Why You Should Not Always Stay Silent When People Shame You

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00][music] >> Um, hi guys.

[00:00:02]So, I recently shared a post on on my [music] social platforms about um, a shaming how I responded to a shaming attack I received on one of the um, gay dating apps.

[00:00:14]And uh, I got a few responses about people telling me, advising me to not respond in case of in case of next time, I should just um, >> [clears throat] >> leave the negativity and don't address it. I just just let them But I Well, I understand the concern, yeah, but um, >> [laughter] >> Silence is not a good response to um, shaming attack. I mean, staying silent.

[00:00:39]It might look like strength on the surface, whatever it looks like, but um, with everything I've read, all the research articles I've read, all the um, studies about shaming and how it works, especially in terms of um, social control, um, silence is not the solution. It's not the best It's not the best response you can you can deploy when someone shames you.

[00:01:00]This is uh, for a a number of reasons, but the most important one, the most serious of the reasons is the is what um, silence does. It do It Silence can support quiet internalization of of the shame.

[00:01:15]>> [clears throat] >> Now, because we tend to read um, shame as just plain meanness, uh, we tend we uh, always like see that someone's just being mean to us. But it's much more than that. It's deeper than that. If you read um, this man's article about how shame connects to masculinity, especially when when um, especially in contexts that is um, involving um, black gay people, you know that is much more deeper than that.

[00:01:49]And the when you look at the whole sociological picture of shame, and um, part of building shame literacy is understanding how humiliation works. That's the deeper context of humiliation and not just surface reading.

[00:02:06]So, when you stay silent under a shame attack, your brain doesn't Our brains are not perfect machines.

[00:02:19]They They prioritize I've written about this several in my articles several times in my articles.

[00:02:26]Uh our brains are not perfect machines.

[00:02:28]They prioritize efficiency over neatness.

[00:02:32]Meaning that you can stay silent, but it doesn't mean that at night your brain is not coding some messages and scripts that someone said about you and putting it somewhere, storing it somewhere on the side.

[00:02:46]And it accumulates. So, you keep staying silent over time. Before you know it, your void keep enlarging. If you read um >> [clears throat] >> what I said I what I've written about the shame void and how it works, you understand what I'm saying. Now, I talked about using the absurdity absurdity verbs method, which I created for disarming shaming in real time, which is what I deployed in that response. And why it is a different strategy of response and why it is much more effective is that it stops this internalization because it informs your brain that there's no threat. Because the idea for queer people, shame can activate the same threat response as danger. Meaning that in terms of places where you are shamed, your body mounts the same response as if you are in physical danger. Like similar [snorts] response. So, if if you know how this is and how deep it means and how important and how significant it is to your life and what you represent. You know that it's not just an ordinary meanness. It's not something you just say, "Oh." So, you have to find solutions and I Is this a two 2026?

[00:04:07]Most square black women are not very, very shame literate, meaning that they don't understand the mechanisms of humiliation and public humiliation, private humiliation, and how it works.

[00:04:20]They still do not get it. And that's why when I write the things I write and share the posts I share, a lot of people always don't get, get, get.

[00:04:31]But if you read the article about shame as a tool of social control, that's where you start. That's where you understand that shaming alone they you can use shame to turn you into something something somebody wants. Someone who wants control.

[00:04:50]You can use shame to control a community. You can use shame to control >> [snorts] >> I don't want to go into that. I don't want this video to be long cuz once I start talking, before I know it, the video is over half an hour. But I want to stop here. Silence is not the best response to a shaming attack in real time.

[00:05:09]The getting defensive is not the best response cuz these two um these two responses gives shame power.

[00:05:19]If you're being de- If you're defending a shame a shame attack, it tells your system, your mind, your psyche that there's an element of truth to it. So, you're standing in a court of shame.

[00:05:29]So, you're defending yourself.

[00:05:31]Sometimes you might defend it and it works, but a shamer it doesn't No shamer is a is a is a fair judge, so you can't you can't win.

[00:05:41]Secondly, silence is the worst one because it's the one that it happens in the day and you find it at night.

[00:05:51]So, when you read about the A R M method that I came up with and all the studies I've used cuz when I build my frameworks, I don't just go and write.

[00:06:03]So, I consult all the studies, all the research papers on that same topic.

[00:06:10]I bring them together and find a layer that connects that connects all of them and see points of intervention. So, it's very technical. That's why you can I can stay 6 months building one framework. I told you guys that I'm currently building a framework for substance use, which I'm testing by myself.

[00:06:35]It's not like I can't publish it now, but because it's not ready I haven't seen I haven't fully understood the limitations and the how it's because everything I'm building is about self-application. So, as I'm using it for myself, I'm finding ways and more ways to make it better.

[00:06:52]So, when I say consult the frameworks and they're free, but you will feel like someone [clears throat] is just but believe me so many people so many things going on and you don't have the language for it.

[00:07:06]People just keep responding to air.

[00:07:09]When you are responding to air in 2026 as a black male man, that is trouble.

[00:07:14]All right, I'll stop this video now before I start talking