This begins with a pair of diaries by Faith Gardner, written, I think, in good faith.
Between the two,
- by the end of the Comments, “Hi, how are you?” was being defined as a microagression because it could be seen as too invasive, and
- since then, a number of users have been
- calling out real, strong insults as microaggressions, without bothering to specify why that would be the case, and
- warning people that they’re going to be penalized for microaggressions, now that the Rules of the Road have been revised — which means they didn’t bother to actually read the changes.
Can there actually be a single microaggression? Only definitionally, I suspect.
It’s supposedly the concatenation that gets to you, the drip, drip, drip of the same phrases over the weeks and years, until it’s “If I hear that one more time, I’m gonna… Ooooh!!”
And then, of course, the poor sucker who is the last in line with the phrase inherits a tontine of retribution. So we shouldn’t microaggress. Got it.
Current Daily Kos rule on Microaggressions: DO #13
Recognize and avoid microaggressions.
Microaggressions are subtle slights, comments, gestures, and behaviors that convey implicit biases against marginalized groups and people. Microaggressive comments and behavior are often unintentional but that does not mitigate the harm to the recipient. Examples include making a comment that perpetuates stereotypes, denying or rejecting someone’s reported experience because yours is different, singling out an individual to speak on behalf of an entire marginalized group, targeting marginalized people with disproportionate criticism, and denying or minimizing the existence and extent of discriminatory beliefs, practices, and structures. Understand the detrimental impacts of microaggressive comments and behaviors and accept responsibility for taking self-corrective actions.
Or, perhaps aggression as such has nothing to do with it. It wouldn’t be the first time that a social/cultural/linguistic phenomenon has been over-diagnosed psychologically and become a fad, of sorts.
The particular phenomenon we are calling racial microaggression has been extensively explored since approximately 2007 (ref. and abstract), originally as a study for getting around conflicts in a clinical psych setting. This is not to denigrate that study or any of the work that has been done in the area, much of which continues to be critical for exploring continuing interaction, but to try to put it in context among a broader picture of cross-cultural misperception.
Cultural awareness
There is a classic description, in the study of kinesics and proxemics, that depends on ignorance of cultural disparity in the definition of personal space. If one person or group has a cultural comfort zone norm of, say, three feet of separation for normal conversation, and another’s is two feet, then over time during a conversation the two people or groups will exhibit steady movement as one tries to come closer for best comfort and the other backs away for the same reason.
As a side effect, both participants in this interaction feel aggressed against; one feeling as though they were stalked, one as though they were shunned.
The solution seems to be to let the parties involved take a long look at what their own cultures define as “correct” distancing, and bring the whole process up to a conscious level. This is just slightly simpler to say than to do. /s
*****
The first part of the definition of a microaggression seems to generally include the probability that the usage being complained about is unconscious, and may not even exist within the social framework of the person offering it. The second part of it is that the primary response to the usage is seen as a separate aggression on the part of the original speaker. In other words, both sides need to have non-intersecting expectations in order for it to become a problem.
The key, from my perspective, seems to be that if you are making a conscious choice to say or do something, once you understand the cultural toes you are stepping on, then it doesn’t count as a microaggression, but as a real insult.
*****
The whole point, IMO, with things that bring up the accusation of a microaggression, is that they can be a potential learning moment, both about the expectations of someone from another culture, or society, or simply a different family background, and your own. If either of you are so embedded within your own cultural matrix that you cannot accept that other matrices are valid, then there’s a problem.
*****
Warning! If you are speaking with multiple people from multiple cultural patterns, an attempt to handle one cultural difference can throw you into a separate difference with another culture, and the more cultures you’re trying to work with, the worse it gets. Soft-spoken and careful can be a problem in and of itself, with someone from a family or culture that values spontaneity more than careful choice of words.
The one thing about the discussion so far that bothers me most is, to paraphrase: “It’s only a microaggression if you’re punching down.”
Balderdash
This, coming from a person who does the equivalent of buying ink by the barrel to someone who’s borrowing their space to write in, seems to me to be a cluster of untoward assumptions.
Some of the assumptions that are being made are
- that between two cultural patterns there is some kind of an established hierarchy that both sides are aware of, and that the lesser pattern is automatically the one preyed upon.
- that each person is working from a single cultural pattern, not subject to change due to circumstances
- that the person being called out wrongly sees their culture as superior, rather than simply different, or possibly being unaware of the differences in the first place.
- that the situation as called out is in fact a full statement of the problem that exists
- that the person who’s calling out the situation has the moral high ground, and can thus dictate the conditions necessary to resolve the problem they are defining.
Each of those assumptions can be correct, but beginning by assuming they are in any given case is likely to limit the solutions you can find.
And contrarywise…
I’m quite aware that there is a widely used technique in this type of argument that simply assumes that the person with the problem is being too sensitive about the whole thing and brushes off the whole matter as not worth the time it takes to explain it, in part or in whole. It’s one of the easier ways to avoid having to cope with your own cultural perspective, especially if you’re not sure it would stand up to inspection.
In fact, that so often appears as the counter to the arguments above that it’s easy to simply assume it will happen and start the fight off before it enters the ring.
It’s useful to avoid that, if at all possible.
In conclusion:
None of this is anywhere nearly as simple as it first looks. Anyone trying to moderate in this area should at least be trying to be aware of their own cultural assumptions, starting with the strange notion that they do, in fact, have more than a few of them. And that any of those, under the right/wrong circumstances, could be taken as a putdown by someone with different cultural assumptions.