Our current political climate is increasingly revealing the symbiotic relationship between bigoted words, actions and policies. When media outlets, learning institutions and technology companies give hateful words a platform under the guise of “objectivity,” they treat human rights as a matter of abstract theoretical debate. Such abstraction, partially predicated on the false idea that words do not cause harm, has immediate material consequences for marginalized people. This talk will explore how hateful and dehumanizing discourse (online and off) causes palpable harm, and what we can do to build communities and institutions that uphold human rights.