interpellates in two ways. First, as a human rights violation, bordering on the normative and objective levels. Second, as a subjective and quite pragmatic way. Of concern here is the subjective form of violence whose visibility exists in two forms; i.e., as symbolic violence often embodied in language and speech forms in which those considered to be ‘outsiders’ and not belonging to a given social whole are negatively labelled. This kind of violence includes incitement through language using constructed formulaic processes of typifying ‘others’. In this instance relations of social domination reproduced in our habitual speech forms hinged on language as the carrier of symbols and signifier creates the violent imposition of stereotypes in which ethnic minorities are reduced to lesser beings and thus denied the status of ever being recognised in society; unless if they embrace certain values prescribed to them by the majority ethnicities. We see this with the Ndebele people in Zimbabwe, the Basarwa and the Kalanga in Botswana, the people of Barotseland in Zambia, etc. The universalization of stereotypes provides currency to hate-speech as a form of subjective violence. Hate-speech then becomes one form of subjective violence that exists as the perturbation of the ‘normal’ peaceful state of things; thus providing us with a new and most dangerous typology of violence, in the 21st century, whose traumatic impact is an attempt to decaffeinate those in the ethnic minority as the ‘other’. PROPOSED PREVENTIVE MEASURES In view of these state challenges, I wish to proffer a kind of radical rethink of our engagement with the concept of ethnicity as part of preventive measures that can be put in place to prevent violence and atrocities against minorities. To begin with, there is a need for a state and