Quote:
Originally Posted by BoLevi
I haven't followed the whole thread....
But aren't the incidents of physical abuse worse than the incidents of racism?
Actual assault is certainly worse than verbal assault.
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I'll answer this because I think it is a decent, honest question - and I'm always asked about this in the field of mental health.
I think there is a layer of subjectivity here with respect to how the victim interprets the experience (racism).
I've lost count of the number of people who have sat across from me in my office and discussed how they would rather have experienced a physical attack as opposed to being referred to in a discriminating/degrading term. For them, it's worse than the actual assault because of their own historical relationship with the term - or their family/cultural/ethnic/religious historical relationship with the term.
The thing with a physical attack is that you can grade it in terms of severity (e.g., that really hurt, that kinda hurt, that didn't bother me at all). In addition bruises, cuts, breaks and scrapes can heal - so there is a linear path to recovery (An interesting point here, however, is that the emotional/cognitive connection to the physical attack can remain).
In contrast, there "can" be a non-linear path to recovery from a racially degrading remark, if any recovery at all.
IMO (and it is my opinion from decades of working in the field) the saying "sticks and stones can break my bones but names will never hurt me" really #####ed a lot of people up. What ended up happening was that a large percentage of people actually experienced hurt from name-calling, etc., which contradicted societal norms. As a result, these individuals further experienced feelings of abnormality, being lesser than, or weak because the sh*t actually hurt them. It mind-#####ed them. Many of them continue to carry the emotional scars to this day.
The good news is that as a society we are starting to appreciate the impact of those norms, and are shifting away from those stiff-upper-lip-themed viewpoints. An honest mistake from an older time of what was viewed as "the right thing." But there's a fallout from it. That generation has some of the highest rates of violence, addiction, depression, and self-harm (again, I see it on a daily basis). Sure, you can argue that correlation doesn't equal causation - and there can exist internal/external threats to the validity of my statement - but you can't prove it to be false.