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Comedian Tony Hinchcliff, the first speaker at former President Trump’s Madison Square Garden Rally on Sunday, said: “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.” It was one of many rally remarks deemed racist, sexist, and xenophobic. Hinchcliff’s “joke” insulted and poured salt on the wounds of many, and very few seem inclined to defend or dismiss it.
As I wrote in 2012: “Rod Martin, a psychologist at the University of Western Ontario, has studied humor as a form of communication, and finds that it reveals much about the inner workings of our minds and the ways we adapt to situations. You can take this quiz adapted from Martin’s Humor Styles Questionnaire to find out what types of humor you use: put down, bonding, hate me, or laugh at life. I am strongest at laughing-at-life and bonding humor, and very low on put-down and hate-me humor. I would expect that people who are trying to exert dominance score much higher at put-down humor.”
Hinchcliff’s comment could be seen as an example of put-down or punch-down humor. It expressed contempt of the US territory of Puerto Rico, and by extension, all Puerto Ricans (who are U.S. citizens, by the way) and Latine people in general, while attempting to idealize those in the white mainstream, people like Hinchcliff.
In America, we typically say the remedy for insulting hate speech is more speech, and indeed, many Americans are exercising their First Amendment rights of free speech and free association in rallying against the remarks and the attitude behind them. Most, Americans do not want to promote hatred and contempt of minorities, even as hatred and contempt have come from some of the most prominent political voices in the nation.
What effects do hate speech and punch-down humor have?
- Adverse childhood experiences (ACES): Adverse childhood experiences include abuse, neglect, or household dysfunction. Being humiliated, sworn at, and put down by an adult in the household qualifies for an ACE (verbal abuse), as does feeling unloved (neglect). These often go hand in hand with physical abuse and other ACEs. An ACE score of 4 or more is correlated with worse health outcomes. “The likelihood of chronic pulmonary lung disease increases 390 percent; hepatitis, 240 percent; depression 460 percent; attempted suicide, 1,220 percent.” Experiencing these ACES could lead to neurological effects.
- Neurological: A 2023 fMRI study in Nature by Pluta and colleagues found that exposure to hate speech decreased neural responses to another person’s pain. They theorized that derogatory speech impaired perspective-taking, a component of empathy.
- Decreased empathy: A decreased ability to understand others’ emotions is harmful to relationships, often producing high criticality and a tendency to dismiss feelings, among other effects. This is one pathway of intergenerational trauma, which takes us back to #1, in the possibility of perpetuating adverse childhood experiences.
- Weakened immune system: Contempt has been shown to increase coughs, colds, pain, chronic exhaustion, and other severe physical symptoms. We are social beings and are deeply influenced by relationships. Being made to feel powerless or subordinated harms us physically and psychologically.
- Hate speech can create hostile working and learning environments, defined in Title IX as:
- A situation of a discriminatory or sexual nature that has occurred and created an adverse setting
- An intimidating or offensive environment that causes a person to be fearful
- A setting that denies, limits, or interferes with a person’s ability to participate in or benefit from a program, activity, or job
Examples: Bullying, abusive or intimidating comments and actions. Intimidating or offensive comments that alter the conditions of a person’s work, classroom, team, or program environment. Continual offensive comments or surroundings of a discriminatory or sexual nature.
6. Reinforce biases and hierarchies, such as racism and casteism.
7. On the extreme end, hate speech can create the conditions for violence and even genocide. Scholar William Schabas wrote: “The road to genocide in Rwanda was paved with hate speech.” Philosopher Lynne Tirrell concluded, in her study of the rise of hate speech in Rwanda before the genocide, that “Linguistic violence is the canary in the mine. We ignore it at our peril.” Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat and others have noted that derogatory speech creates a “permission structure” for violence and abuse by followers who mimic the leaders or feel emboldened to express their own prejudices.
One of the great strengths of American democracy lies in its pluralism, diversity, and quest for a more perfect union. Though we are seemingly polarized at this political moment, I believe we are pretty strong in our shared humanity and compassion across our diversity, though there are significant lapses and potentials for harm. We might use moments such as these to increase our empathy by better understanding the harmful effects of speech such as that of Hinchcliff’s and holding our leaders and each other to better standards.
Maybe we can turn a compassion chasm into an enlightenment mountaintop!
© 2024 Ravi Chandra, M.D., D.F.A.P.A.
