Racist insults are often voiced as reported speech rather than directly

Evidence

A common practice was to pair ethnic identity categories with an injurious word (e.g. ‘gypsy twat’ or ‘Paki bastard’). Interestingly, as Stokoe and Edwards observe, talk about ethnicity and racism was, with regularity, formulated in ‘reported speech’ (that is, by voicing the words of another) and embedded in complaint sequences. Reported speech has been shown to be a powerful rhetorical resource to articulate to justify problematic accounts or views on race (Buttny, 1997 ). — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice, 509

Categorization

• XREF: Reported speech as a distancing device parallels Goffman’s footing/participation framework and inoculation moves noted in paragraph 506.
• SEED: Article angle: the ventriloquism of prejudice — how ‘voicing another’s words’ lets speakers perform racism while distancing themselves from authorship.