Microaggressions

Policy

Jonathan Church:

"In 2015, a group identifying itself as Black Students at Emory University called for undergraduate course evaluations to include two ‘open-ended questions’ asking students whether professors have ‘made any micro-aggressions towards you on account of your race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, language, and/or other identity,’ which they believed ‘would help to ensure that there are repercussions or sanctions for racist actions performed by professors.’ At Occidental College, faculty moved to vote on the implementation of a formal policy to allow students to report professors who commit micro-aggressions. Universities and workplaces have also incorporated micro-aggression awareness into diversity-training programs. The micro-aggression paradigm helped fuel the drive for ‘cultural competency’ training for new students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It has also given rise to university actions that would border on the silly if they were not so insidious a threat to free speech—-e.g. the Inclusive Excellence Center at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee recently added ‘politically correct’ as a micro-aggressive ‘dismissive term’. Over at the University of California, university president (and former Secretary of Homeland Security) Janet Napolitano has urged deans and department chairs to participate in a ‘Fostering Inclusive Excellence’ training seminar which, among other things, considers the phrases ‘America is the land of opportunity’ and ‘America is a melting pot’ to be micro-aggressions." (https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/are-micro-aggressions-really-a-thing-wcz/)

The Science

Jonathan Church:

"In January 2017, Dr. Scott Lilienfeld, Samuel Candler Dobbs professor of psychology at Emory University, entered the conversation with the publication of a devastating new paper in the Journal of Perspectives on Psychological Science. The paper is not just a blockbuster but a myth-buster, calling into question the prevailing assumption that the concept of micro-aggression is a ‘psychologically meaningful construct’.

In the paper, he analyzes the ‘conceptual and empirical foundations’ of what he calls the micro-aggression research program (MRP) and finds that the concept of micro-aggression, given the current state of research, is not conceptually coherent or methodologically robust. Though the term has spawned many mentions in the literature (according to Dr. Lilienfeld, a ‘Google Scholar search from 2007 to the present reveals 3,090 manuscripts containing the term “micro-aggression”, 2,030 of them since 2012 alone’), Dr. Lilienfeld finds that ‘the conceptual and methodological status of the MRP has received scant scientific attention.’ Of the few literature reviews that have been conducted, none has ‘challenged the central assumption that micro-aggressions, as currently conceptualized, comprise a psychologically meaningful construct.’ Instead, the literature on micro-aggressions is rife with ambiguity and, in the words of Andrew Ferguson at the Weekly Standard, susceptible to ‘all the methodological flaws that we have come to expect from politically motivated social science: small sample sizes, self-selected nonrandom samples, self-reporting of results, the embedded bias of researchers, the lack of an agreed-upon terminology and system of measurement, and an inadequate use of control groups.’

In short, the micro-aggression research program has a lot of work to do. Until research can progress beyond its ‘premature state of scientific development’, Dr. Lilienfeld calls for a ‘moratorium on micro-aggression training, the widespread distribution of micro-aggression lists on college campuses, and other practical implementations of the MRP (e.g., the insertion of micro-aggression questions on student course evaluations), at least until the MRP can take heed of many or most of the research recommendations listed here.’

Dr. Lilienfeld does not deny that ‘[r]acial and cultural insensitivities persist in contemporary America, including college campuses.’ He insists there should not ‘be any doubt that prejudice at times manifests itself in subtle and indirect ways that have until recently received short shrift in psychological research.’ But ‘there is insufficient justification for concluding that the potential benefits of micro-aggression training programs outweigh their potential risks, including a substantial increase in the number of false-positive identifications of statements as micro-aggressions.’ This does not mean we should scrap the research, as ‘[t]he MRP has generated a plethora of theoretically and socially significant questions that merit thoughtful examination in coming decades.’ But, he goes on, ‘it is not close to being ready for widespread real-world application.’

Dr. Lilienfeld has done a great service in navigating the literature and calling our attention to the need for a more careful evaluation of the micro-aggression heuristic. Indeed, I remain skeptical that the virtues of micro-aggression training programs are untainted by the danger of arbitrary and irresponsible application of an open-ended heuristic to complex, unique situations. Like Dr. Lilienfeld, I am not in denial about the persistence of racism in America, nor do I deny that racism can be perniciously subliminal, leading to racial insensitivities that escape the attention of those who perpetrate them. But I have grown increasingly concerned that many of the claims about micro-aggressions, about their prevalence and their effects on psychological health, are dubious, or at least tenuous.

