We shame our children, partners, senior citizens, co-workers, and others inside our family system and in the outer world if their actions or personal attributes do not fit into our patterns of thoughts, beliefs, and actions.
I was raised in a culture that guided me in strengthening my social identity and most importantly my strengths. Today, I feel empowered as I can make my own decisions, learn its consequences or outcomes, strategize through the trial-and-error processes and move towards being a leader of my own life. But if I reflect on the present and walk backward, I observe that this freedom of individuality came with its comrades. One of them was called ‘Prejudice’ that reflected an added preconceived unfavorable negative judgment towards me and my group in the forms of verbal actions known as ‘The Hate Speech’. As I pen down my experiential journey as a child, a teenager, an adolescent, and now an adult, I notice that in all these developmental phases one dimension that stands out is the practices of ‘Hate Speech’. Social psychologists view hate speech as a form of prejudice, stereotype, and intergroup aggression. It can be a situational cause, an interpersonal attitude, or a phenomenon of social cognition. This leads people to process information about people and the world in a biased manner as they lack mental capacity-building skillsets. Hate speech has been originated from varied theoretical perspectives and is a strong part of our community. The realistic group conflict theory suggests that hatred stabilizes due to competition and scarcity of resources. The social identity theory found that individuals who view themselves to be superior to others give them the confidence to emit hatred towards others or groups. There is identification with other members that creates a sense of belongingness. There is a categorization that makes people discriminate or label others based on personal or social attributes.
As a so-called Psychologist, Professor, Student, Researcher, Daughter, Sister, Peer, and so on- the social roles labels that society has given me, has motivated me to always look into myself as a human. As I go back to my childhood phase I realize the phrases of body shaming, dishonoring on grounds of academic failures, humiliation concerning colour, embarrassment due to religious practices, and disgracing on aspirations. These practices get unnoticed and become unheard as our culture and institutions like family, schools, and others normalize them. The repercussions include low self-esteem, neurotic behaviours, feelings of insecurities and loneliness, imposter syndrome (inability to believe in one’s skills and accomplishments), lack of coping, which all get diverted towards an increase in negative mental health. In the teenage journey and the process of adolescence, there have been phrases of racism and sexism that paved its way towards a prejudice that regularized preconceived notions about stereotypes and beliefs about personal attributes that were overgeneralized. In the phase of adulthood, there have been phrases of hate speech highlighting incompetence, social irresponsibility, inability to follow social norms like that of the workforce in groups, and family norms of marriage.
Hate speech has been an ideology in my interpersonal system. If I own a mind of my own where I can decide my ways and walk in it, it’s considered as ‘Rebellious’. If I can educate myself to empower the youth of my community, it’s called ‘Over Achiever’. If I can voice out an opinion about our community’s pressure of marriage and the system of patriarchy, I am called a ‘Burden’. If I can stand out as a professional in my capacities I am termed an ‘Exhibitionist’. If I can talk about my mental health breakdowns, I am spoken about as ‘Someone who lost her Anchor’. All these are some of my real-life examples that have been part of my existence and the process continues and will be there till the end. Even today, I have to hide my educational qualifications and my further aspirations as it’s looked down upon in my community where the social norm is that ‘our women should be less educated’.
In all these transformative years what stands out the most is the usage of hate speech and its roots that has become part of our culture. We shame our children, teenagers, adolescents, partners, senior citizens, co-workers, and others inside our family system and in the outer world if their actions or personal attributes do not fit into our patterns of thoughts, beliefs, and actions. There is a choice that I have made for myself in my life. I had two options and one was to think and rethink these hate phrases and make them part of my unique personality. The second option was to see beyond and create my purpose. Today, digital media has been booming, and with it the hate speech. Our youth have been battling with all these experiences; and it’s time we start to handhold them and sensitize our society. It’s time we show others the value of applying a ‘Growth Mindset’ that means our capacities and that of others can be transformed through perseverance, resilience, trial and error methods. If we nurture the ‘Fixed Mindset’, that we are unable to view ourselves and others as divergent people with dynamic qualities then we will fail to be recognized as humans. Hate speech is more recognizable if we choose to believe that those who are applying these phrases are battling with their insecurities and therefore, they displace it on others. They also fail to apply a ‘Growth Mindset’.
So as individuals we cannot stop ‘Hate Speech’ but we can stop its influence on us. We have to use some positive psychological skills here like ‘Self-Affirmative Phrases’, that is ‘I am amazing, the way I am... I have my abilities and I will lead...’ These affirmations encourage phrases to be true. It guides in challenging and diminishing negative phases that transform into actions. It promotes positive thinking, strategy building and overpowers hate speech. There is also another method that we can create for ourselves and that’s known as ‘Active Constructive Responding’ where we can respond in a transformative way by changing negative phrases to positive. The strategy will help us to look at hate phrases in a positive light. I feel that if we view our children in their beauty, then they will evolve as strong adults. This needs to be done in partnership with families, schools, and local institutions. It’s needed to identify hate speech in our intimate groups as adults and assist our youth in developing strengths and well-being measures. If we spend more on developing the aspirations of the young than saving our life earnings for their marriage, it will ensure a strong Self-Driven Identity of our youth and members of the society.
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