Critical Perspectives on Hate Speech: The Centrality of ‘Dialogic Listening’

Abstract

The difficulties associated with conceptualizing and responding to hate speech raise a plethora of problems that remain intractable within the American liberal legal system of free expression. Instead of proposing another round of legal remedies aimed at stamping out hate speech, we challenge the underlying values, communicative assumptions, and processes that tend to give power to hate speech, silence its targets, and mask it as deserving of protection simply because of one's right to express oneself. In turn, we advocate for conceptualizing communication as dialogue in attempts to create and maintain dialogic relationships among diverse people. Finally, we argue for the centrality of “dialogic listening” to our particular construction of dialogue, especially in making apparent the importance of approaching hate speech with a “caring” sensitivity to the role of culture and power.