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Hate directed at black people, who have been exploited, oppressed, enslaved, killed, and more for over 400 years has a more significant and problematic impact t
by mostly_lurks 4y ago
Hate directed at black people, who have been exploited, oppressed, enslaved, killed, and more for over 400 years has a more significant and problematic impact than hate directed at other, more privileged groups. Recentering the conversation away from the black person's experience is a form of dismissal, not validation.
An abuser on IRC calling a black person the n-word is objectively more harmful than an abuser on IRC calling pretty much anyone else pretty much any slur.
- naasking 4y agoI reject the claim that such a response is recentering the conversation, and I also reject the implicit assumption that words can be objectively harmful. For instance, a black person might be reasonably angry at hearing the n-word, until they find out the person suffers from Tourette's, at which point the "harm" vanishes. The harm clearly did not result from the word but from the framing of the situation, and the framing exists entirely within the mind and can be changed. This pattern of harm resulting from framing is seen repeatedly throughout psychology. Of course we should still push for relegating incorrect and outdated framings, like the various -isms, to the dustbin of history, but there's considerably more latitude for how to do this than naive language policing like is commonly suggested.