What is microaggression?

Post Reply New Topic

A negative impact is subjective and also quantifiable. I'm not blowing it off. Let me explain.

I grew up around serious racism in Bham in the 60s and 70s and was sent to an all white private school by my racist grandfather and I've got a very opposite experience and view from.him but I've also seen and heard tons of covwrt racism, innocent meant but horrible sounding mistakes, and just flat out ignorance.

The number one thing is this. Anytime anyone tells you "you have hurt my feelings" then you apologize immediately even if you didn't mean to or think they are mistaken. Because even if somebody hears me talking about ninjas and misunderstands the word they are still offended and its because I said something and they have this idea of me. So I do apologize because I'm.sorry they are hurt. Then I say "what you overheard was me telling my friend about my ex, who is so caught up in his kung fury lessons he goes around like he's some kind of ninja. I'm so sorry it sounded that way to you! I'm sorry again " and its OK. Because it was probably a horrible experience for her to hear that and I am sorry I accidentally caused it. Nine times out of ten it's fine. Everybody is happy and chill and its resolved. But that tenth time, if she says "you should have been more careful with your pronunciation and you're carelessness caused me to be upset so I don't forgive you" then I'd get mad and tell her to butt out I explained it and she's overreacting. It could happen.

If I'm with my friend Jane and she brings along her racist bf Chuck and we are somewhere and he tells our waiter to seat us in a table away from.some black people and says it in the "buddy buddy we are both white guys so we get it" way that luckily you don't hear much of down here anymore sething like "seat us over there, it's not as *dark*" with a glance at the people and they heard it, I know they did and there I am with that s**t around but she can't get out without him and I'll be glad when this is over, so I know they put me in that category. He's offended that but the more people who don't speak up to him males it worse. If I do that it's gonna be a bad scene cause that's just him. So when he goes outside to smoke I go over and tell her I'm.sorry about him, I can't see my friend if he doesn't come and we hate him, except for her. I don't have to do it but I do because it's right. Doesn't make me a saint but it makes me polite and I don't want them to not get an apology and plus I don't want to be associated with him.anyway. they would probably be nice but distant and I don't blame them. I'm.with him.in public and I obviously knew. So I'm.not.mad they aren't all OK. I wouldn't even be mad if they said I need to give thought to who my friends are. They are right. Now this is one reason exactly why I don't go anywhere with them, and there are others. She's not racist but looooooves him anyway so whatever. The only time.ID get mad is if they started f*****g with me after I apologized. They don't have to accept it but please believe that I didn't do it and don't start f*****g with me like I'm.one of him please. f**k with anybody f**k with her cause she didn't say anything. This hasn't ever happened but I can imagine it. She would have gone out with him so he could keep am eye on her. He's one of those too. But it's still someone's responsibility to apologize unless you want to be a douche.

Some really ignorant backwoods people say colored and negro and such and have no clue it's not OK now because they aren't around black folks and don't watch much TV or keep up and in their holler they only live around other semi-crackers. There truly are people who don't know. Not too many but some. They know you say black but don't know its is a big deal. It slips out. They don't get the offense. It's an actual offense that the whole world knows about except those folks past Heighbirger. Really. Maybe a few more in Pulaski Tennessee too. So they probably aren't sorry because they don't understand that it's been phased out and is now considered offensive. Kind of like the Jessica Lang character in Murder House, the first season of American Horror Story. She's so self absorbed she uses "coloreds" to a black police detective and talks about the colored side of town, and refers to her Down Syndrome 30 year old daughter as "the Mongoloid". You sort of think she's a ghost from 1960 at first but she's not. People like her and the handfulls of folks etc won't apologize because the world stopped and while they don't say the other word because they know its offensive they think it's the only one. That's ignorance and racism and you can't reason with people like that. They believe that those terms are on and used. If I was somewhere with them for some.court ordered reason or other, ID make eye contact with anybody who overheard them no matter what race and kind of try to convey with face and eye movents that they aren't all there. Cause I'd only be anywhere with thwm if I didn't have a choice. I just look at people who do that when I'm not with them and hang on a little long and don't smile and give them no expression. Vague uncomfortableness. That's what most do. It's a way to get across we don't approve and we hope you know why. When somebody speaks up, most back them but you pick your battles. Who will be able to change and who won't. An 85 year old lady is just ignored. She's not changing and is old and from a different world and its wrong but it's not worth fussing at an old lady over a slight offense. If it's a young person or especially a child who should know better and doesn't you tell them. How you say it depends on what you find out or suspect they know. And age.

