Microaggressions Capture Attentions

The idea…that there are everyday communications reinforcing the status quo that not only go unchallenged, but largely unnoticed by those with more power is worth thinking about. 

One way to think about this is to label these microaggressions and that is a label widely used today so, like any good framing device, it frames our thinking and talking about this phenomena…for now.

Two articles in the most recent Chronicle focus on microaggressions.  The topic is complex and neither article fully satisfying, but the conflict is also important so reading both provides real food for thought.

The basic premise strikes me as common sense (though I recognize not all agree): the messages we communicate to others, particularly when these carry the tag of ‘conventional wisdom’ or ‘taken for granted,’ can reinforce the harms experienced by marginalized groups with less power.

Built on that it also seems clear that even very minor forms of communication, accumulating over lifetimes, can be experienced as a surround-sound-like barrier to living in a meritocracy or even fully understanding the unequal distribution of harm carried in everyday communicative messages. 

The most common remedy emerging is to create codes of conduct or contract stipulations to make it easier to call out those who are aggressive in this way.  One leader in the field argues that these are designed to encourage discussion and dialogue, and to the degree that this is accurate, we are moving in the right direction, because some statements identified as microaggressions are better understood as areas of legitimate disagreement.

For instance, in one article in the Chronicle they note that

‘Any characterization of the United States as "a melting pot," for example, is classified in widely used training materials as a microaggression signaling a refusal to acknowledge the role that race plays in American society. The same goes for saying "Everyone can succeed in this society if they work hard enough" or "I believe the most qualified person should get the job." Colleges are accused of "environmental microaggressions" if all of their buildings are named for white, heterosexual, upper-class men.’

To characterize the US as a melting pot over-emphasizes one part of our social history, but to characterize the US in ways that suggest an absence of a strong assimilationist impulse would ‘signal a refusal to acknowledge’ other aspects of our actual historical experiences. 

To say ‘everyone can succeed’ is clearly inaccurate, but if the point is to say that it is possible for any individual, regardless of race or gender, to become president (for instance) than this same collection of words communicates another message that is less than inaccurate or offensive.

To say you believe the most qualified person should get the job should not be on this list at all, because saying this can just as easily express a critique of the fact that the most qualified non-white-male often does not get the job as it can be heard as an endorsement of that practice.

And that is my point.  Words hurt, but language is also a rich tapestry with multiple, sometimes contradictory, meanings built into phrases.  This invites dialogue. 

It is clear that any ways we can recognize that most of our ‘dialogues’ are hopelessly skewed and distorted by the existing power structure—and in particular in the ways that power impacts what we see as ‘just common sense’—our dialogues will be more likely to deepen our understanding and help us reduce the harms targeted here.

At the same time, when our efforts to reduce distortion and confusion and harm make is less likely that we can have an honest and clear conversation about power and language, we are less likely to deepen our understanding.  More likely to invite a backlash that will resonate with the moderate middle.  Less likely to reduce harms.

A second point about these two articles in the Chronicle focuses on the way the second article frames the debate between those who favor dignified communication and those who favor a victimhood society.  The article is not without value, but this framing choice is without justification, because it too makes it less likely that honest dialogue will follow.