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When you come across a disturbing, hateful message, there are many thoughts, emotions, reactions that may suddenly appear. 

It is important to take a moment to self-identify and understand what is happening to us and why it is happening.

 Explanation

When you come across a disturbing, hateful message, there are many thoughts, emotions, reactions that suddenly appear. These can range from rage and anger, to frustration, shame, immobilisation. These reactions tend to drive our choices and decisions about our actions. They also tell a lot about our own moral compass.

Sometimes our reaction 
shows us
what our values are

The anger or other emotions result from a feeling of injustice, or fear etc, and this can help you identify which human rights principles and how human dignity is violated according to you. Sometimes they are spontaneous, not well reflected and analysed. When you come across hateful comments and messages, it is important to take a moment to self-identify and understand what is happening to us and why it is happening.

 Questions for reflection

  • What was your first reaction to what you read or saw in the hate message?
  • What were your emotions when you came across the hate speech message?
  • What were your first thoughts?
  • What provokes and triggers these reactions?
  • Does reading or seeing this hate speech message make you want to respond? If so how?

 

 

 

 

 Emotion wheel

Use the diagram below to help identify your emotional reaction to the hate speech

 Exercise to support your reflections

In order to help you identify your reactions, emotions, to think why you are reacting that way to a certain hateful message we propose you to take 5 minutes for a freewriting exercise.

Take a stopwatch, several sheets of paper, a pen, find a comfortable place to sit and write. This is an individual work. Read the message you have chosen for this exercise, read it couple of times. Then, set the stopwatch to 5 minutes and start writing about you and that message.

Do not mind spelling, grammar, logic, just keep writing all the thoughts that come to your head, even if you think that you are drifting away from the topic, it is ok. You write what comes to your mind. Do not reread what you wrote, do not stop to think what you want to write. Your pen should always be writing during those 5 minutes. If you reach a point where you can't think of anything to write, you write about it as well until a new line of thought will come. Let your thoughts flow.

When the 5 minutes are up, read through what you just wrote, highlight the part which you might want to come back to, parts which were new for you, thoughts which you would like to use further.