taking someone's picture without their consent, and posting it on the internet... hmmm, that might even rise beyond the "micro" aggression level.

Getting someone FIRED from their job over a "dongle" joke- whether intentionally or not- another microagression, although probably not so "micro" to the person whose livelihood it is.

Clearly Ms. Richards has a history of experience with aggressions, micro and macro- but it would appear they're coming from her, not the other way around.

Who is Ms. Richards?

Thanks

Now it starts to make sense

Thanks

Good examples:

and are directed at just about everyone on a daily basis. They are truly annoying, and people should stop doing that, since there is a cumulative effect.

It seems unlikely to me that such a thing will every occur, though. No amount of education or anything else is going to make people stop doing that. So, what do you suggest happen to end microaggresions? I can't think of a single effective way to do that.

It's a little bit like saying we aren't going to stop all crime, so we shouldn't try to enforce the laws. Or we aren't going to stop people littering so we shouldn't bother trying to keep our streets clean.

If Microaggressions are seen as acceptable and no big deal, than most people will commit them. If they are clearly marked as being bad and stupid and jerkass and despicable, than they will diminish. That seems pretty easy to understand to me.

Bryant

the person involved should speak right up about it. Tell that person that it's unacceptable.

Call such things microagressions or simply bigoted, stupid behaviors, but educate the idiots who do them. On the spot, when it happens. That is the only technique that will cut down on such things.

I can't imagine any sort of broad educational process that could possibly work. Individual calling out of such things will. No laws can be passed that will work. No amount of discussing such occurrences on websites will work. What will work is individuals telling other individuals to knock that shit off. That works.

so often, why would they?

That's why discussions are necessary. So that people know that sometimes they do have a right to be offended. And that it is worth making a big deal of it.

at least in large enough numbers to make an impact. It is still going to be down to individual people speaking up and speaking out when things happen. People are always saying "suck it up," etc. So? I never listened to them before, and won't now. The people who listen to such things are unlikely to speak up after reading an essay or four, I think.

Individuals can act. And only individuals can act in such cases. If you encounter such a thing, you can act, and so can I. I can speak up and say, "Hey, buddy. That's not cool at all and here's why." And I do just that. Not every time, of course. The drunk guy five rows back from me at a baseball game who says, "Nice tits" to some woman is probably not going to hear from me. Someone near the guy needs to speak up. Or the woman herself. But, if it's someone near me, I'll be the one speaking up.

Each of us has to make choices about what to say, to whom, and when. Most people say nothing, to anyone, ever. I can't convince them to do anything differently. It's up to individuals.

Some who might not have spoken up, some who might have advised them to not make a big deal of something like a guy calling you 'something nice to look at', because I should 'get a thicker skin'.

I'm not sure why you think this shouldn't be discussed, but I most definitely disagree.

I just don't think the discussion here and in other places will make any material difference, due to the sheer number of people on the planet and the tiny number who will participate or even know about the discussions.

I speak up. I assume you speak up. I assume that many DUers speak up. Probably not all the time, but when it makes sense for them do do so or when the situation affects them directly or indirectly.

Other people do not speak up. As you pointed out, they're young, or unsure of their ability to speak up safely, or whatever. Some don't give a crap. I don't think these discussions will change those situations.

That's my opinion. I'm speaking up about my opinion. I do that a lot. I'm not a bashful guy who doesn't speak up about things, and that includes bigoted statements and that sort of thing. My wife, on the other hand, even though she recognizes such things when they happen, is conflict averse, and rarely speaks up. It's her nature, and she's very likely not to change that behavior. So, I do the speaking up. My sister, having grown up in the same family situation as I did, speaks up even more readily than I do, and takes no shit from anyone.

Different people. Different reactions and actions. All the discussion in the world won't change anyone's upbringing or personality. What is important is that those who do speak up continue to do so.

No amount of education will help.
You'll never get people to stop doing this.
Not enough people will see these discussions to matter.

...

Each of my statements is true. You cannot educate actual stupidity out of people. Ignorance, yes. Stupidity, no. And there will always be a plethora of stupid, bigoted, thoughtless people everywhere you go. That has always been the case, and that's not going to change.

Almost half of the population of the US are Republicans, for pete's sake. Why is that? Even though that party has anything but their interests in mind, and even though that should be self-evident, they still continue to vote for Republicans. We've been trying to educate them for decades, and yet they continue in their path.

How much less likely it is that we can educate petty bigotry out of the huge numbers of people with bigotry in their brains? And now, it's "microaggression." They don't even know they did it. They don't know why it's wrong. And they're not listening to you or anyone else. They can see no reason why it's a problem.

One on one. That's the only possible way. Speak up. Don't let shit pass. Speak directly to the offending person and explain why it's offensive. You have about a 25% chance of success...maybe. Discussion among people who are already more or less sensitive to such things won't do anything to help with the huge numbers of people who aren't. One on one works, at least sometimes.