Anyway those examples were ones where a slight negative impact is made on someone else and what I think should be done about it. Some offenses aren't offenses and don't require an apology. My son spending the night with his friend who is black and it got cool overnight and he's only got shorts. His friend is a little bigger but he's got outgrown pants. True story some years back when they were about 12. So the mom finds the pants and he dresses. They go to t town to the mall and movies and out to eat. Now the pants had the African flag on the back.pocket. his friend joked on him."think you can represent this?" And they laughed and that was that. Some older boy at the mall started in on them. He was a black kid. Teenager they told me when they got home. Why was that white boy wearing that? On and on and wouldn't give either a chance to speak. The mom came back over and heard it and set him straight on getting on younger boys and also on commenting on other people's clothes at all unless you bought them or they are your family. Now was that older boy offended or did he just want to rag on the white boy rocking the African flag? Who knows? But whether he was or not it's not his business. He didn't know why he was wearing it. None of his business at all. No apology for cultural appropriation needed there.

As far as the kids go, they all seem to have the same culture, both black and white. They wear the same things listen to the same.music hang out at the SE spots and this group of friends of my daughters, who are the only group here a lot now, are black and white both. Several kids of each race. They all grew up together and so all kids are family at each other's house. Now I'll here th.all joking about black this and white that and gay these two friends and just as often the comment about race or sexual.orientation or gender for the trans boy who has been my daughters best friend since third grade, is said by the person of the race, orientation or TG I'm question. They basically sit around and joke.o. each other and themselves and play pathfinder or watch Dr Who or talk about their YA books. This is nothing like I grew up and I'm so happy to see the change. Nobody is thinking about those topics or anything. They all grew up.together so those things aren't what matters.

I threw that last in cause I wanted something positive here and not just people getting offended. It has nothing to do with the actual topic. I wanted pleasant for a minute. Or I could have talked about the cat. That's pleasant but not distantly related like the kids were. Sometimes the cat sleeps in there where the kids are though. So bonus

Anyway, I think for the most part people do take responsibility when something they do comes across as racist. Some people get too embarrassed to, and others are mad that someone could think it so won't explain and fix it. Real racists won't do anything except repeat it because that's their goal. I've seen a lot of change but I wasn't in the group that was discriminated against. So my experience is different and I don't quite get it. I know about it but I don't understand it. The same way a man who isn't a douchebag and believes in women's equality and who was around back them during "women's lib" and all knows how its changed for us but doesn't understand it like I do and I don't understand it like women of my mother's age do, because they broke the glass ceilings so we could.come behind them.

But you don't have to understand to not offend when its obvious. And to apologize and explain on a personal level when its not obvious and you are told in the situation.

But nobody in these situations was angry over something that wasn't either going on or misheard etc. Which is my thing in the other thread. Had to throw it in.

So I wanted to give you my take on it. When you offend you apologize immediately. Fix the person's offended feelings and only then fix your reputation with them by explaining.

Bet you didn't think you'd hear this from me did you now?

Also benefici I have some shirt pieces I wrote about growing up in Birmingham in the 60s and 70s and racism's influence and how some of us didn't let the old folks turn is into little Archie Bunker's like they wanted to. If you want to read them.pm.me please. You seem.interested in the topic so some first hand accounts of back then might be interesting to you. I'll be glad to share if you want to read.

I've yammered on long enough, it's 336. I need to put on coffee. But I wanted to address your post, even though when I'm.tired it takes me longer to make points. And sometimes they aren't as sharp.

Actually, the concept of microagressions isn't bad, it's the application that's, to borrow another word ruined by the social justice people, problematic.

Take this board. I'm one of maybe a half dozen strongly outspoken non-liberal people on here, and there are a few posters who seem to go out of their way to insult groups I belong to when I participate in threads, without necessarily insulting me directly, going on about how terrible conservatives or libertarians are, or repeatedly using stupid names like "gun fetishists" to describe people like me, in spite of being asked repeatedly to stop. None of this rises to the level that a moderator will step in, but over time it takes it's toll, and those less thick skinned than myself or a handful of like minded posters have stopped posting entirely due to this, there's no other word for it, bullying, which is delivered by the very people most likely to complain of bullying.

Now, were the political orientations and power dynamics of this board reversed, this would be a widely decried state of affairs, with bans raining down and angry posts in the mod forum complaining of the bullying, but as I and my fellow heretics are thought criminals, that doesn't happen, and as we've seen in other threads, the current state is, if anything, tacitly endorsed.

Of course, I'm expecting an avalanche of social justice types explain how I couldn't possibly be the victim of bullying (I expect the "reasoning" to use my ethnicity and gender to claim that I can't actually be the victim of anything) any minute now, so lets have at it.

I don't think the conservatives on this board have it any harder than the liberals. Just the other day I saw a conservative call a liberal a dufus and nothing was done.

It's just your basic "liberals vs. conservatives" battles here. Like anywhere, really.

Dufus?
Just dufus?
Hell, I would have totally missed that in light of some of the other names and threats that have been hurled by the left with impunity. I know aint nothin' ever gonna be done to them so I just hurl sh!t back at them and listen to them cry fowl and hurl more names.
When in Rome...

that would be a good point if you didn't defend people who have done the same thing.

I still think the slagging off is evenly matched. I find myself fortunate to be able to see both sides of the arguments. So I am offended by neither side.