The Atlantic: Microaggressions Matter

[gollygee]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/microaggressions-matter/406090/?utm_source=SFFB

What these critics miss is that the striving for “PC culture” on college campuses is actually rooted in empathy. The basic tenets of this culture are predicated on the powerful impulse to usher both justice and humanity into everyday social transactions. Given the visible (albeit slow) rise in diversity on campuses, the lexicon of social justice invites students to engage with difference in more intelligent and nuanced ways, and to train their minds to entertain more complex views of the world.

Take for instance, the prevalent use of non-traditional gender pronouns at Oberlin College, a practice becoming increasingly common elsewhere, as well. They acknowledge that people can identify with many genders, not just along the binary of male and female. Using a person’s preferred or desired gender pronouns (such as the gender neutral “they” instead of she or he) is not a meaningless exercise in identity politics—it is an acknowledgement of a person’s innermost identity, conferring both respect and dignity.

(snip)

The study quoted by Friedersdorf chastises those who mobilize in response to the injustices they perceive. He cosigns the definition of microaggressions as “a form of social control in which the aggrieved collect and publicize accounts of intercollective offenses, making the case that relatively minor slights are part of a larger pattern of injustice and that those who suffer them are socially marginalized and deserving of sympathy.”

But it makes sense that marginalized groups would attempt to form coalitions and enlist allies. They are severely underrepresented on most campuses. At Oberlin, for instance, black students form only 5.2 percent of students, Hispanic students 7.2 percent, and Asian Americans 4.2 percent. Minorities, by virtue of their being in the minority, do not and cannot exert robust social control of any kind at elite universities like Oberlin. When appealing to other students and administrators for validation and support after encountering discrimination, such students are scarcely clamoring to be seen as victims. They’re grasping to gain some small degree of power that can amplify their voices, where their concerns are so often silenced or ignored.

[cheapdate]

1. Colleges and universities can offer a comfortable and supportive

environment for micro-discussions of micro-aggression and other minutia of social interaction. Fine. Every discussion of historical and contemporary events can be tempered by all parties with a keen awareness of the potential for micro-aggression. Professors can temper their lessons and their questions with a keen awareness of the potential for micro-aggression. Fine.

Meanwhile, Trump is calling Mexican immigrants "rapists" and expanding his lead in the polls, The Koch brothers are spending $800 million to influence the 2016 elections, Jamie Dimon is playing golf with the next SEC regulator, and somewhere, another person is being arrested for driving while black at this very moment.

[gollygee]

2. these issues are not at conflict with each other

The culture that ignores or dismisses microaggressions is the same culture that loves Trump. Racism is systemic and nationwide and very much a part of our culture. To fight the culture of racism is to fight racism. Just because it isn't a larger aggression like what you listed off doesn't mean it isn't worth fighting as well. It's all related.

[cheapdate]

8. I get that completely.

Everyone gets to decide for themselves what to fight for, how to fight for it, etc. I'm not here to say someone else is wrong. If working to expand the general awareness of micro-aggression is what's important, then more power to you. I believe in speech that respects people's identity. What some people derisively call "PC" I generally call common politeness and respect. Micro-aggression is real, but it can easily be misused.

[Rex]

3. How about those macro-aggressions? You know, we call it 'police brutality'.

I think we need to focus more on the macro part of society and the sudden aggression we see from cops roided out of their minds. That's just me though, I know some people don't care a bit what cops do or don't do.

PC culture will die off one day, it is and was a fad.

[gollygee]

4. See the response right above this. n/t

[LittleBlue]

5. Obama disagrees. Victimhood culture is anti-intellectual

During a town hall appearance at North High School in Des Moines, Iowa, on Monday, Obama bemoaned what some critics call the "new political correctness" at colleges and universities.

"I've heard some college campuses where they don't want to have a guest speaker who is too conservative or they don't want to read a book if it has language that is offensive to African-Americans or somehow sends a demeaning signal towards women," Obama said. "I gotta tell you I don't agree with that either. I don't agree that you, when you become students at colleges, have to be coddled and protected from different points of view."

The president said that when he was in school, listening to people he disagreed with helped to test his own assumptions and sometimes led him to change his mind.

"Sometimes I realized maybe I've been too narrow-minded, maybe I didn't take this into account, maybe I should see this person's perspective," Obama said. "That's what college, in part, is all about."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-college-political-correctness_55f8431ee4b00e2cd5e80198

The Rise of Victimhood Culture

A recent scholarly paper on “microaggressions” uses them to chart the ascendance of a new moral code in American life.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-rise-of-victimhood-culture/404794/

Using the word "microaggression" as a blanket intellectual crutch to shut down debate will hurt free exchange of ideas. Society in general must grow a thicker skin.

[gollygee]

6. That's not really what this is about

I don't think people should be able to avoid reading a book they don't agree with in college either. You take the class, you read the book. Write a bad review if you have an issue with it or something but you can't just not read it if it comes up in class. I do like trigger warnings though - not because I think people should be able to avoid books, but because if something is possibly a trigger for someone with PTSD or some other similar problem, they can brace themselves and be prepared for it.

[Nye Bevan]

7. Anyone who doesn't like these gender-neutral pronouns needs to get over zirself.

https://new.oberlin.edu/dotAsset/2012173.pdf

[1939]

9. Back in the 50s

We were deep into macro aggressions in my all male college. You had to learn to defend yourself, your positions, and your ideas in verbal combat in class and in the dorm. The faculty was pretty aggressive as well and you had to respond without "losing it".

"What is the matter, Mr 1939, were you asleep in class when I covered this last week?" If he noted anyone sleeping in class, the wood pointer slamming on the desk would wake everybody up.

When we began our first year the head of the department said, "One third of you will be gone long before graduation and only 15% will make it through without failing one or more courses."

Special snowflakes had a hard time back then.

I had a 3.1 GPA and finished in the top 20% of the class. I passed all my courses, but still had three Ds on the transcript.

[Facility Inspector]

10. the special snowflakes

couldn't make it through an evening of prime time television in the 1970s.

[Nye Bevan]

11. Many 70s sitcoms have full episides up on YouTube,

and it is amazing how politically incorrect many of them are by today's standards.

[oberliner]

12. Oberlin is not an "elite university"

In fact, it is not a university at all, it is a liberal arts college. Weird that someone who went there would make that mistake.

That small point aside, I am curious to know how the experience of living in the post-Oberlin world compares to the experience of being at that college. Because, in my experience, Oberlin College goes out of its way in ways that the rest of the world does not.

[Mosby]

14. you described your experience there as very positive

If I recall.

How does it differ from other liberal arts colleges do you think?

[oberliner]

15. It certainly was

There was an odd dichotomy, though, between the attempts to be multicultural and the fact that the vast majority of students were white.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

13. I think "microaggressions" say more about the complainer than the so-called "aggressor"

Some are spoiling for a fight and they use the practice of calling out things they subjectively label as aggression as an excuse to aggress others.

[Eleanors38]

16. The "political correctness" debate wouldn't have much play if not for coercive power...

expressed through an institutional setting. In other words, it is when a school materially sanctions a person for not being politically correct that the controversy arises. Most people use "black" when describing African Americans who were called "Negro" or "colored" through the latter 60s. This change came about rather quickly, imo, without schools sanctioning the user of the "incorrect" term. You either switched over or got got used to verbal complaints or the stink eye. The vast majority chose the former option. No laws, no material sanctions, thick skins all around.

I like the trend in LGBTQ politics and culture to reclaim the word "queer," and to (presumably) substitute it for the increasingly clunky acronym(s) now used. Sure would make discourse easier!