The guy who says to a strange woman, "Smile" has no idea that he's done something wrong. If he did, he wouldn't say it. It's like the guy in the bar who tries the old "Hey, baby" line. I'd say to him, "Say, has that moronic crap worked well for you in the past? You might want to think about trying something less offensive. It might work better."

One on one.

You know me well enough to know that I am not some sort of pushover. You've heard my opinion on this. It remains my opinion. I guess we're at an impasse on this one.

slowly came around. So, perhaps there's hope.

be putting up with lots of shit. women have been raised in a culture where it's always distasteful for us to raise a fuss. you see it here at DU too.

Guys seem to both give and get mixed much more messages.

And I have to say I choked with laughter while READING "Are those people reading these discussions? I doubt it"

Just curious. Internet is easy, real life could have real consequences.

But can't get people to stop being assholes? I think this is a problem that needs to be approached from many angles, not just one. And one of those angels is education - letting people know that it's not acceptable, but, more importantly, letting people know that they can and should stand up to such bullying.

Bryant

Now, all we have to do is get enough funding to do it. We're not selling anything that will pay for that, though. But, consider this: Despite all of the advertising, less than 25% of people smoke. So, let's say we get 25% of people not to commit acts of microaggression. That leaves 75% who didn't buy that product. Plenty enough for it to continue, I'd guess.

It's numbers. With 350 or so million people, it's going to take a helluva lot of advertising to convince them not to say stupid shit. I'm not optimistic.

I like the odds of everyone who gets it speaking up when it happens. That's the education that is needed. One on one.

were more on top of those kinds of behaviors than our modern hierarchical society. Probably the only way to escape micro-aggressions in a heavily populated situation is to avoid people.

is a commonly-deployed passive-aggressive phrase seen online as well as in 'real life' - DU included. In my estimation, it's a phrase I associate with RW shitheads, not unlike the 'pulling oneself up by his/her own bootstraps' admonishment. It's used in order to make people feel bad about themselves and has no place in polite society - much less an ostensibly 'Democratic' website.

The adjective Orwellian refers to these behaviours:

Invasion of personal privacy, either directly physically or indirectly by surveillance.



The most common sense of Orwellian is that of the all-controlling "Big Brother" state, used to negatively describe a situation in which a Big Brother authority figure — in concert with "thought police" — constantly monitors the population to detect betrayal via "improper" thoughts.

that is.

Nice catch!

with the group .... there is a reason our brain is connected to our mouths. what happened to that quaint notion of etiquette and socially unacceptable behavior. and have people forgotten how to filter ?

To the world?

in private.

good way to render your real polical concerns a laughingstock.

Last edited Fri Mar 22, 2013, 01:57 PM - Edit history (1)

First day I landed my most important job (was 18 at the time and it was 1983) my boss said to me and yes I quote, "You're pretty. You'll go far."

I was SMART you fucking asshole... that's why I went far. I was one of the first females to adopt computers wholly and completely into my work routine at a time when there was no manuals for them so I experimented... and hell did I learn.

I left my first place of employment joyously (John Hancock Life Insurance) within a year and eventually became the first woman to be in I.T. in my next company. They did not have an I.T. department at the time. I created it. I helped install the first wireless network in Boston Logan Airport. It was in the early nineties before most people had ever even heard of "wireless." Ever been to Avis Rent a Car and seen those little machines that check you out automatically in the parking lot? I did the beta test of that system in Boston. You're welcome. Enjoy all your faster services knowing you can thank a pretty blond girl for it.

P.S. I also beta tested the first Avis GPS software direction computer too. That little computer you have in your car? You can give me partial thanks for that as well. Believe it or not those things didn't start in cars. They started on regular office CPUs with the likes of me writing up lengthy bug reports. Pardon me if I sound snarky but when I think back to all the sexual harassment I went through to bring you these modern conveniences, I just want to

I was told by one of the men in my department that he was glad they hired me, so they'd "have something nice to look at."

Did the other men say anything similar? Reacting to sexism and other bigotry one on one works. I wouldn't call that a "microagression at all. I'd call it a sexist remark that makes a workplace uncomfortable. I'd have read the guy off in no uncertain terms if I were you. Even better, if others were around, the embarrassment of being a jerk might have had even more impact.

And these were software engineers. Nerds. Men I figured would be better about that kind of thing. I was young and so naive...

I learned early in life to have very low expectations.

If nobody corrects them on it, they don't learn anything. We were all young at one point. I get it that you didn't want to rock the boat at that time. However, if you had, you might have taught a very important lesson to someone. He won't learn his error here on DU or on a website discussing microaggressions. He would have understood that he pissed you off, though.

