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In this chapter, it is argued that some instances of racist hate speech are speech acts that constitute illegal acts of racial discrimination. By identifying a previously overlooked mechanism by which utterances enact norms (the covert exercitive), one comes to see that some racist hate speech enacts discriminatory norms in public places. Such speech thus acts very similarly to ‘Whites Only’ signs. This result has two important consequences. First, it affords at least a prima facie case for the regulation of this subset of racist hate speech. Second, it disproves a certain naive conception of so-called political speech. Although both racist hate speech and ‘Whites Only’ signs express political messages, they do not and should not count as political speech for the purposes of a free speech principle. Thus, expressing a political opinion is insufficient for being political speech (in the relevant sense).

Green's critique raises questions about social construction, and about the ‘jurisdiction’ of pornography's authority. Drawing on a comparison with speech that may subordinate gay men, he argues that pornography lacks the authority to subordinate, and even if had authority, it would not subordinate women: saying so would not make it so, and women would not be within the authority's jurisdiction. Authority depends on conditions of efficacy and legitimacy, absent for pornography. Green is mistaken. Pornography does have the relevant authority, and examination of its verdictive and exercitive dimensions sheds light on social construction: on how its saying so may, after all, make it so.

According to Butler, the claim that pornography subordinates women rests on an implausible assumption about pornography's mysterious, quasi-divine authority. The claim that pornography silences women rests on implausible assumptions about language and agency: that illocutionary disablement is undesirable (but it is ubiquitous!); that it undermines agency (a liberal illusion!). Butler is mistaken. There is nothing mysterious or God-like about the authority attributed to pornography. Speech act theory's account of verdictive and exercitive speech sheds light on its potential for social construction. The silencing claim does admittedly rest on assumptions about the value of agency, and disvalue of certain silencings. These are not implausible.