Coulter appearance not about free speech

Right-wing provocateurs like Ann Coulter aren’t agitating to speak at UC Berkeley because they’re defending the First Amendment or because they’re worried that UC Berkeley’s administrators are limiting conservative speech.

No, people like Coulter are circling the campus because, of late, the response to what they represent has been violent.

And violence gets people talking on TV and social media. It sells books and tickets, and ensures more bookings on conservative TV and radio talk shows.

It’s a lucrative career trajectory if you know how to push the right buttons, and Coulter certainly does.

But let’s call Coulter’s brand of messaging what it is: hate speech.

And this is where the protesters come in. It’s not the conservative viewpoint that enrages them — it’s the hate rhetoric at a time when the man sitting in the White House has emboldened a racist white nationalist movement.

Coulter’s message is often about how terrible immigrants, minorities and nonwhite people are for this country.

It’s conservatives like her and Milo Yiannopoulos who spew the fumes of racism, xenophobia and nationalism.

Now Berkeley is ground zero for bloody fights be-

tween the alt-right defenders of the feckless president and the masked anarchists who have mastered infiltrating peaceful liberal demonstrations.

No, life wasn’t perfect the past eight years. But at least people weren’t threatening each other’s lives at political rallies. People who showed up to the recent melees have come armed with deadly weapons.

It’s in this explosive environment that Coulter has rejected UC Berkeley’s concerns over safety and has repeatedly tried to frame the issue as a First Amendment fight.

“I’m showing up this Thursday,” she said in a Fox News interview Saturday evening. “It’s up to the police to keep me safe.” Good luck with that. If she does come, she might want to consider riding in an armored vehicle and having ambulances on standby for when the combatants on both sides start gouging the eyes and ears of their opponents.

When Yiannopoulos came to Berkeley in February, he incited a riot. UC Berkeley tried to protect him and his free speech, only to realize it had been outsmarted by masked anarchists who deftly pulled down three rows of metal barricades and got to the student union building where Yiannopoulos was holed up. People were attacked, windows were smashed and fires were set, causing $100,000 in property damage. Then the riot spread to the city’s streets, where businesses were vandalized.

Yet, Coulter rejects the university’s contention that it cannot protect her — or her hate speech — Thursday. Only a privileged attention-seeker would have the gall.

Now she’s in a pickle. If she doesn’t come, her performance will be seen for what it is: an empty self-promotion play. But if she does come, she has been warned — and perhaps she should be charged with inciting a riot.

Coulter shouldn’t be able to shirk responsibility when the fires are set and the warring sides engage in another bloody skirmish.

As she keeps obsessing over the “browning of America” that she believes is destroying the country, she’s got to realize she’s contributing to its hateful atmosphere. Her hateful words are a ticking time bomb.

And it doesn’t need to go off in Berkeley.

That’s why I support the university for canceling her appearance.

My interest in public safety, yours and mine, is much greater than hearing someone hate on humanity. Besides, I already know what Coulter thinks about the contributions black people like me have made to society.

“They are so important culturally in America — I mean the humor, the actors ... they have the comedians and the music,” she told the Daily Beast in 2015. Gee, thanks. Coulter also has said that in most race relations, it’s never blacks who are victims of terror, it’s whites. Tell that to the young black men in Vallejo, Sacramento and Atlanta who have recently been beaten by police officers — officers who would’ve been free to terrorize more blacks if citizens hadn’t recorded the incidents.

If the men had been getting paid thousands of dollars for hate speeches like Coulter, maybe the police would’ve at least tried to keep them safe. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Email: otaylor@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr