Microagressions, political correctness, innate bias, and hypersensitivity.

In My Humble Opinion
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monstro:

Let me try to reflect back to you what I have heard you saying in this last post and to some degree in this thread. You personally have experienced many statements made by people who you know are trying to be your friend (and many others) as “paper cuts” and the volume of them is, to you, oppressive. You believe that most who are minorities share in that experience and that perception. You are asking that “others” be empathic to you (and by extension to all minorities, whatever they experience as their sensitivities or as offensive to any degree as you believe your take is representative of the groups overall). You personally will only become friends with Whites who are able to be consistently not say things that get on your nerves - which you label as “empathic enough” … i.e., thinking of how something might possibly sound to you and filtering/adjusting their behavior as much as needed to keep you comfortable. If a White person is unable or unwilling to do that then you will tolerate them as classmates or co-workers but not accept them as friends. You want them to have the manners to be constantly aware of how you might take things because you don’t want to have to be polite.

Is that an accurate reflection of your last post and position in this thread?

If so then I will leave it stand and propose that you have well articulated your thoughts about how paper cuts cumulatively hurt you, and you believe, many other minorities, and how many Whites just do not have enough empathy to appreciate it.

The rest is not addressed just to you monstro but to all who choose to engage -

Would you agree that statements are not necessarily objectively inoffensive or offensive but that such are judgements we all make? I am sure that some here would endorse a statement that many Whites would not find various statements offensive because they view those statements through the filters of their individual life experiences, be it “White privilege” or other. Would those same people also agree that many minorities would find certain statements offensive because of the lenses of their life experiences? That Whites would also find certain statements as offensive because if their lenses, that certain minorities would not find certain statements offensive because of theirs?
The following are very serious questions that I know can come off as being snarky. I apologize for that but I honestly can not come up with a more diplomatic way of asking it.

To those of the minority groups who feel that Whites overall demonstrate inadequate empathy - do you believe that you have the degree of empathy for others different than you, who see the world through a different lens than you, that you are encouraging Whites to have? Or do think that as a minority you do not need to? Do offenses perceived by others who are not minorities matter? Should someone who you think of as in a power position just suck it up and shut up?

Do you believe that the best way to address the issue that gets labelled as “micro-aggressions” is to bemoan how clueless so many Whites are that a large cohort of liberal Whites do not get it and that some Whites who want to be your friends are incapable of sufficient empathy? Do you think that the only understanding that has be done is Whites understanding how difficult it is to be you? Is any and all explanation of the thoughts and feelings of those who are not you but whose behaviors are viewed through your lens as hurtful, defensiveness (unless it is the explanation that you already believe to be “truth”)?
Despite the accusation that doing so makes me complicit, I am going ignore asking questions of anyone who would endorse explicit racist or sexist beliefs as well uninteresting to this discussion.

To those who would disagree strongly with any explicitly racist or sexist statements … do you believe that some of what you do and say is influenced by unconscious racist tapes and that some that you believe is innocent is actually correctly read as offensive to a minority member, even if only slightly so?

What should be your response when offense is taken by something that you are confident was done with no ill intent, even at a subconscious level?

If your best honest assessment is that no offense should be taken (you certainly wouldn’t be offended) is the offense taken all the responsibility of the offended?

If you something you say or do inadvertently offends should the offended say something or just silently deal with it … lick the paper cut and move on, to beat that analogy into the ground? If say something then what? If neither then what?

What are the best paths forward?

Thanks for any input.

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… How can you be confident that you didn’t mean anything at a subconscious level? Doesn’t that go against what the subconscious IS, or am I mistaken?

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Based on what you told us about Jenni, I don’t think I’d want to be friends with her. I know people like that, and it’s hard for me to see her as having good intentions.

But I’m still shaking my head about the people asking you where you’re REALLY from. I think they all know damn well you’re native born, and the real reason they ask is because they want to know what race you are. And why is that so important in a casual conversation? :dubious: My mother is Jewish, but my father was Italian and Greek (although he was more often taken for Jewish than my mother). You wouldn’t know my background based on my last name, or if you didn’t know me well. So you can imagine the kind of things I hear about “the Jews” because people think it’s “safe” to say them in my presence. I try to think of it as a bonus, an early warning signal so I know what kind of person I’m dealing with.

I completely agree with this. As Chris Rock commented:

And of course white people still have to make progress. I just hope the more restrictive aspects of identity politics don’t make that more difficult. Look at what happened with Rachel Dolezal (apart from being batshit), and the Miss Anne’s you cited in another thread. It seemed to me that on some level they were trying to “throw off” their white privilege - which is impossible to do - but I can understand the sentiment. You’re right about empathy; it isn’t easy, and pretending to be a fellow victim is not empathy. But people can mess it up when they try to bridge the gap from “other” to “us”.

I also understand what you’re saying about “exhausting” white people, although makes me sad to hear you feel the need to wear a mask. Is some of that your current location? Because in a more diverse place like NYC, you’d never be the “lone” anything. You’d be surrounded by racially ambiguous people, too. It doesn’t completely solve the problems, but it helps to have other people around who can relate to and laugh at the cluelessness with you.

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I don’t think the emphasis should be on whose “responsibility” it is. Why can’t it be a “no fault” situation?

If it’s someone who you have to deal with regularly, you should have a conversation about it. Give the person the benefit of the doubt. It’s normal for a well intentioned person to get defensive if they feel misunderstood, so it requires a certain amount of finesse. If you want to soften the blow, you could use it as an opportunity to ask them what kind of things push their buttons.

But a random encounter, or someone you can avoid, I’d say it’s not worth it to say anything. There’s no incentive or investment involved on either side to motivate an understanding, and not worth the stress.

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I wouldn’t use a dramatic word like “oppressive”. That’s just inviting rolly-eyes from the non-sympathetic peanut gallery. Instead, I’d say “tiring” or “wearisome”. And I wouldn’t say I’ve experienced “many” paper cuts, since this would require knowing what a normal amount is. I’m black and I’m female and a couple of other “stigmatized minority” thingies. But I’d say that overall, despite it all, I’ve had a charmed life. I can recognize when my feelings have been rubbed raw without letting the feelings bring me down.

I don’t know this. I can just imagine it is true, based on my experiences.

I don’t think empathy is something you can ask from others. It’s something that can be learned, but I don’t think people have a real choice in whether they are empathic or not. I do not consider myself a very empathic person. I can’t even imagine half the emotions that people take for granted, let alone identify with them. But I can practice compassion. If someone professes to feeling something that I just can’t relate to, I can at least listen to them and not judge them. I can judge their behaviors, but I can refrain from judging them for simply admitting to having a feeling.

So I guess I’d ask for that–compassion. I don’t care if you can’t feel what I feel. I just want you to not jump down my throat when I tell you how I feel about something.

I don’t care that they are empathic or not, because empathy is an (invisible) mental state. All I know is behavior. I think if most of my friends knew how I really felt about them and their problems, they’d think I was a monster. Because I lack a lot of empathy. I just know how to keep my mouth shut and go along to get along.

I don’t want to hang around anyone–black, white, swirl–who works my nerves. I’m deeply introverted and I only have a limited amount of social energy to spare. I don’t want to waste that energy on constantly being tolerant and understanding. I’ll do that when I have to (like at work). Why should I have to do that during leisure time?

No. I don’t want anyone to be “constantly aware” of my feelings all the time, because that would be unreasonable. I just want them to be the type of person who I don’t have to educate every time they open their loud mouth. I once worked with a girl who thought I’d naturally agree with her that all-black neighborhoods are bad places to live. Now, we worked together just fine, but why would I want to hang out with her outside of work and discover what else she had on her mind about black people? I currently work with a guy who seems to think I’m a walking negro encyclopedia. He asks me about every rapper his kid listens to (I don’t listen to rap), and seems to think I know the name of every black talking head he sees on TV. And oh yes, he seems to think I appreciate him talking in slang around me (and just me), even though I intentionally speak slang-free English when I’m at work. I can tolerate him 9 to 5. But I’m not going to go over to this dude’s house and hang out with him. I’ve done that dance before–going over to someone’s house so that they and their friends can play Ask the Black Person all evening. I’m too old for that shit.

