I assumed this was the mental model of those who would suppress "hate speech". Here's the problem: if there's a nugget of important truth hidden somewhere in there, something people won't say in public but which is vital, then you're not putting out a fire, you're putting a lid on a boiling pot. You can try to stop the steam from escaping but eventually it'll blow up in your face.
It's one of the most frustrating parts of discussions about this topic for me: we're constantly supposed to weigh the value of hypothetical goods and somehow judge our commitment to freedom of expression by how far we're willing to go in defense of possible outcomes we can't even clearly articulate.
No. There are millions (probably even tens of millions) of people who share circumstances with these racist/homophobic/misogynistic asshats and who never fall into these behaviours. You cannot excuse any of the *isms with economic anxiety or similar nonsense.
>We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
-Dr. King, Letter From a Birmingham Jail
https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....
You're right, heads is not tails but they are two sides of the same coin; they go hand in hand.
Dr. King's protests would not have had the influence they did if the nasty public reactions of the racists were effectively covered up and censored.
The impulse to silence people whose speech is objectionable is understandable. We have all felt it. But it is profoundly misguided.
Zero-sum solutions are inherently unstable.