...

None of this is not to say, as Dr. Lilienfeld nicely quips, that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence. In fact, Dr. Lilienfeld himself says in an interview that ‘the micro-aggression concept almost surely contains a kernel of truth’, and in his paper stresses that he does not ‘contend micro-aggressions do not exist, if by microaggressions one means subtle slights and insults directed toward minorities,’ nor does he dispute that ‘subtle forms of prejudice exist and may be becoming more prevalent in American society,’ nor does he attempt to criticize the ‘validity of implicit measures of prejudice.’ Explaining that ‘[t]he existence of such indignities is undeniable,’ he argues ‘that the microaggression concept is probably worth retaining in some form, although conjectures regarding its scientific future would be premature.’

But we need to think far more carefully, and conduct far more research, before we conclude that micro-aggressions are as endemic or pervasive as many believe, and before we begin to include the micro-aggression concept into diversity training programs. Indeed, in calling for a moratorium on micro-aggression training programs, Dr. Lilienfeld emphatically states that the micro-aggression research program itself ‘should continue without interruption, albeit in substantially modified form.’"" (https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/are-micro-aggressions-really-a-thing-wcz/)

History

Jonathan Church:

"First coined by Harvard psychiatrist Chester Pierce in 1970, ‘micro-aggression’ has become a staple item of discussion in the culture wars of the twenty-first century. Indeed, it is difficult to escape hearing about micro-aggressions if you have spent time on college campuses, scrolled through social media feeds, read about diversity-training programs that have become increasingly prevalent on college campuses or in the corporate workplace, or explored the rhetoric of the alt-right.

‘Micro-aggression’ was anointed the top word of 2015 by the Global Language Monitor, eight years after gaining prominence with the 2007 publication of a seminal paper entitled ‘Racial Micro-aggressions in Everyday Life’, a paper that drew a connection between micro-aggressions and the psychological impairment of people allegedly victimized by micro-aggressions. Defining micro-aggressions as ‘brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color,’ the paper spawned a cottage industry of academic research and elevated the term into the mainstream conversation about race and discrimination. The use of ‘trigger warnings’ and creation of ‘safe spaces’ on university campuses are conspicuous legacies of the micro-aggression research paradigm.

This paradigm was born when psychologist Derald Wing Sue and colleagues in the Teachers College at Columbia University published their pioneering 2007 paper on the topic of racial micro-aggressions in a clinical setting. Defining micro-aggressions as ‘brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to people of color because they belong to a racial minority group,’ the paper divides micro-aggressions into three categories: (1) micro-assaults, or ‘explicit racial derogation characterized primarily by a verbal or nonverbal attack meant to hurt the intended victim through name-calling, avoidant behavior, or purposeful discriminatory actions’ (e.g. referring to someone as ‘colored’); (2) micro-insults, or ‘communications that convey rudeness and insensitivity and demean a person’s racial heritage or identity,’ in the form of ‘subtle snubs, frequently unknown to the perpetrator, but [which] clearly convey a hidden insulting message to the recipient of color’ (e.g. asking an employee of color ‘how did you get your job?’); and (3) micro-invalidations, or ‘communications that exclude, negate, or nullify the psychological thoughts, feelings, or experiential reality of a person of color’ (e.g. when a black person is told that ‘I don’t see color’). (https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/are-micro-aggressions-really-a-thing-wcz/)

Example

A case study description by Angel Eduoardo:

"My trouble with the training came when we discussed microaggressions. Typically defined as “the everyday slights, indignities, put downs and insults that people of color, women, LGBT populations or those who are marginalized experience in their day-to-day interactions,” it was something our trainer took a great deal of time to address. They used an analogy of mosquito bites to illustrate the way the effects of microaggressions compound over time. One bite is no big deal, they explained. However, when you’re constantly being bitten by mosquitos, all day long—and when it seems like they’re biting you, specifically—the pain and irritation from those bites are going to add up. Eventually, you’re going to reach a breaking point, which might cause you to lash out. That last mosquito may not have meant you harm—maybe none of them did. But it’s not about what they meant, and it’s not just about that one bite; it’s about the cumulative toll of them all.