I am not asking for “constant awareness”. I just don’t want people to go out of their way to remind me that I’m different. A little discussion about this is fine. But if every single conversation we have is you reminding me that I’m black, well, I don’t want to be your friend. It’s as simple as that.

I feel like you are using qualifiers that I have not used. I don’t think I have said anything about “most” Whites. And I have not really talked about how the paper cuts have “cumulatively” hurt me. For me to know this, I’d need to know how my life would be different if I weren’t a minority, and I have no way of knowing this. I just know that people sometimes get on my nerves. Don’t people sometimes get on your nerves? Doesn’t this happen to everyone? The only difference between a microaggression and random annoying crap is that a microaggression goes to one’s status as a member of a minority. I really don’t think it is anything more complicated than this.

So I think your summation is only about 80% accurate. I don’t even think I’ve taken a position as much as just relayed my personal experience. I’m not arguing that people need to actually do anything except listen and not be so defensive. If people can’t feel what someone else is feeling, the least they can do is not tell them “QUIT YER WHINING YOU BIG CRYBABY!”

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DSeid, as you may remember, I have Tourette’s Syndrome. Sometimes it’s noticeable to others. Fortunately, most times it is not.

Sometimes, people will out of pure innocence and curiosity ask why I’m scrunching my face up or jerking my head back. When I tell them that I have Tourette’s, often they will express disbelief, and I have to explain to them that it’s usually very subtle, which is why they have probably never noticed before. One coworker once debated with me for a few minutes because it was her understanding that people with TS yell. I don’t yell. Hence, I couldn’t possibly have TS.

Now, for some reason, I find this business even more painful than remarks about race and gender. Because for me, TS is NOT a part of my identity. It’s a disorder. It marks me “different in a bad way”. There’s nothing wrong with being a black woman. My whole life I was taught to have pride in black womanhood. But TS doesn’t make me proud. It makes me ashamed. Every time someone point out to me when I’m ticcing, it hurts. Every time I’m forced to talk about it, it hurts. “Microhurts”, but hurts nonetheless.

Do the people doing this intend to hurt me? No, of course not. They probably see me being Strong Black Woman and think I can handle anything.

Are they lacking empathy? No, probably not. I’m guessing they just haven’t considered that it’s a sore spot for me.

Do people need to change their behavior? I don’t know. Maybe that one lady who argued with me about the yelling thing was out of line, but I don’t think the others were. They were just curious.

Does the fact that no one ever means any harm by asking “Why are you scrunching up your face?” change the fact that I hate that question? No. I will always hate that question. I won’t tell them that, but I don’t have to be ashamed about my feelings on the subject.

If someone wanted to judge me harshly for not wanting to go out and socialize on a day when my tics are bad, I would question that person’s character. It is easy for the person who does not have to answer those kind of “paper cutting” questions to say “QUIT YER WHINING YOU BIG CRYBABY”. That is the worse kind of microaggression–the one where you manage to maintain grace under fire and laugh off adversity, but you’re still told you were wrong somehow. You don’t have to have empathy to know this is wrong.

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I don’t think I have enormous empathy. But I do understand how it feels to be different and feel weird about it, and I can’t help but think that being a quadruple minority has something to do with this. There are some questions and comments I would never ask someone because I know how they make me feel, or I can at least imagine how they would make me feel, when/if someone were to say them to me.

But I don’t think being a minority makes someone less likely to commit “microaggressions” than anyone else. A black guy can say stupid gay comments the same as a white guy. An Asian woman can say something hurtful about someone’s obesity the same as a white guy. I’m about to go to a family function in a couple of weeks, and I’m pretty sure relatives will say something about my being single and childless that will annoy the fuck out of me. People who are disabled or who carry certain diagnosis have to deal with slights and insults from all corners of the “diversity” spectrum.

This isn’t a racial thing. It’s a human thing. Seems to me that if there isn’t any incident in your experience that you would classify as a “microaggression”, then you are either one of those rare people who sit on the top of the totem pole of every hierarchy you inhabit, or you have nerves of steel.

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The thing that helps me to not hold a grudge is realizing that 8 times out of 10, when someone says an inartfully worded comment, they are actually trying to step out of the comfort zone and relate to me.

