It says something when short male stature can be used to enhance the hatred against a Nazi. This has happened more than once. Replace height with some other trait and one can see how strange this is. "This guy is a Nazi, but wait, there's more! He's also... bald!"
The Nazi in the pic above is also actually 5'7, not 5'2. I wonder why they bothered photoshopping his height. Probably because there are fewer 5'2 men so they're an easier target. We also all know the shorter a man is, the more likely he is to be evil, right?
Anyway, let's run through the excuses I've seen for this:
"Bigotry is okay against someone I dislike."
Imagine a film like Shrek where they constantly mock the short antagonist's height, but replace all this with a woman's breast size or weight. I'm sure this society would still be laughing, right? The character was an asshole after all, so who cares about all the other people who also have this trait? Instead, what you would probably hear is, "Think of all the girls with body image issues who never did anything to you, body shaming is wrong!" It's also gotten to the point where short men can be slandered as a group over anything, like a cop simply doing his job.
"Heightism isn't taken seriously, so it's fine."
"People like to pick on certain traits of people they hate."
Well, at least we can admit there's prejudice against shortness, so we're getting somewhere. After all, even the biggest haters of some tall guy like 6'4 Osama Bin Laden never claimed anything bad about tallness.
"Height is about how tall you are on the inside!"
That's like someone praising me by saying I'm white on the inside (I'm not white). Why can't a short person just be a cool short person? Instead it's always something like, "You're only short if I don't like you, otherwise you're tall to me." Guess which trait gets the negative connotation? Like how anger or drunkenness can make the truth slip out, you'll really learn what people think of a certain group in these situations.
"I'm a short guy and I don't mind the discrimination!"
We get it, you're a good boy for not rocking the boat. But if you're not here to discuss the hypocrisy of all this, then you should leave, because there's nothing of value to add. Also have fun essentially being profiled as more likely to be evil and untrustworthy. People are now starting to think short men are more likely to be mass shooters, because this "judge short men as a group" mindset has gotten so out of hand. Claim that with any other physical trait these days and see if you get the go ahead.
One of humanity's follies is confirmation bias. Anytime people see one short man do something they dislike, all short men pay for it socially.
What's also interesting is how strongly some cling onto their prejudice, making excuse after excuse for why their form of discrimination is okay. They'll claim anyone chastising their behavior is too sensitive, yet these people cry like children whose toys are being taken away. "I love reprimanding others when they discriminate, but now that I'm being held accountable too, I don't like it! How will I have my fun now?!"
When we link negative personality traits to physical traits like height, it makes the subconscious bias against that group stronger. Here's an experiment from Harvard showing how people already associate negative traits with short men on sight:
Related reading: Check out a clusterfuck conversation between the trans community discussing this issue.