I found this to be a very apt analogy. We’ve all been in similar positions, where our patience is depleted and we find ourselves exploding on someone who may have very little or nothing to do with why we’re upset. It’s a human thing to lose one’s temper, to misinterpret a joke or comment and respond harshly, or to take our bad day out on someone without realizing that’s what we’ve done. It’s also just as human to be on the receiving end of these outbursts and to feel mistreated or unfairly maligned as a result. Perhaps by employing more compassion and understanding, I thought, we can learn to navigate these issues together.

But our trainer didn’t take the analogy to that conclusion. Instead, they left it at the explanation for lashing out. This, in effect, rendered it a justification—not just for overreacting to a minor infraction, but also for punishing one person for the infractions of others.

Think about the implications there. Let’s say I, a “person of color,” experience microaggressions from twenty “white” people (let’s ignore for now the obvious role that subjectivity plays here). For the first nineteen instances, I keep quiet and brush them off despite my hurt feelings. The twentieth, however, is my breaking point. As per our trainer, it is now not only understandable but justified for me to blow up on this person, taking all my frustration out on them, despite their individual offense being small and possibly unintended.

Holding an individual responsible for the perceived behaviors or traits of the group they belong to. What does that sound like? I wondered that to myself during our training, but kept quiet about it.

Later in the day we were given worksheets, each describing a different scenario involving microaggressions, bias, or outright bigotry. Our task was to take five minutes, come up with the best approach to handling the scenario, and report back.

My worksheet described a racialized white man who habitually confuses the names of two racialized black women in the office. The responses from my coworkers were exactly what you’d expect. This “white” guy needed to be sat down and chastised for his racism. He needed to be alerted to his privilege, and he needed to atone for his error. He should take a DEI training, like the one we were all participating in. In fact, the company should mandate it.

I raised my hand.

I started telling everyone the story of the office assistant, and heard gasps and groans when I described the mistake he had made.

“The thing is,” I interrupted, “I think I know why that had probably happened—and it wasn’t racism.”

I explained that this guy had only recently started working there, and he delivered mail to our entire office—something like 150 people. I realized that he never really had time to speak with or get to know anyone beyond a few quick greetings as he popped in and out. If he had learned more about that Korean woman than her superficial characteristics—if he had known her hobbies and interests, for example—he probably wouldn’t have confused her with the other Korean woman at the office, who likely had different ones. If he had known either of them as people, no amount of physical similarity would have led to confusion.

“If I were in charge,” I said, “I’d recognize this as a lack of company cohesion.”

My proposed solution was to institute a set of meet-and-greets for the entire staff as part of the onboarding process. This would help coworkers and new employees get to know one another more deeply even if they didn’t get to see each other all the time. I was certain that, once they knew each other better, that kind of situation would hardly ever arise again.

The response from the trainer and everyone else was bizarre. It wasn’t that they disagreed or thought my suggestion was a bad idea; it’s that nothing remotely like it had occurred to them. Given the framework they were in and the lens with which they’d spent the day being trained to see through, what I had called for wasn’t even in the realm of possibility. Everyone went straight to racism as the explanation for the office assistant’s behavior, and they jumped right to opprobrium as the proper intervention. They had responded to someone being reduced to assumptions, stereotypes, and superficial characteristics by doing the exact same thing to someone else.

And the problem is, this was by design—though not maliciously so. I actually found our trainer very amiable, and I took a liking to them right away. I could tell they didn’t see this as some cynical money grab, the way I’d heard many others describe their own DEI and bias trainings. Their sincerity was palpable, and I couldn’t detect a shred of self-righteousness or judgment. Despite my disagreements with the things we did and discussed that day, I was heartened by that sincerity. The issue wasn’t them or their intentions; it was that the framework they were using primed us to emphasize division and cultivate discord. It was a foregone conclusion for everyone around me that something horrible had happened in that exchange with the office assistant. As they say, the question was not whether racism occurred but how it had occurred. However, this threw so many other possibilities and potential solutions out the window.

It went beyond someone with a hammer always finding nails; it was like someone with a hammer owning a nail factory.

“How can that solve anything?” I thought to myself.

It can’t. At best, it will be ineffectual. At worst, it will foment racism and intolerance where none existed. Thankfully, these divisive strategies are not our only options. There is a way to counteract bias, bigotry, and belligerence in a way that doesn’t inadvertently reflect, exacerbate, and perpetuate it. It’s by having a bit of patience and grace, the way the HR people did with me when I was crossing the line with my humor at work. It’s by granting the same forgiveness and compassion we would appreciate when we slip up and lose our cool. It’s by emphasizing our common humanity and our unique individuality, the way I suggested handling the mix-up at my old job.