My boss, for instance. I love him. I respect him immensely.

But a few years ago, he said something to me I’ll never forget. We were standing in the breakroom looking at storm clouds in the window, and he asked me about a basketball player at my alma mater. OK, I don’t watch basketball, but I kinda knew who he was talking about.

“He’s such a nice, well-spoken guy. Is that because of how he was raised, you think?”

What a bizarre question! I felt so awkward as I tried to think of what to say to that. (I think I ended up saying “I guess?”)

Now, someone else might not get why that was so weird. But I instantly heard the subtext of his question. The “default” expectation for black people is that we aren’t raised right. When we excel, it’s not because we are excellent people. It’s because we were brought up in a two-parent home, where education was valued, and no welfare. Not like those other blacks.

But I didn’t hold it against my boss. Because prior to that day, he would only talk to me about anything work-related stuff. Not basketball players or anything else. So I tried to see the good in him; At least he was trying. Now, we trade small talk comfortably. I’m not just “black woman” to him anymore.

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Let me re-visit a hypothetical I gave earlier - I, a White male, hold the door open for everyone who is coming in immediately behind me as a matter of course. I know I do that.

What if some number of women accused me of subconscious sexism when they experienced me holding the door for them?

I am quite confident that such is not the case.

I am left with however that some group of people are offended by my action nevertheless.

Again, sometimes a cigar IS just a cigar. A bus driver may say “sweetie” to everyone and some certain number may assume (s)he only says it to their class, whatever it is, and take offense.

What should be my response, or the bus driver’s response, to being told they are offending in those circumstances, in your opinion? Does it depend on how many of that class perceive it that way?

To me to some degree the “objective truth” of the matter becomes fairly immaterial. My experience of the reality is that I do this always and some number of individuals experience of the reality is to be offended. My insisting that I do for everyone would be interpreted as defensiveness, perhaps based on years of my White male privilege, and as attempting to diminish the reality as experienced by the offended. And that experience of offense received was real no matter what my intent.

My humble opinion is that I have a responsibility, to some degree at least, to respect that experience of offense received … to try to understand those feelings from their perspective (i.e., be empathic), whether my perception of reality is that they are hypersensitive to imagined slights biased by tapes they have playing or is seeing how my behavior was in fact based on my subconscious tapes. AND that there is also some responsibility in the other direction to try to understand the perception of the experience as lived by me (standing in for the class), and not to reduce me to a stereotype.

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See above. We all, IMHO, have an ethical responsibility to improve the state of our forever imperfect world. We should all desire to co-exist within the same society as comfortably with each other as possible. Do not confuse accepting some degree of responsibility to improve things as accepting guilt or fault.

I think you believe that too.

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monstro, yes I am sure you have the ability to understand what it is like to feel different. I hear that you feel that way often and that is the lens through which you perceive. Believe it or not in my own way I have plenty of experience feeling different and weird as well, not to the degree that you have to be sure, but enough that I, a white dude, can still relate. It has not been a major part of my adult life I grant. Insults that I experience now are not typically micro and my childhood experiences with bullying and getting into fights have me more often ignoring those.

The question with empathy though is not only viewing another through your lens but how to make the best possible attempt to understand an individual’s experience as viewed through their different lens.

And you do do that to some degree …

Many people are very ignorant about TS. Their only familiarity with it is media portrayals of people shouting out swear words and have no understanding that that media portrayal is only one small tip of a complex verbal and motor tic disorder that waxes and wanes. You appreciate that some people are sure that their understanding is correct even though it is not and are consequently incredulous when told otherwise. You appreciate that they have no idea that this is a sore spot for you, they think it is just like asking someone about their uncommon form of diabetes, and that their personal disorder is a lack of realizing what is personal to another and when to shut the fuck up.

You demonstrate some empathy for your boss. His perception of the world apparently did not include many Black college basketball players being extremely nice and well spoken. Perhaps his internal dialogue explained that perception of the world with an explanation that such is the case because many of them are products of poor inner city environments, etc. This athlete’s presentation was cognitively dissonant with the archetype he had in his head. He was comfortable enough with you as an individual person to share that dissonance. … In fact the answer is likely that YES, that athlete is nice and well spoken for the same reason exact reason your boss usually is, because of how they both were raised.

