There is a particular burden in being expected to object to your own humiliation. Someone makes a racist remark, other people hear it, and the person it concerns must decide whether to challenge it, endure it or leave. Everyone else can carry on with their afternoon.
That unequal freedom deserves more attention in discussions about hate speech. We tend to ask what the speaker should be permitted to say. There is also the question of how much work everyone around them is prepared to leave to the person being targeted.
The Council of Europe reports that Montenegro is stepping up efforts to combat racism and hate speech. The supplied report does not establish what those efforts will achieve. It does, however, offer a reason to consider where public commitments meet ordinary conduct: at work, among friends, around a family table.
An institutional response matters. Asking individuals to be braver is a poor substitute for addressing discrimination through the bodies responsible for doing so. Yet a policy cannot make the small, uncomfortable decision for somebody who hears a remark and would rather let it pass.
There is a complication here. People can disagree fiercely, speak clumsily or cause offence without expressing racial hatred. A life in which every conversation is inspected for possible wrongdoing would hardly encourage human connection. Any serious response needs room for context, correction and the possibility that somebody has expressed themselves badly rather than revealed an irredeemable character.
But that room should extend to the person on the receiving end too. They should not have to provide a perfectly measured explanation of why something was degrading before anyone else takes it seriously.
For those listening, intervention need not become a public trial. It might mean declining to laugh, saying plainly what was objectionable, or checking afterwards whether the person concerned wants support. Their wishes matter; taking over can become another way of denying them a say.
The practical responsibility is modest, though not always comfortable: if we were present for the remark, we can take some responsibility for the response. Otherwise, the person already carrying its consequences gets handed the task of improving the atmosphere as well.