When I was 23 years old, I took a job as a mail clerk for a gas company in California. I was just out of the Air Force. I worked in an open office area, and part of my job was delivering mail to individual desks. Shortly after I started working there, I noticed one of the women working at the desk, and thought she was rather attractive. I was friendly, but not particularly pushing for anything. But I liked her and was friendly.

One day, this guy from that same company took me aside and said, "You can forget about Judy. She's a fucking ice-maiden." My reaction was to shrug and to figure that he had come on to her at some point and she had blown him off. I didn't tell him he was an asshole, although I thought he was.

Long story short, she ended up calling me and asking if I wanted to get together sometime. We ended up getting married a few months later. She wasn't an ice-maiden. She was a very nice person who didn't like assholes very much.

I should have told that guy off, but I decided just to ignore him. He was an asshole. There are lots of them around, it seems.

if you had called him an asshole?

at a time when I was a new employee.

You have done amazing things and I am sorry that your intelligence has been overlooked due to your looks. I have had similar problems in the past but it has also been a detriment. (you are too pretty to be smart or jealous professors/bosses not wanting to give you credit for a good job.)

Welcome to DU!

I understand "microaggressions" aren't pleasant.

But exploding over one of them isn't appropriate either. That "last straw" microaggression person wasn't the cause of all previous ones.

Microaggression is a concept that is important. I posted this thread about microaggressions to discuss this wide-ranging issue, which affects all kinds of minority groups, not to continue any other argument.

inapporpriate. simply means, one is speaking out.

unless you have some example of exactly what an exploding macroagression would be?

Seriously, I have yet to understand why people get mad on DU when discussion is made about most anything you would think would be typical on a progressive website. Most especially since we have a 'trash thread' option. Why can't they use it?

and then getting that person fired would be a pretty good example of an exploding macroaggression.

nt.

There are examples in this thread.

Anyone who comes in trying to continue arguments is choosing to do so for their own reasons.

nt.

If it's not about that, what is it about?

that could lead to larger negative consequences. I think just in general, but the dongle event is a good example.

It's called life. Everyone has to deal with microaggressions, usually on a daily basis. Most do their best to ignore them. But trying to justify a huge macroaggression in response to an incredibly silly microaggression (if a stupid dongle joke rises to ANY kind of aggression), is just stupid in my mind. I think the "dongle event" is a really good example of how everyone can lose when a person with zero conflict resolution abilities is involved.

Yes that is exactly what I thought about the two fired people. Could have been resolved with management in a heartbeat. If that would have happened, both would still be employed imo.

....where someone didn't like where the majority opinion was trending into pure sociobabble navel gazing so we can ignore the fact that some crazy person needing constant attention tweeted photos of people she didn't know regarding a private conversation and fucked that person and themselves royally.

You're free to continue discussing people and events in the other thread.

I thought it would be more constructive to discuss ideas. Obviously YMMV.

If this is about that.

Thanks.

This shameful enabling and justification of rape culture with terms like "microagression" needs to stop.

okay to force oneself into the private conversation of two people, then brutally photograph them and shockingly post their picture on twitter without their consent?

By encouraging this woman to brazenly post nonconsensual objectification images of these people, you are winking and nudging with the worst of the foul intertube smut-mongers.


Why, why, WHY is it so difficult for you to condemn this egregious instance of clear nonconsensual image-based harmfulness?

Tsk. Tsk.

What a brilliant method of showing what happens when the henpecked becomes the henpecker. Wait, am I allowed to say "henpecker"?

Just one quick note though, next time leave out the capitalization and proper grammar.

but thanks.

You never disappoint!

not stepping into your pile of dung.

We could all be facing a true Dongle Debacle DDOS Doomsday.

before you know it, your shit is totally tied to the beach.

Last edited Fri Mar 22, 2013, 05:55 PM - Edit history (1)

It is beyond preposterous to suggest that "microaggressions" add up to anything more than the frustrations, disappointments, unfairness, ugliness and rudeness that life has to offer and always delivers. No human is immune to these things nor will they ever be. Creating a silly neologism to describe something already well known is a "microaggression" itself in my opinion.

Cheers!

Perhaps not macroaggressive, but I'd say it resides solidly in between micro and macroaggression. Your salutation of "cheers" may have been a micronicety, but not enough to overcome the aggression of... oh fuck (I mean fudge), I just got a fingercut (I mean microinjury). I need to head to the medicine cabinet (I mean microhospital).

Civility requires all parties to demonstrate decorum, conviviality and not acting like assholes. Real problems should not be swept under the rug. Stupid misunderstandings should not be conflated with real problems. Either action RUINS civility and creates a hostile environment. People who commit either kind of action are guilty of being assholes.

when you see the dismissive garbage and attempts to silence conversation we see in this thread.

I have had this happened. And didn't say anything. Why? Because I always heard 'it's not a big deal'.