And this is a hijack but my ignorance could use some explanation of why his subtext was very offensive. The alternative is the CP view, isn’t it? I would posit that low SES and low parental educational levels and a host of other structural and cultural factors contribute to preventing some individual members of some minorities from excelling that would if those factors did not exist. It seems to me that the implication you are saying was offensive is that there is an unfair playing field and that excelling despite that unfair field requires something extra, and maybe personal family environment is contributing to that something extra. I am not getting why that is such an offensive thing to think.

It is a hijack but it also is what trying to view the experience through the other lens might result in.

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Right. But appreciating these things does not keep me from being embarrassed. In fact, I’d say that having to “appreciate” all the time is just as tiring as having to deal with the questioning in the first place. Sometimes I really would like to tell someone to mind their own business, rather than smiling patiently and explaining to them something I REALLY don’t want to talk about at that moment. But because I’m the “minority” in this situation, it’s in my best interest to come across as “tolerant and understanding”. If I’m honest with people, I risk offending them. So I have to bear the offense and endure it in ADDITION to all the other stuff that everyone else has to endure by virture of being a human.

And then when I get home, I allow myself to be exhausted and “not in the mood”. If someone judges me negatively for feeling “exhausted and not in the mood”, then they aren’t being understanding of me and where I’m coming from. All I ask is that if I try to understand that people’s questions and comments come out of an innocent, non-malicious place, that others try to understand why I don’t want to talk about certain topics and not judge me harshly for this. I’m going to try real hard not to blow up at you if I catch you laughing at one of my tics. I just ask that you at least not tell me to “lighten up” if I don’t laugh along with you.

I know all of this. Still doesn’t take away the awkwardness of the conversation, though…

I didn’t say it was “very offensive”. I didn’t even say it was offensive. I said it was bizarre and awkward.

I’m not a huge fan of small talk, but when standing in the breakroom with my boss, looking at storm clouds, I’d rather talk about the weather than talking about structural and cultural factors of black dysfunctionality. I mean, if this were a guy who I was friends with and I knew his background and knew where he was coming from, it would have been different. But this was my boss. I can’t have a open, frank dialogue about race with my boss, while at work, when the two of us are supposed to be having a light-hearted conversation.

That black excellence needs to be discussed IS offensive to me. The default assumption should be that black people are as excellent as any other people. Because despite the grave statistics that get bandied about, black people really aren’t doing THAT bad for themselves. But what makes that conversation (and similar ones like it that I’ve experienced) is the implication that I, as an “excellent black”, am some kind of expert on “black excellence”. I don’t know that basketball player’s life story. For all I know, he was raised by bums.

I don’t want my boss of all people to remind me that I’m black. Of all people, I want my boss to not talk to me about race at all. Because if he is like most Americans, he has some implicit anti-black bias in his psyche. I’d like to at least be able to imagine that he doesn’t harbor any implicit, subconscious bias about me. That conversation made me think that he likely does. If I should make a grammar mistake in his presence or make a mistake on the job, is he likely to attribute this to my individual failings–which are no different than any other person’s failings? Or is he likely to think that I’m showing my disadvantaged, potentially troubled background?

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I just read this piece and found it relevant.

The paradox of effort

TLDR: Being a successful member of stigmitized minority group often comes with big trade-offs. An accumulation of microaggressions suffered by the ambitious and hard-working can translate into poorer health outcomes for them relative to their ne’er-do-well contemporaries. You don’t see this pattern in privileged individuals.

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That’s huge. Thanks for sharing.

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If you have an hour and half you want to occupy your time with you might want to watch this video by Time Wise or check out some of his books. This was brought o mind due to the fact that he often mentions rates of Hyper Tension among African Americans, even middle class African Americans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItiXR5m1yAY

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It’s just one word: hypertension. And it’s unlikely to be related to discrimination or anything like that; people of Afro-Carribbean descent living in the UK (for example) face similar, though lesser, pressures and don’t demonstrate the same elevated blood pressure risk.