Experiencing Hate Speech: Perceptions and Responses to Anti‐Semitism and Antigay Speech

Abstract

This study examines how people experience hate speech. Specifically, it assesses people's perceptions regarding both the antecedents and outcomes of such expression targeted at Jews and homosexuals. One hundred twenty university students read (and in some cases also supplied) real-life epithets aimed at their social identity and then provided an assessment of their (a) perceived short-and long-term consequences, (b) understanding of the motive behind the message, (c) response to the sender, and (d) response to the message in terms of soliciting social support.A content analysis of the accounts produced the following patterns: (a) short-and long-term consequences mirrored a three-stage sequence found within other traumatic experiences; (b) respondents described motives as enduring, not situational, states; (c) the most common response strategies were passive; and (d) participants often sought support. The discussion focuses on implications for interventions that may mitigate negative consequences of hate speech.

Meanings in adult male victims' experiences of hate crime and its aftermath

“…Men's perceptions were shaped by feelings of anger, anxiety, fear, and sadness and contributed to a long duration of psychic suffering. This is consistent with research suggesting that an emotional pain related to incidents of hateful speech can be worse than physical pain (Leets, 2002;Leets & Giles, 1997).…”

Expressive Writing to Cope with Hate Speech: Assessing Psychobiological Stress Recovery and Forgiveness Promotion for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Queer Victims of Hate Speech

“…Hate speech can be defined as “speech that denigrates a person on the basis of their race or ethnic origin, religion, gender, age, physical condition, disability, sexual orientation, and so forth” (Leets, , p. 342). In contrast to other forms of discrimination (e.g., indirect, covert), hate speech is direct discrimination ; that is, it refers to messages that, when communicated, inflict harm upon another person's identity (Leets & Giles, ).…”

The Violence of Persuasive Argument: Using Durkheim to Outline a Latent Barrier to a Nonviolent Criminology

“…13 There is a fairly prominent body of legal literature that addresses the harms associated with hate speech as an aspect of the larger related problem of racism (see Matsuda et al 1993). Evidence of direct psychological harms from hate speech continues to be reported in the literature (e.g., Landrine and Klonoff 1996;Boeckmann and Liew 2002;Leets 2002;Nielsen 2002). Moreover, hate speech has been related to higher rates of suicide among some groups (Mullen and Smyth 2004).…”