What is microaggression?

Post Reply New Topic

The University of Michigan-Flint has launched a website where "students who experience any form of bias or micro-aggressions whatsoever" can tattle on members of their community.

In a campus-wide email sent Tuesday afternoon (and shared with the Washington Examiner), UM-Flint staff announced the new website and encouraged students, faculty and staff to begin reporting. They can even do so anonymously.

"At UM-Flint, we have a strong commitment to diversity and equity, and we strive to ensure that every student is able to participate and thrive in a culture of inclusion," the email said. "Reporting bias against students is important because it allows us to keep track of how individual students and groups are experiencing our campus community, and better positions us to provide closely informed responses that will ensure an optimal living and learning environment for everyone."

The entire community was called upon to report incidents of bias they witness, even if they weren't the recipient of the alleged bias. Adding in that reports can be done anonymously, UM-Flint could predictably become a hotbed of politically and personally motivated revenge reports.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/unive ... le/2584111

It's almost like a "thoughtcrime" in George Orwell.
An attempt to control what we think, but I do give a s**t political correctness, because I always try to be nice to everyone

And someone has some hallucinations that if by some small word was offended, let them f**k off

This is Orwellian. And somewhat disturbing. I'm glad I'm not a student anymore.

It's almost like the system is designed to be abused.

^ ^ ^

Give me a passing grade or else...

It could work the other way too with a clique of staff generating anonymous reports against a student.

adifferentname,

As I mentioned above, I was talking about implicit biases that influence behavior. androbot also discussed this, when they made the observation that we all categorize people and change our behavior based on that. If we do that on the basis of race, then yes we are at least a little racist. That we have implicit biases doesn't make us evil people in need of punishment, but we should work to be aware of those biases and the impact they may have on others.

Well hell, now you can be racist without even knowing it. Who knew?

Of course this theory can easily be used to label somebody as a racist even though they insist they aren't.

How come all this piddly s**t is a major problem now? Sure there have always been overly sensitive people and they either got help or learned to deal and sometimes saidly they did not learn to deal. But now it seems that everybody of a certain generation has a major problem with everything.

I blame my generations parenting.

All those freaking participation trophies have finally come around to bit us in the butt. All that "no tryouts, everybody can join the team" and all that extra special parenting where you put your child's self esteem wants above everything has caused this. We have raised an entitled bunch of whiners who can't stand to hear anything that remotely upsets them and who can't tell the difference between combat fatigue and being upset over Twitter. They can't seem to understand that there are levels of everything. Even feelings. AMD that our feelings and their feelings and everyone's feelings are not the most important thing in the world.

Why do today's college students need trigger warnings and safe rooms in case they have to leave the room because of what they are learning in class? I went to college. Twice. Nobody got upset or had to leave and if they did get upset they dealt with it and either dropped that class or learned to get used to whatever word said in that class upset them. Or concept. Or anything.

I don't recall people getting PTSD over little things then. I don't know anybody now who has PTSD from hearing something that they thought was upsetting or feeling that they weren't heard or having a tough time. I don't know anyone of my parents generation who did either.

I could get behind this if we had real proof that people suffered greatly for years over these little things nowdays. But we don't because there isn't any. Yes some.overly sensitive older people say they were hurt all their lives by tiny things but you don't think they could be overly sensitive? That's a mental illness too you know and needs help. It's not a major widespread problem, but out kids have just grabbed onto it and ran with it.

God help us.

There was a scene from the old TV cop show Dragnet that went viral not long ago, in which the cops lecture a bunch of protesting students about their irresponsible conduct. The scene could be criticized on the basis that it was straw manning protesters or because it's cheesy, but, it could also be said that the scene was at least trying to inculcate some kind of positive responsible social attitudes in its audience. Try to find a show that even looks like it might be doing that now. Mass entertainment has changed. On the whole, it seems hostile to all, as if it wishes to influence communities to tear themselves apart. Market demand might be entirely responsible for this shift, although I'd bet that it isn't.

Mass entertainment is not the only factor influencing bad behavior. Desperation does that. Exhaustion does that, too. It feels as if virtually every societal pressure today is aligned to make people mean. This generalized meanness might account for some of what minorities feel around them, and falsely attribute to racism.

Last edited by Nebogipfel on 25 Feb 2016, 2:25 pm, edited 4 times in total.

Why would they have to generate anonymous reports when they could just fail him instead? That doesn't make sense.

Anonymous reports could just be pointed to as justification, and there's be no way to prove otherwise. Being failed unjustly you could take your work to a third party to prove they were against you.

OOM,

Everybody's a little racist, unless you've got Williams's syndrome. However, I will say this: If one is not mindful and just lets their actions influenced by race have negative impact on others, and they express only indifference or defensiveness when confronted with that fact, then that does make them a bad person, when it comes to this issue.

Microaggressions are real. People who claim not to understand microaggression seem to be on one extreme or the other. They are either insensitive bullies who don't realize they are bullies or they are paranoid people who are afraid that they are going to be accused of microaggressions.

I have experienced microaggressions by staff members of mental hospitals. It's the same thing with race. This stuff happens all the time. Might as well put a name on it. It might be imaginary in some people's minds but the concept is valid and real, even if it is not measurable or prosecutable.

Hardly. There are cultural and sociological differences that are noticeable from one town to another. It stands to reason that there are larger differences between people of different nationalities. Different, however, does not imply inferior/superior.

Unless there is an element of perceived superiority/inferiority based on race/ethnicity then there is no racism. Trying to redefine it to suit a narrative that implies inferiority is itself inherently racist.



Why? How you choose to respond to another persons beliefs is entirely your own responsibility. I disagree with your principles and reject the notion that I or anyone else should feel duty bound to live by them.

You're engaged in preaching on the basis that you perceive your personal moral code to be superior to that of others. I don't expect you'll pay any heed, yet I highly recommend an alternative approach.



Please provide an example of my racism.



Please also provide an example of the underlined.

"Micro-aggression" is just another way of saying "I'm offended by x". In all cases where offence is taken where none was intended, the fault lies with the receiver.



This is, quite simply, bigotry. If you haven't already learned that people have a huge range of ideologies, understandings and beliefs that will almost universally differ from your own, well, consider yourself duly informed.



You can call it whatever you like. If it continues to boil down to people taking offence where none is offered I'm going to remain unconcerned.

Microaggression is aggression that is micro