Did Periyar call for a genocide of Brahmins ? KARTHICK RAM MANOHARAN Mar 29, 2024 https://frontline.thehindu.com/politics/periyar-genocide-brahmins-tm-krishna-sangita-kalanidhi-music-academy-madras-carnatic/article67997754.ece
In hierarchical societies, reformers challenge the status quo with provocative and uncivil speech. Accusing them of hate speech is ill-intentioned.
Hate speech and offensive speech are ruptures in civility. But, importantly, both are not the same...
In an important chapter on hate speech in his book Offend, Shock, or Disturb (2018), Gautam Bhatia writes: “Hate speech legislation is constituted upon the understanding that words can have consequences, that words cannot be separated from broader practices of subordination and inequality in divided societies, and that words can actually impede equal enjoyment of rights, and equal access to social and physical infrastructure”
For example, statements like “white people are racists” and “Black people have criminal tendencies” both rely on generalisations. Both could be legitimately considered offensive. But in racially hierarchical societies where whites enjoy disproportionate social, political, and economic privileges, the first statement is extremely unlikely to cause actual grievous collective harm, while the latter can actually affect the progress of Black people. The latter can be said to constitute hate speech.
Civility has its advantages because often it is the right wing that makes optimal use of the collapse of civility. We can and must insist on civility, but this should not blind one to the difference between uncivil speech from dominant forces and those representing subaltern interests. The former instigates and sustains violence in society; the latter, as provocative as it may be, is a comment on inequalities in society. The use of offensive speech in social justice movements could be hurtful, but it compels a rethinking of society; hate speech, entrenched in dominance, stifles thought, including civil dialogues.