Joyce Fegan: Why we must call out hate speech

American poet Maya Angelou: She said you build up your courage, starting off with one small courageous act. Picture: Mary Altaffer/AP

‘Is this your coat?” The late poet and life-long civil rights activist Maya Angelou once stopped a party in her own home with these words after a guest made a racist, homophobic “joke”. Not only did the recipient of more than 50 honorary degrees stop the party, she asked the speaker in question to leave the gathering.

This incident happened in the latter part of her life. She said she wouldn’t always have had the courage to call out such “poison”.

“No act of solidarity is too small or insignificant.” This sentence forms part of a people-powered ad campaign, Greater Than Fear, this weekend, by LGBT Ireland, Uplift, and Irish Network Against Racism. It is just one of dozens upon dozens of acts of solidarity in response to the tragic deaths of Michael Snee, 58, and Aidan Moffitt, 41, in Sligo this week.

What will your act of solidarity be? It needn’t be this weekend, it needn’t be attending one of the 40-plus vigils planned on the island of Ireland in a stand against all hate speech and crime.

Perhaps your chance might come in the office one day or in the changing room of your GAA club or maybe, like Maya, at a party in your home.

Several years ago, that very incident occurred in my home. A guest — white, male, heterosexual — was telling a story he considered amusing that veered into racist and homophobic territory. Did I laugh? No. But did I have the courage to call him out? No.

The 51-year-old civil rights organisation, the Southern Poverty Law Center, in Montgomery, Alabama, has a guide for this very situation, Speak Up: Responding to Everyday Bigotry.

The comprehensive guide is a practical “how to” on calling out hate speech when it happens in any of your personal domains.

That hate crimes occur on this land is undeniable, that hate speech is a common occurrence in our everyday exchanges is unquestionable — and we all know it. From the homophobic graffiti scrawled in a juvenile hand in public playgrounds and in the stalls of pub toilets to the casual slurs exchanged under the guise of “harmless banter” in all sorts of conversation, family, friends, and otherwise, it is now a necessary duty to have the courage and the skill to call out this vile practice.

First things first — privilege. If you have it, use it. It’s called being an ally.

However, some of us who have privilege take grave offence at being told we do. Here is a simple quote — from a one-page guide called 10 Things Allies Can Do by YWCA Greater Harrisburg — explaining the role of an ally that incorporates the word “privilege”: “An ally is someone who has privilege but chooses to stand for and with marginalised communities by taking tangible, ongoing actions to dismantle systems of oppression.”

One thing an ally can do is to “listen” and another is to “speak up when a friend, family member, co-worker, or stranger says something hateful or ignorant, call them out on it”.

But how? The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Six Steps to Speaking Up Against Everyday Bigotry includes a how-to template.

The first step is to “be ready”. You’ve been in uncomfortable situations before where you chose comfort over confrontation. You’ll find yourself in them again. Have something to say in mind before the inevitable incident happens, advises the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Open-ended questions are often a good response. Stock questions you can ask to rebut hate speech include: Why do you say that? or How did you develop that belief?

“If your goal is to communicate, loaded terms get you nowhere,” says cultural communications expert Supriya Karudapuram, professor at American University in Washington DC. “If you simply call someone a racist, a wall goes up.”

Another step is to appeal to a person’s principles, especially if the slur or hate speech is from someone you have a longstanding relationship with.

“Bob, I’ve always thought of you as a fair-minded person, so it shocks me when I hear you say something that sounds so bigoted,” is the example given in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s guide.

Marsha Houston, a pioneer of the communication studies discipline in the areas of social justice and activism, reminded allies that people are complex.

“Appeal to their better instincts,” she said. “Remember that people are complex. What they say in one moment is not necessarily an indication of everything they think.”

The late Ms Houston also spoke of developing the courage to be an ally.

“Summon your courage, whatever it takes to get that courage, wherever that source of courage is for you,” she said.

This is exactly the same point emphasised by Angelou when she told the story of calling out hate speech in her home. She told the story to Oprah Winfrey shortly before her death.

“I remember once being in your house and somebody was telling a joke. And the person made a joke and it was a racist, homophobic joke and you stopped the party,” said Winfrey.

“I said, ‘Is this your coat? Did you come with anyone? Both of you come this way’,” recalled Angelou, who then told her remaining guests: “I would not allow it in my house.

“Any racial pejorative, any sexual pejorative, any of that stuff is created to make a person less than human. And that means it’s poison.”

However, what Winfrey wanted to know was where she summoned the courage to “not allow it” in her space because “people just sort of laugh nervously at [hate speech] because they don’t know how to stop it. How do you stop it?”

Angelou said you do not stop it immediately, you develop courage. “You do it in small ways. I mean if you wanted to pick up a 100lb weight, you don’t just go do it. You start picking 5lb and 10lb and 20lb. Well, that’s the same way you do with courage.

“You do the courageous thing, a small one, and you like yourself. And then you do another two, three, and you like yourself better. And before you know it, you are able to say: ‘Excuse me, not in my house you don’t. You don’t paint my walls with poison and vulgarity. You will not do it in my house. Out. Is this your purse? Thank you. Bye’.”

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Calling out your brother’s homophobic ‘joke’ is a privilege for some, because it is an actual matter of life or death for others. No act of solidarity is too small or insignificant.