I can&#x27;t relate to the experience of being black in the U.S., but I was once being loudly called names for being a nerd in the subway (by some probably drunk guy). (We were discussing Forth with a coworker and the guy apparently took it personally.)<p>I just laughed it off (which probably didn&#x27;t help), and I didn&#x27;t feel threatened by it at all (but my coworker didn&#x27;t, so we went out next station, which looking back was probably a good idea).<p>To get to the point, I don&#x27;t think insults from someone (words) can hurt unless one of the two conditions is satisfied:<p>(1) The words (or circumstances) indicate that the insulting person may escalate from words to actual physical attack<p>(2) The words may cause the bystanders to stand with the insulting person<p>In my case, I didn&#x27;t felt threatened by (1), which was probably a little risky. It seems to me that we consider case (1) hurtful because it&#x27;s a potential risk and we want to avoid it. The real emotion here is fear of being attacked.<p>In case of (2), I didn&#x27;t worry about that either (in fact, there was a girl sitting next to me who was apparently very sympathetic to me laughing it off), because the person that did the name calling had obviously low social status.<p>But I think the reason we find (2) hurtful is a slightly different one; it&#x27;s a status problem. If we want to be part of some group, we may be disappointed by that group rejecting us. It&#x27;s not just a question of pure survival as in case of (1), it&#x27;s our own emotional projection (of our status) that makes it hurtful.<p>Another example, I can imagine a girl being more hurt by somebody criticizing (with a sexist insinuation) her at work than somebody low status catcalling her on the street. The latter is much more risky, but the first can hurt lot more because that&#x27;s where her aspirations are.<p>I wonder if you agree or not and what you think context of your situation was?<p>To sum up, I think there are two very different reasons why we consider words &quot;hurtful&quot;, and each only happens in specific circumstances, which should be recognized (although they might be subjective). And while I do think people should be protected by law from potential risk in case (1), I am not sure if people should be protected from finding that they have low social status in the group they want to belong, as in (2). If anything should be protected at all then it&#x27;s the potential to gain social status.