I’m not against DEI trainings—not in principle. There are plenty of issues in our society that need addressing, including issues of racism and intolerance. Bias and bigotry are real issues, and they can sometimes go either unnoticed or unaddressed. There is a role for programs and protocols that call out mistreatment and misunderstandings between coworkers, blind spots in hiring practices, and structural issues that inhibit individual progress, in ways that are constructive rather than presumptive, resentful, and retributive.

It is possible to counter inhumanity with humanity; to respond to dehumanization and demonization by emphasizing the dignity and individuality of each and every human being, no matter what group they belong to.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion need not divide, essentialize, and inflame."

(https://fairforall.substack.com/p/dei-can-be-good?)

Steven Lawrence explains what happened at the Salem witch trials, and the rationality used to condemn the witches

* Microaggressions theory is the modern era’s equivalent of spectral evidence

Steven Lawrence:

"The idea of epistemic privilege-protecting pushback is akin to a practice advanced during the Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692, where spectral evidence was admitted as evidence in court. Spectral evidence is the idea that if a person claiming to be “afflicted by specters (or evil spirits) accused you of sending out your evil spirit to afflict them, then the person claiming to be afflicted must be telling the truth because you are under the spell of the specters (evil spirits) and because:

a) you might simply not know what you’re doing because you are under an evil spell, or;

b) you’re simply denying the “truth” of the accusation, which is evidence of your guilt.

Without question, the idea that comes closest to spectral evidence in the current era is microaggressions theory, which claims that if a person who belongs to a group deemed oppressed feels that you have said something that can be interpreted as bigoted, “harmful”, or dehumanizing in some way, then this person’s feelings and interpretations must be true. Microaggressions theory is the modern era’s equivalent of spectral evidence, and while there are reasonable views about learning to be sensitive enough not to dehumanize people who belong to groups deemed oppressed, it’s important to bear in mind that the constant search for evidence that we are being dehumanized, or that we are being harmed in some way, will almost certainly cause us to find that evidence around every corner."

(https://groundexperience.substack.com/p/carrying-a-message-further-part-8)

Discussion

There is currently no scientific basis for microagression policies

* Article: Microaggressions: Strong Claims, Inadequate Evidence. By Scott O. Lilienfeld. Perspectives on Psychological Science. January 2017.

URL = https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1745691616659391

Abstract:

"The microaggression concept has recently galvanized public discussion and spread to numerous college campuses and businesses.

I argue that the microaggression research program (MRP) rests on five core premises, namely, that microaggressions

(1) are operationalized with sufficient clarity and consensus to afford rigorous scientific investigation;

(2) are interpreted negatively by most or all minority group members;

(3) reflect implicitly prejudicial and implicitly aggressive motives;

(4) can be validly assessed using only respondents’ subjective reports; and

(5) exert an adverse impact on recipients’ mental health.

A review of the literature reveals negligible support for all five suppositions. More broadly, the MRP has been marked by an absence of connectivity to key domains of psychological science, including psychometrics, social cognition, cognitive-behavioral therapy, behavior genetics, and personality, health, and industrial-organizational psychology. Although the MRP has been fruitful in drawing the field’s attention to subtle forms of prejudice, it is far too underdeveloped on the conceptual and methodological fronts to warrant real-world application. I conclude with 18 suggestions for advancing the scientific status of the MRP, recommend abandonment of the term “microaggression,” and call for a moratorium on microaggression training programs and publicly distributed microaggression lists pending research to address the MRP’s scientific limitations."

The political use of microagression policies, as a way to delegitimize certain political positions

Wesley Yang:

"A few years prior, the University of Berkeley office of student life issued a series of racial micro-aggressions that professors should avoid. They included "America is a melting pot," and "I think the best person should get the job." Under the guise of protecting student health and safety, the student life office resolved an ongoing debate about whether we should be a "salad bowl" that preserves cultural differences of sub-national units or a "melting pot" where a process of amalgamation in pursuit of a single unified national identity and declared one of the two competing propositions presumptively illegitimate -- an act of harm, if not hate and harassment to be policed out of existence. Under the guise of protecting student health and safety it declared meritocracy as presumptively illegitimate as an institution. And though it did not formally declare these "racial micro-aggressions" to be subject to disciplinary action, it was a formal pronouncement that taking certain positions on contested debates was not merely wrong substantively, (the purpose of open debate and free speech being thus to discover what is wrong or right through an exchange of ideas) but an offense against the community itself existing beyond the bounds of decency and subject to disciplinary action by the entity (student life bureaucracy) with the authority to protect the community from harm.

