclusion is, or should be, an American value.

Commentator: The minute you accept the premise that intolerance is a valid point of view, you lose freedom.

Guest: Exactly.

Host: Isn’t that intolerant?

Guest: No. Empirically. My existence makes no threat to the personhood and liberty of a white supremacist. His existence does make a threat to mine.

Commentator: He perceives a threat, though.

Guest: He also thinks white people are better and more deserving than non-white people. His perception is not reality. More importantly, his perception does not get to define MY reality.

Host: Freedom of speech—

Commentator: I get it. It’s the difference between beliefs and actions.

Guest: You can believe you’re better than me all you want—

Commentator: But look at their signs. “She had it coming”? And what was trending on social media this morning from the same people? “The only good n—— is a dead n——.” I won’t say that word on air …

Guest: Thank you.

Commentator: That message is about more than a belief. It’s a call to action. That’s troubling.

Guest: My liberty does not stop a white supremacist from enjoying his own liberty. His existence and beliefs are specifically about limiting what someone who looks like me can do in society. How is that freedom?

Commentator: White supremacy enforces liberty for whites only, at the expense of all others. Which is the system we’re already living under.

Host: The system—

Guest: If a police officer is justified in shooting any citizen who appears to possibly have something in their hand, then we’d see similar proportions of dead “suspects” across races. If this justification only holds when the citizen is black, then black people are not safe anywhere. Not while holding a cell phone, not while driving lawfully, not while listening to headphones. As long as bias is our reality, black Americans are not truly free.