Chapter 51 The Sting of Shame Ridicule, Rape, and Social Bonds Cynthia Willett At racial and gendered intersections of our social identities lie some of the most diicult emotions we may ever experience. Consider how those micro-aggressions that are part of the ordinary fray of life—the casual slur or the odd stare—can tear us apart emotionally. Mere mention of these occasionally humorous or “entertaining” barbs (entertaining to some) can at times seem petty and irrelevant to substantial ethical issues. Oten it is not even clear if any real harm is meant. Yet the barest suggestion of an insult can drain us of joy, casting us down in shame or arousing indignant outrage. Of course, more oten than not insults roll of our back as minor annoyances. However, when micro-acts of aggression, such as mild taunts or callous mockery, evoke patterns of long-term or structural abuse, the impact can be seri- ously harmful, even traumatic. Racism and sexism characteristically take the shape of extensive patterns of symbolic vio- lence such as verbal or visual insult as well as exploitation, physical violence, and other forms of substantial, material abuse. We think of physical acts of sexual or racial violence such as police brutality or sexual assault as more signiicant harms than racial ridicule and min- strelsy or the sexist humor found in a rape joke. Indeed, modern liberal Western societies typically classify only the former as punishable crimes. In the United States, the dominant culture’s continued allegiance to individualism sanctions the insult, with or without humor, to a signiicant extent through free speech rights. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but names, as the children’s nursery rhyme goes, will never hurt us. But what if the sting of symbolic aggression—as seemingly minor as an insult dressed up in the pleasantries of a verbal or visual joke—in fact accounts in many instances for the more acute pain of the physical assault? To be sure, physical and material assaults against our selves and our property can injure bodily integrity and material well-being, puncturing that sense of self-ownership known as autonomy. But what if a devastating dimension of violence and material damage cannot be understood apart from the cruelty of the joke or the sting of ridicule? What if a shaming insult constitutes the signiicant sting at the heart of much racial and sexual discrimination or assault? OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – REVISES, Sat Sep 10 2016, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780190236953-ch40-52.indd 608 9/10/2016 11:12:11 AM