The theory of the microaggression holds that seemingly benign statements contain latent within them the capacity to inflict psychological injury on marginalized people. "

(https://wesleyyang.substack.com/p/undocumented-citizens-and-the-new)

A historical analogy: 'Spectral Evidence' in the witch trials

Steven Lawrence:

"It is likely that others have already noted the obvious parallels between the way Spectral Evidence Theory played out in the lives of the accusers and the accused during the Salem Witchcraft Trials of the 1690’s and the way Microaggression Theory currently plays out in the lives of the accusers and the accused during the Racecraft12 and Gendercraft Trials of the 2020’s—an ongoing cycle that can be fairly conceptualized as a perpetual trial, where there is a default presumption that racism, sexism, transphobia, Islamophobia, antisemitism, and/or other forms of bigotry are operational in all circumstances. In the minds of those who believe in this way, bigotry is conceived to be not only actively present in conflicts, relationships, power arrangements, hierarchies, organizations, families, opportunity gaps, conversations, and disparities but as foundational and always present.

The bigotry that is presumed to be foundational to all circumstances and scenarios more than most other forms of bigotry (especially since the summer of 2020) is the bigotry of racism.

According to Whiteness Studies scholar Robin D’Angelo, the author of Nice Racism, and White Fragility, racism should never be considered as an isolated event that happens sometimes or that happens even much of the time, but as a permanent state of affairs that underlies all things human at all times.

In the handout on her website, D’Angelo states this plainly:

- “The question is not ‘did racism take place’? but rather ‘how did racism manifest in that situation?’”

On the scale of human relationships on the societal level, the default assumption, according to those who see the world in this way, is that race is foundational to the existence of all disparities in outcomes. This is called structural racism or systemic or institutional racism. On the scale of laws, policies, and rules on the Federal, state, city, community, and organizational levels, the questions around the presence or foundational cause of racism concern the structures of how the resources of wealth, power, status, and influence are distributed (structural racism) and how widespread and deeply distributed those structures are (systemic or institutional racism).

On the smaller scales of human relationships and small interactions, the default assumption, according to those who see the world in this way, is that race is foundational in all interactions between people of color and white people—especially those that are perceived to be unpleasant, unfair, insulting, cruel, offensive or simply not to the liking of the person of color. These moments of perceived invalidation or disparagement are called microaggressions, a word that was coined by Harvard University psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce in 1970, referring (in its original meaning) to the insults and personal slights that non-Black Americans inflicted on Black Americans.

Over time, the word and concepts became more widely applied in American society, especially after the term was popularized by Psychologist Derald Wing Sue, who defined microaggressions broadly as occurring between people of different races, cultures, beliefs, sexual orientations, mental and physical abilities, and gender identities (and all other groups deemed marginalized), showing up in written and verbal communications and during momentary interactions between friends, foes, family, co-workers, and strangers.

The introduction of microaggressions theory and other ideological concepts and practices similarly related to the rooting out of all signs of devaluation, personal slights, biases, and bigotries has had an enormous impact on the relationships between co-workers in organizations and between people in classrooms, non-profit organizations, activist spaces, and communities large and small, often creating an atmosphere of hypervigilance and accusation13. In some cases, this theory has upended the lives of people who were unjustly accused of bigotry or whose small inadvertent infractions were blown up into something much larger and more nefarious than it actually was.

One of the most well-known examples of this atmosphere is the unfair depiction of 16-year-old Nick Sandmann and his schoolmates as harassing a Native American elder, Nathan Phillips in the winter of 2019. Virtually all of the mainstream media outlets and many celebrities added fuel to the fire with speculation, accusations, and smears, with some celebrities and even college professors casually implying that he deserved physical violence. But, it turns out that the harassment never happened, and that Phillips actively lied. Even after the full video circulated across the internet that presented an accurate picture of the events of that day, the media and the public doubled down (though some apologized publicly). Sandmann eventually won a defamation lawsuit against the Washington Post and other outlets, but the damage to his reputation was done."

(https://groundexperience.substack.com/p/the-wages-of-disembodied-theory-part)