J.K. Rowling was honored at the 2016 PEN Literary Award Gala in New York on Monday night, and during her acceptance speech the Harry Potter author addressed Donald Trump, and what people perceive to be media bias.
The Gala’s “Free Expression Awards” were the perfect place for Rowling to address Presumptive Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump, who she says has every right to speak his mind — just as she has every right to call him a “bigot.” The author also reminds us that someone in the media sharing a opinion different from our own does not automatically mean there’s bias going on, a claim that Trump makes frequently against institutions such as The New York Times.
J.K. Rowling’s remarks on Trump are below:
The tides of populism and nationalism currently sweeping many developed countries have been accompanied by demands that unwelcome or inconvenient voices be removed from public discourse. Mainstream media has become a term of abuse in some quarters. It seems that unless a commentator or television channel or newspaper reflects exactly the complainers’ worldview, it must be guilty of bias or corruption.
Intolerance of alternative viewpoints is spreading to places that make me, a moderate and a liberal, most uncomfortable. Only last year we saw an online petition to ban Donald Trump from entry into the UK. It garnered half a million signatures. Now, I find almost everything that Mr. Trump says objectionable. I consider him offensive and bigoted. But he has my full support to come to my country and be offensive and bigoted there.
His freedom to speak protects my freedom to call him a bigot. His freedom guarantees mine. Unless we take that absolute position without caveats or apologies, we have set foot upon a road with only one destination.
If my offended feelings can constitute a travel ban on Donald Trump, I have no moral grounds on which to argue that those offended by feminism or the right for transgender rights or universal suffrage should not oppress campaigners for those causes. If you seek the removal of freedoms from an opponent simply on the grounds that they have offended you, you have crossed a line to stand along tyrants who imprison, torture and kill on exactly the same justification.
Rowling was on hand to accept the PEN/Allen Foundation Literary Service Award. You can watch her full speech below (jump to 1 hour, 48 minutes):