If I had seen a discussion like this ... I might have. Might. It's harder than it should be, because widespread denial that it even matters.

So that, to me, means we need more of these discussions. A lot more.

My bad. I tend to agree with the poster who said it's called life.

This thread is a continuation of another thread where a man at a tech conference made a joke about a "dongle" (which is a funny-sounding technical term) and a woman overheard him and took a picture of him and posted it on twitter, which then resulted in the man losing his job, and the subsequent uproar from the internet resulted in the woman losing her job also.

Whether or not we use the term "microaggression", I don't think anyone is saying it's OK, for example, for a gynecologist to tell a woman “You have access to birth control pills now. That doesn’t give you an excuse to sleep around.” This is an example from that website.

But a lot of the comments here are from people who think that making a "dongle" joke in a private conversation between two men doesn't rise to the level of a "microaggression" against a woman who was eavesdropping on them.

Maybe you just randomly thought this would be a good time for a public service announcement about "microaggression", but the reason people are being "dismissive" is because of the dongle debacle.

"Microaggression is the term we will be educating you about today, children. Turn your lesson books to page 23..."

Irony alert!

Always.

eom

i'm sure everyone here has experienced, witnessed, or committed some microaggression.. a descriptive term.

as a white male nerd i fall into a broad category of leftist gents who get to witness this shit from the wrong side. just last week i had a customer, a jack-texan who started hinting at his distaste for 'all the spanish speaking' as his reason for moving.. to new mexico. i hate having to set people straight that i'm not a bigot like them, but i know how. i've had to learn.

fuckin idiot. and an asshole too because he says this when i'm trying to get him to pay the shop. i told him i'd lived in NM for 15 years and still hadn't quite got the swing of speaking spanish conversationally, but it was the future of america so we'd better start practicing. he paid and left.

that was nothing. easy. racists and sexists and homophobes all assume because i'm relatively clean-cut, white, cisgendered male and straight that i'm not going to make them feel like a complete tool for trying to include me in their hate.

may i coin a term for it? 'microcollusion' and it's a drag.

we oughtn't collude in hate. not on a small scale, and not big, either..

it, go be a hermit.

putting a fancy label on some phenomena doesn't make it more important than it was before you stuck the label on it.

Well stated.

a criminal act. it's a remark that offends.

and such remarks, experienced as attacks on one's personhood, are not experienced only by minorities or women.

and minorities.
privileged white guys get criticized for being what they themselves are perceived to be-how THEY are BEHAVING, and usually only by other white privileged guys. we get ALL that but ALSO the degrading "women are___" by men of all strata.
the higher on the totem pole you are, the easier it is to dismiss. because it's not about the body you grew up in and can't do shit about.

situation, not improve it.

and imo and experience, it's privileged white women who are most concerned with such things.

and let the movement does that mean it was less valid? or that they helped black women less?

at any rate, I guess you didn't peruse the sight at all- because there is a very large percentage of black women complaining. They would be the very people *you haven't noticed* getting the bulk of this microagression shit.
Go pulls some quotes here and dismiss them.

any site linked in your post, nor do i see any site linked here, so that may be why i 'haven't noticed'.

not to mention that the posts on a site about 'microagression' are in no way a representative sample of any population.

is telling me all I need to know. You prefer to remain dismissive on a topic of study that you know pretty much nothing about.
So... go learn something or not, but I won't waste more time deflating simplistic assumptions made in ignorance of the subject at hand.

I have now looked at the 'sight' (sic) in the OP.

There are 20 comments on the front page. Four were made by black females, which is not a majority; it's about double the black representation in the general population.

tense.
But perhaps you didn't read that either? Carry on with the ignorance.

every dumb thing someone says in private conversations that you find offensive while rome burns around your head.

a hierarchical society/culture. Such behaviors are highly restricted in real egalitarian societies. Despite, our wishes and lip-service to egalitarianism, our society is most undoubtedly a hierarchical one.

Unfortunately, such behavior may not be as easy to remedy as education. Hierarchy and attempts at dominance may be ingrained in societies once they reach a certain threshold of population and organizational dependence. At such a point, it swings from an egalitarian ethos where the dignity of individual members is rather highly preserved and watched over by the group, to a hierarchical type of social despotism where the roles and powers of individual members present circumstances more conducive to bullying.

made a big deal about "micro aggression" against foreigners from Japanese people.

He thinks every time a Japanese says "Oh, you're so good with chopsticks" or "Your Japanese is so good!" that it is a form of microaggression. And YES, he is serious.

I think he is full of shit and so is the concept of microaggression.

More mental masturbation by people who are paid to put their feet up on a desk and consider things that will further their chosen academic specialty. Whip up like-minded people and you have an instant shiny object meme to splatter around the intertubes.

Doesn't make it significant.

I guess I've heard of the concept but never the name.

Is that like jumbo shrimp?