Nowadays those administrators refer to speech as “harmful” or “violent.” Such labels cause students to feel that they are in danger and must be protected from the speech in question. Teaching people that hostile speech is something they have the resources to overcome on their own is far more empowering than teaching that they must be protected by their elders from ideas they cannot cope with by themselves.
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People in groups that are constantly hate speached don’t want to spend their lives battling haters for denying their right to exist. It’s a never ending battle and it’s exhausting. I used to live that battle before hate speech against my group was made socially unacceptable.
I was hate slurred and socially excluded every day at school. It made me hate school. I tried to fight it, I tried to ignore it, I tried a lot of things but the behavior persisted. The only thing that made it stop was a new administrator came in with a zero tolerance policy for hate. Suddenly, my tormentors apologized to me and tried to even befriend me in some instances.
As an adult, a good example is when I was out on vacation with my family only to have slurs yelled at me at a gas station. My spouse slurred in the rest room (and also sexually harassed). As an adult, I don’t have the time or patience for these attacks. I should have peace when I am out minding my own business. Other people’s life is not a battle against those who wish they would not exist, mine should not be either.
In life, it is often much easier to get agreement that somebody has been wronged and/or other people have acted badly.
But agreement to the solution imposed is much harder, because often imposed solutions have negatives as well as positives.
What group were you in that was “constantly hate speached?”
Genuinely curious.
