Being kind is not the problem. In fact, we all should be.

But when kindness is used as a tool to guilt someone into abandoning their anger around injustice, or pressure someone into loosening their boundaries, or ridiculing someone to dump their self-care practices, this is weaponized kindness.

Weaponized kindness is:

❌ Being friendly to shut down conversations around injustice

❌ Demanding something in return for being a decent human being

❌ Being concerned for others, but only if they share your social, ethnic, and/or biological identities

❌ Providing criticism with a smile to injure or harm

#WeaponizedKindness is rooted in a lack of empathy for self. You cannot love your neighbour as yourself if you lack self-compassion. All you can do is hate your neighbour as you hate yourself.

One way to start building empathy for you is to self-reflect. Meet your #InnerOppressor with curiosity. Capture its rambling on a page. Sit with what was revealed. Repeat for as many times as you need to. Be in communion with others also doing the inner work so you have a soft place to land.

Then, you’ll be able to practice kindness that’s rooted in:

✅ Friendliness & warmth
✅ Being helpful without seeking praise or a reward
✅ Concern when others are suffering no matter what they look like
✅ Giving feedback to help others do better
✅ Holding empathy for self

Share (with attribution), save, tag someone, make a quote graphic, whatevs.

Questions for reflection

What else would you add to the weaponized kindness side? What are things people say that can clue you in that they’re practicing weaponized kindness?

Quoted in Do Better by Rachel Ricketts

I first wrote about weaponized kindness here and republished it with an infographic here. In her book called Do Better: Spiritual Activism for Fighting and Healing from White Supremacy, bestselling author Rachel Ricketts wrote about weaponized kindness and identified that I coined it. Given that back in 2019, I did not find any blog posts, articles, or videos using the term weaponized kindness, it is correct to say that I coined the term. When referring to this post or writing about weaponized kindness, please attribute the term to me please see the update below.

UPDATE (2023, February 7): I did some follow-up research on weaponized kindness while writing a chapter for my book (Row House, 2023) and found a couple of resources that used the term prior to 2019 when I posted about the term on Instagram (November 17 to be exact). On September 30, 2017, Sleep With Me Podcast had an episode entitled Weaponized Kindness. A year prior to that on March 18, 2016, this blogger used the term weaponized kindness in the title of a post. Although I was one of the earlier users of the term, I could not have coined it if it were being used in the same context prior to when I posted about it.

APA (7th ed.) Citation

Hall, L. H. (2022, January 16). Kindness vs weaponized kindness: What’s the difference? https://leesareneehall.com/kindness-vs-weaponized-kindness-whats-the-difference/