No, words do not hurt. I don't let words hurt me. You control your feelings and emotions. Its part of being a complete, mature adult. It is your responsibility to not let someone else's words hurt you and define you. Its called dealing with life and the fact that not everyone and everything in life is rosy and a great experience.

Here's my tip - when someone does or says something that hurts you, examine why you feel the way you feel and treat it with amusement. I'm a minority that has dealt with racist comments. It is what it is. Do the words hurt me? No. I'm amused at how ignorant some people can be, and I move on with my life and write some code.

I found this particularly enlightening, on this topic (no pun intended!) http://buddhism.stackexchange.com/q/11617

Good read - thanks for sharing. I quite liked this:

'Padmasambhava said that when a stick is thrown to a dog, the dog will chase the stick. A dog’s gaze follows the object, the stick. The lion gazes steadily at the source, the thrower. We need to look at our mind, the source of the emotion. An emotion like anger is the stick. The source hurling that emotion is our mind. It is the mind that projects. The source of our experience is our own mind.

Dzogchen [Buddhism] turns our gaze inward toward the source of experience, which is mind. Pristine mind is our lion's gaze.'

For the record, I think freedom of speech is more important than anyone's general comfort level (almost by definition).

But it's important to acknowledge there's a huge difference between singleton one-off insults -- where it's easy to take a "sticks and stones" attitude -- vs. being immersed in an environment where you frequently hear insults from a wide variety of people around you. Which also inevitably comes coupled with equally if not more non-verbal slights, ranging from the subtle and physically harmless (locking car doors, being followed by store security guards) to the economically painful (statistical disadvantages in the job market or justice system) and even physically dangerous (e.g. the recent spate of police shootings).

Not being a minority I can't directly identify with that experience, but I have to imagine the "laugh it off" argument doesn't really apply well to a life filled with such experiences.

But is it not you hanging on to those words that is doing the harm, and in that you doing the harm? Those words of an ignoramus disappeared years ago. At this point you are hurting yourself.

When I was about 13 my grandfather died in Jacksonville Florida. He lived in the same house for maybe 50 years and the racial makeup of the neighborhood changed during the time he was there. I remember walking out of the funeral home and down the street for a soda only to be taunted and called names by a group of blacks out of a window. And yes, my skin color was mentioned. Anyone who has spent any time in the ghetto, in the projects, in whatever you want to call it has witnessed some pretty bad behavior. Racist behavior. It sucks. I imagine it sucks for blacks as well.

Some people are assholes. Some assholes are white and some aren't. We can't rid the world of assholes but it would sure be nice if they reformed themselves. In the meantime, there are no safe spaces in the real world. We should ask people to be polite where we can but that's as far as it goes.

I can't relate to the experience of being black in the U.S., but I was once being loudly called names for being a nerd in the subway (by some probably drunk guy). (We were discussing Forth with a coworker and the guy apparently took it personally.)

I just laughed it off (which probably didn't help), and I didn't feel threatened by it at all (but my coworker didn't, so we went out next station, which looking back was probably a good idea).

To get to the point, I don't think insults from someone (words) can hurt unless one of the two conditions is satisfied:

(1) The words (or circumstances) indicate that the insulting person may escalate from words to actual physical attack

(2) The words may cause the bystanders to stand with the insulting person

In my case, I didn't felt threatened by (1), which was probably a little risky. It seems to me that we consider case (1) hurtful because it's a potential risk and we want to avoid it. The real emotion here is fear of being attacked.

In case of (2), I didn't worry about that either (in fact, there was a girl sitting next to me who was apparently very sympathetic to me laughing it off), because the person that did the name calling had obviously low social status.

But I think the reason we find (2) hurtful is a slightly different one; it's a status problem. If we want to be part of some group, we may be disappointed by that group rejecting us. It's not just a question of pure survival as in case of (1), it's our own emotional projection (of our status) that makes it hurtful.

Another example, I can imagine a girl being more hurt by somebody criticizing (with a sexist insinuation) her at work than somebody low status catcalling her on the street. The latter is much more risky, but the first can hurt lot more because that's where her aspirations are.

I wonder if you agree or not and what you think context of your situation was?

To sum up, I think there are two very different reasons why we consider words "hurtful", and each only happens in specific circumstances, which should be recognized (although they might be subjective). And while I do think people should be protected by law from potential risk in case (1), I am not sure if people should be protected from finding that they have low social status in the group they want to belong, as in (2). If anything should be protected at all then it's the potential to gain social status.

Do you think this experience altered the course of his life? Have any of your experiences with hate speech altered yours? It's not a question that can really be answered for sure, but I would like your honest opinion.

I remember being called a "white monkey" by a black girl in school when I was a kid. In that class, I was the minority, the only white kid. I don't think that experience affected my life negatively. Roll eyes, move on with life.

Hey, that's awesome that you didn't let that negative experience colour your life! I'm really happy that you were able to let it roll off your back.

How many times did it happen? Once? Twice? A few? A few thousand?

How many years did it go on? One? Two? A decade, at least?

How many people? Just that girl? Just the kids in your class? Random people walking down the street, or sitting next to you in public?

That particular incident gets a memory due to the fact that nobody before or since has called me that particular thing. During the time I went to that school, it was an everyday occurrence that I would be singled out for one reason or another (primarily because my skin was different, I suspect).

Sitting in public was not an option in that area. Walking down the street wasn't really something that ever happened either. You might get shot doing that. We had drills in school for what to do when, not if, but when gun shots were reported in the neighborhood.

Should someone be arrested for saying a racist slur? I'm honestly curious about your opinion.

Whoah, that's a bloody wide gap you have there, stretching from "doesn't hurt at all" to "should be imprisoned". The world is nowhere near that polarised.

I think it would give me a good perspective on the comment author's mindset, which is why I am curious.

But do you, vacri, see a huge gap between completely destroying a professor's life, i.e. forcing them to resign their position, give up their salary, tenure, and reputation (which is what these students were asking), and going to prison? Going to prison implies all of the former, it's just an extra debasement on the other penalties, although an extreme one.

You're mixing up your arguments. colmvp said that words can hurt - and in response, you're retorting that students are asking for imprisonment of a professor? What? How is that a rebuttal? Regardless of whether the students are successful or are laughed out of college, it has no bearing on colmvp's comment that words can hurt.

Basically you're trying to force a false dichotomy, where the options are "nothing at all" and "complete destruction of life". Someone's opinion on such a ridiculously polarised fantasy isn't going to grant any useful insights.

In contrary, the gap is non-existent. If I touch you, without even really hurting you, you can sue me and the police can arrest me. That is the extent that violence (actual violence) is discouraged in our society.

So you can hardly argue that speech is actually hurtful and that you shouldn't be punished for it.

Do you think white people are never insulted?

That's probably outweighed by the exaltation for white people found all over society.