To Reclaim a Slur or Reject It?

“Slurs are a weapon,” says Cynthia Wang, a clinical professor at the Kellogg School and executive director of Kellogg’s Dispute Resolution and Research Center. “They are a metaphorical sword that people wield to hurt the other side.” 

For two decades, Wang has studied how people, including stigmatized groups, respond to slurs by seizing control of the language. They don’t just absorb the slurs aimed at them; they fight back. But they do so in different ways. Some openly reclaim the slur: “I am X.” While others reject it outright: “I am not X.” 

In research with Gloria Cheng and Jennifer Whitson of UCLA, Wang compared these two strategies to determine which might be more effective at defusing a slur—and what happens when people use those strategies.  

The answer cut both ways. Reclaiming a slur, which the researchers call self-labeling, turned out to be more effective at draining the word of its power. But individuals who used this approach suffered in the eyes of observers, who judged them as less likable and less likely to be hired or promoted. 

“If the stigmatized group is able to wrest control of that sword, then the other group can’t easily use it as a weapon,” Wang says. But wresting control comes at a personal cost. 

Two words, many experiments 

For the research, Wang and her colleagues conducted seven studies in all. Most followed a similar setup: Participants observed a member of a stigmatized group either reclaiming or rejecting a slur. Then they reported how negative or offensive the word seemed and how they felt about the person who used it. 

The team tested this effect across very different groups, settings, and slurs. 

In one study, for example, participants imagined scrolling through the social media platform X and seeing a post from a Latino man on their feed. Half saw a post where the man reclaimed a slur: “I’m a [slur],” while the other half saw a post where the man rejected the same slur: “I’m not a [slur].” In another study, participants saw a slide from a college student’s presentation on sexual violence, with a title that either reclaimed or rejected a slur targeting women. Still another study centered on an entirely fictional ethnic group and a fictional slur, which helped rule out the possibility that participants were simply reacting to words they already had deep-seated feelings about. 

Across these tests, a pattern emerged: when someone reclaimed a slur, observers rated the word as less negative than when the person rejected the word. But observers also rated the individual who reclaimed the word as less likable and less worthy of a job or a promotion. Rejecting the slur, meanwhile, was gentler on the individual but did less to defang the word. 

This trend applied to realistic settings, too. In one of the studies, participants believed they were having a live, get-to-know-you chat with another participant named Minji. Midway through the experiment, Minji mentioned she had a personal blog that, in its title, either reclaimed or rejected a slur targeting Asians. Afterward, participants were told they’d do a second task in pairs, where one person would lead, and the other would assist. Then they individually answered whether Minji deserved the role of leader. 

Participants who saw the blog title where Minji reclaimed the slur were significantly less likely to endorse Minji for the leadership role. Challenging stigma with self-labeling therefore harbored real costs.  

The tension underneath 

Why would an act that weakens a slur turn out to harm the person using it? The researchers found two mechanisms pulling in opposite directions. 

When a stigmatized group claims a slur as its own, observers see the group as having seized authority over the word. “Once the stigmatized group owns or has control over the label, then other groups can’t use it as a weapon,” Wang explains. 

At the same time, when someone takes over ownership of a word, even if it’s to reclaim a slur, it challenges the social arrangement that the word helps enforce. Some people experience this challenge as a threat to a world they’re comfortable with. 

“People who really like how things are don’t want things to change, and they feel threatened by attempts at self-labeling,” Wang says. “This is what creates this backlash against the individual who self-labels.” 

The studies bear this out, as the backlash was concentrated among observers who most strongly believe that existing social hierarchies are fair and legitimate. 

A need for organizational support 

In light of these findings, Wang’s first takeaway for individuals weighing how to respond to a slur is simply awareness. The two different strategies—reclaiming versus rejecting a slur—carry different consequences, and it’s worth understanding the trade-off before choosing which to take. 

But Wang is quick to say the deeper problem isn’t one individuals should have to solve on their own.  

Many organizations now actively encourage employees to bring their whole selves to work and to speak up against bias. Though those are worthy commitments, they also come with a complication employers rarely acknowledge. 

“It hurts individuals to challenge these stigmas, and so organizations probably shouldn’t place the responsibility on them; they shouldn’t put the fight on them,” Wang says. “That approach can have individual implications for those in minority groups who are trying to push forward this change.” 

This is the quiet trap that the research exposes. When employees from stigmatized groups confront the slurs aimed at them, they help erode those slurs’ power, providing a genuine collective good. Yet the same act can cost them likability, raises, and promotions, draining them of exactly the organizational standing they would need to drive change at a larger scale. Challenging stigma makes a person less powerful, and less power makes stigma harder to challenge. 

Breaking this cycle, Wang argues, means moving the burden off individuals and onto institutions through policies that address discriminatory language directly, protect the people who speak up, and confront the threat responses that drive the backlash in the first place. 

“Organizations have to think about not only collective ramifications, but also individual ramifications,” Wang says. The people most effective at challenging a stigma, her research warns, are too often the ones who pay for it.