Understanding the Origins of Hurtful Comments

It’s happening again. You’re in a conversation and another person inserts a condescending comment. Or you are invited to share your contextual opinion, and another person follows with a dismissive comment. Take one guess on the origins of these comments?

Competitive statements such as, “we’re the best,” “we’re number one,” “we’re more deserving,” “God’s people/chosen,” “we have the right to” and other phrases that assert hierarchy are often rooted in the harmful histories of human ranking, even if the modern or current context is meant to show team spirit, group solidarity, or some form of perceived togetherness or belonging.

Embedded in these comments is sometimes the colonized social conditioning that reinforces how humans are trained to think about each other. The roots of this social conditioning are founded in beliefs about the superiority of one human or group of humans over another, and may derive from eugenist and supremacist ideologies. This competitive need to separate, rank, and control other humans dates back thousands of years, as some humans rejected coexistence with nature for dominance and control of the planet’s resources to augment their own survival.

These ideas rooted in supremacy and eugenics can show up in everything from marketing which facial features and body types are most desirable, to believing those with financial wealth are more worthy, those with access to power are more deserving, and those who receive the most attention, views, followers, and likes, are not only better and more deserving people, but deserve the right to make decisions on how the rest of humans live.

“Eugenics is an immoral and pseudoscientific theory” (NIH NHGRI) that upholds the elimination of undesirable traits and humans under “the practice or advocacy of controlled selective breeding of human populations…to improve the population’s genetic composition” (Merriam Webster). The real harm in eugenicist and supremacist ideologies is the decision-making to exclude or annihilate groups of humans from equal and equitable access to the planet’s resources, intended to be shared by all living beings. The issue is the subtle, daily human ranking, where embedded bias (often labeled as unconscious bias) about human worth allows individuals to make biased decisions resulting in historic atrocities, including mass kidnapping for human trafficking and centuries of enslavement; genocides; and the total erasure of entire human groups and cultures.

This may sound too heavy to be the origins of hurtful or harmful comments, but it is important to know and to be self-aware about the embedded beliefs that may drive our human interactions.

A quick assessment to determine if you’re making hurtful or harmful comments:

1. Are you aware of the contextual origin and emotion behind your comment? Trying to demonstrate your authority or assert power shows a lack of self-awareness and concern for all others. Before speaking, take a moment to think about how your comment will affect those around you and if it will be misinterpreted or misunderstood. Be prepared to rephrase your comment. Being socially aware is not a weakness. Beliefs of strength dominating weakness may also be rooted in supremacist ideologies.
2. Are you interested in creating community instead of getting attention, winning in the conversation, or being “right”? Trying to be the one who gets all the attention or is always “right” can be alienating and can exclude you from developing healthy relationships. Be intentional about how you approach conversations where input is welcomed. Instead of saying whatever you want, be intentional about contributing in a meaningful way to the conversation and be thoughtful of the context and conversational climate.
3. Are you interested in creating meaningful connections and relationships? If you feel you have something to contribute or add to a conversation, assess your positionality (your power dynamic and social position) before offering your comment. An introspective check-in will put your comment in context and help you determine if what you have to say will add value, insight, hurt, or harm.

Each time you interact with other humans it’s an opportunity to create meaningful connections.