Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
What are some examples?

As an aside, I loathe the term microaggression. It's pretty ass-pulled and the examples I've seen don't seem to even technically be aggressive in nature.

I think the term, as I understand it, is pretty aptly named but possibly ill-applied. Each instance is inconsequential, but when added together the sum of all the microaggressions can have a real impact.

I think the example you offered is a great one. At face value, from a third person view, a white person showing interest in a black person's hair is the same as anyone showing interest in another person's new pair of glasses. But for the black person, they are being bombarded with these inquiries or what may be meant honestly as compliments at a much higher rate and the subject is something inherent to them which identifies them as a stigmatized minority. It would be different if the minority was a visitor in a homogeneous society, but to be treated as a curiosity where you were born certainly has an impact on people. You've got an insider who throughout their entire life is in subtle ways treated as an outsider.

Now, like I said in the previous post, I think it's an interesting subject, and I think it is worth understanding, but I don't think the energy needed to actively self police or to call people out is at all worth avoiding microaggressions. Simply understanding what they are and how they can effect people is probably enough for our culture to slowly shift away from them being a problem.

As to why I think the phrase is aptly named but mostly misused, is that I think the view of the "victim" is the only one being considered, and this creates a victim mentality that is now on high alert to find instances where they are being victimized. In most cases, especially in the case of microaggressions expressed as inquiry, no harm is meant. Being guilty of microaggression does not make anyone a latent racist, it doesn't make them deserving of chastisement, it just makes them a person who is attempting to communicate with another human being while not parsing through every little thing they say to make sure it is up to the latest definition of PC. The problem with this phrase is that it is divisive, and it is so due to the fact that people have a very hard time assuming the perspective of the other. With a holistic vantage, it just looks like a quirk in society, and everyone involved is just a character in a David Simon script.