Lessons in the Delicate Art of Confronting Offensive Speech

Then the researchers, under the guise of fellow participants, push back. “We confront them in a variety of ways, sometimes harshly – ‘That’s racist!’ – and sometimes much less so, appealing to equality: ‘Shouldn’t everyone be treated the same?’” said Alexander Czopp, director of the Center for Cross-Cultural Research at Western Washington University. “Depending on how the confrontation is done, the participants might show different levels of defensiveness and anger right away; but they usually show less race-based attitudes on tests we do later.”