This is legit why I have like two male friends left tbh. After 2016 I stopped giving a fuck. The problem… or maybe the cause in a way… is that I’m an oddly assertive introvert so it’s very easy for me to end up in a situation where I’m doing nothing but going off on people and making drama.

Ask them to explain the “joke” then once they finish say I didn’t find the joke funny.

friend says fucked up shit, asks if you agree

“What? No. Shit no! I believe you get your ass kicked for saying shit like that.”

You don’t need to be cisgender, heterosexual, male or white to call people out on their bigoted beliefs.

Edit: if you are in those categories you’re more likely to be taken more seriously by other cishet white men. I think I understand the point of the original post now.

Nah, there’s nothing louder than silence.

Wipe all expression from your face, and stare at them. Maybe just an expression of incredulity if this is out of character for them. That’s all it takes.

Bystanders will literally stop what they’re doing and watch. Their brains will scream “I’m about to be excluded from the group”, and they’ll start babbling. They’ll confess their sins and be harsher on themselves than anything you could say

If you don’t like their next words, give them nothing. Literally don’t respond, anything you give them is closure. Don’t give them closure, move on with your life - they can’t.

Don’t give them judgement, give them nothing. If you judge them, they can turn themselves into a victim or you into an enemy… Without a response, the only enemy is themselves, because they will crave your approval.

It’s like a teacher staring down a student who keeps talking until the whole class is looking at them, except they don’t know what to do to make it stop. So they try anything and wrack their brain for a solution. It seriously freaks people out

Note: this is less likely to work against neurodivergent people, they’ll just be confused. That’s how I learned to do this - I got annoyed and straight up asked a therapist why they kept staring at me when I was done talking. They explained the concept of a pregnant pause, and so I started using it.

And acquaintances started telling me how they were abused to explain their behavior and strangers started confessing how they cheated on their partners out of nowhere.

I get a lot of long apology emails the day after someone wrongs me, I now make an effort to give closure to everyone I like early and often.

Humans are tortured by this

1. Slight lean back

2. Expression of baffled disgust

3. Quietly: “The fuck?”

Cuts deep

“Bro, not cool.” With a stern look always sets the homies straight.

These comments, yeesh. I am a cis white dude, and I don’t see how this post is offensive. As I’ve gotten older and more self-confident, I absolutely call people out for their garbage opinions/statements. Being a cis/straight/white dude it happens all the time that somebody says something racist/sexist/homophobic in front of me assuming I’ll be sympathetic. I’ve used all these “scripts” and encourage you all to use them also.

My personal go-to is, “They’re a human being, just like you.”

ITT: a lot of people reading this to be specifically and only for cis white men, but they’re talking about the power any in-group member has to shut down bigoted shit and that’s what we should be focusing on. In a space where the biggest in-group is black women this post would be about them, but the most common “in-group” (disproportionately so) is white cis men so that’s who they mention. If this is making you feel attacked or targeted then please set aside that part of it and don’t discard the actual message, because this is honestly something everyone should think about.

Anytime you’re accepted somewhere, whether in public or among strangers, you have a lot of social power when it comes to setting the tone of conversation - one loud idiot can make a space feel extremely hostile to an outsider, and if everybody gives a polite laugh instead of speaking up that idiot learns saying things like that is okay and the “outsider” learns they’re not truly welcome. Literally one person who speaks up instead of letting it fly can solve this - the message is to be that person, not to attack anyone in particular.

I’m going to use all of these except the “I won’t let you” because that could trigger the right wing persecution complex, and/or sound like fighting words.

I want them to think normal people (not me tbh) are put off by their weird shit.

Oh hey it’s that mean voice in my head

Pfff. Everytime my father in law goes on a racist diatribe I tell him, “Mustafa is what now?”. He is my Egyptian brother in law and the kindest and hospitable person I know.

I also very dislike my father in law, used to be a somewhat good guy, then he got old and racist.

I told a coworker they were “full of shit” then repeated that when they said “what?”

The “do you hear yourself right now?” is a good one, gonna use it well