What is hate speech? How can one define it? Hate speech is, outside the law, any communication that disparages a person or a group on the basis of some characteristic such as race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, or other characteristic. In law, hate speech is any speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display which is forbidden because it may incite violence or prejudicial action against or by a protected individual or group, or because it disparages or intimidates a protected individual or group. This is a formal way to define hate speech, but if one were take a survey about what makes speech become hate speech, the results would differ within each person's given answer.
How do I define hate speech? To me hate speech is an offensive type of speech that includes racial, gender, social slurs that are purposely used to degrade the unwilling receiver of this type of speech. People often express hate speech either consciously or just out of ignorance and is done constantly (almost every 2.7 seconds) without any end. Despite this being a worldly issue, there are individuals that have never heard hate speech in their entire life and are oblivious to the sting that hate speech delivers. Usually it is those type of people whom have never been a target of hate speech are the ones that either say it haphazardly or are just oblivious to this issue.
Unfortunately I was not spared from hate speech, as a matter of fact I was a target for an endless barrage of insults and implied racism due to my mixed ethnic heritages and characteristic traits. Also the ones who kept on firing these forms of hate speech were from a specific ethnic group (I will not say which one it is, but the answer is obvious), and peaked at it's worst when I was in high school. As the years passed my disdain for that specific ethnic group began to grow to the point if someone were to fire a racial slur at me, I would fire one back that was ten times more offensive. This also showed me that most people who express hate speech love to insult other races, however they will not tolerate being insulted. But to me that is just a typical reaction.
As a predominantly African-American and Japanese mixed individual, I am a target for multiple racial slurs and that is something that will never change as long as people still shoot off hate speech with ignorance, and unfortunately ignorance is not something that will not disappear anytime in this life cycle. But I learned how to tolerate stupidity/ignorance of such magnitude and how to counter their racial slurs because if you insult me, I will insult you back and make sure that you feel the sting of my words ten times more than what you fired at me. I will end this rant blog with a piece of wisdom; give what you can take, if you fail to simply do that then shut your damn mouth.
Wow you are definitely fired up about this topic, and with good reason. It is hard to read about a personal situation in which someone has been hurt by these racial slurs. To me, I was never exposed to racial slurs (mostly because I was surrounded by my own race), but went through some brutal bullying on the topic of my weight. I know its different because it can change (I have lost weight) but the sting that comes from both types of language is definitely one that is hard to forget or forgive.
ReplyDeleteHate speech to me is defined as a fuel to hate crimes, prejudice, stereotyping, and racism. It is something so prevalent in society today that living without it seems impossible to imagine.
I think that, growing up without hate speech in my life, not really hearing or even acknowledging it, made me more apprehensive toward it once I did hear it. I understand that you say that those who grew up without it is oblivious, but I cannot say that they are more likely to use it. I grew up without cussing in my family, once I heard it I did not use it, instead I walked away when it was used. I think it makes more sense to say that someone who knows what it is, but has never experienced it against themselves, are oblivious to the sting and use it haphazardly.
You seem to agree that people who do use hate speech are ignorant and stupid, so we should not put ourselves in that category with them, instead we should rise above it and enjoy the fact that we are more educated on the topic, and make the conscious decision to walk away with no words, since they will, in their uneducated minds, always use hate speech.