The value of Microaggressions, e-mail response.

An e-mail response to the Microaggressions post, by Dani. She can be found @thequeengeek, and on her own blog, A Geeky View on Life.

I'm not looking to start a flame war as much as a discussion back and forth about what I see as an interesting and multifaceted issue.

Some disclaimers: I'm a white, cissgender, college educated woman. I was raised in a low income, working class home, and have spent a large portion of my adult life in pretty precarious poverty, but I have to acknowledge my privilege where it lies. I also have never seen that website till your blog post, so I can't speak about it from a place of expertise.

I think my issue with the post is that you seem to dismiss any positive outcome of recognizing the daily small events that highlight our institutionalized racism, sexism, ableism, cissgenderism, classism, homophobia, etc. I think there is some inherent value in pointing out that certain games, shows, magazines, websites, etc are geared to one gender, age, sexual orientation, et al. Akin to consciousness raising groups in the late 60s and early 70s, it helps people be able to identify where the ingrained and societal biases lie, so that the battle ground is clear.

On the other hand, I do take issue with the idea that changing language alone can end oppression. I think there is some validity to the idea that the way we speak about ourselves can change attitudes about certain things, BUT, I don't think that by changing language, all the biases of the world will magically melt away.  

If people are feeling marginalized by language, though (ie, Gentlemen start your engines), perhaps it is a symptom of an illness. The individuals feel excluded, pushed out and unwelcome in the community (in this case, gaming), but can only find physical proof in the words and packaging of the institution. Does that make sense? I know, for example, when I worked in a gaming section of a retailer, the men did not take me seriously as an expert. But only once did one say to me "Can I speak to a dude?" I felt he put his finger on what I was feeling through non-direct actions to be true-- that men would rather talk to a man about gaming, because they assumd I knew nothing based on gender. That one incident should not have been as offensive as it was, but it was an illustration for a greater feeling.

Then there's the argument that people who feel marginalized and slighted should be able to have a voice and a place to express it. That the internet gives people facing oppression the ability to speak out about how they feel, and how certain things make them feel. That it's a fine line to draw, saying what is a big enough deal to express publicly, and feeds into a stereotype of minorities being whiners and wanting special treatment because they can't man up and take it, etc.

I don't know. I think you're right in some aspects, too, but these difficulties came to mind. All the issues are super tough, and I'm just looking for people who want to sit down and talk them through, because even if we never agree, the discussion is stronger than anything. I totally respect what you do, and think you do a good job doing it.

-Dani

Hostility towards Microaggressions.

Specifically, my hostility towards the tenuously valid culture of victimization that exists on the website of Microaggressions, a Tumblr where people can and unfortunately do submit anecdotes with subtle tinges of injury from the cornucopia of progressive terminology: racism, feminism, religion, weightism, agism-or-is-it-ageism, so forth and so on until someone shuts the website down. It is the belief of this microaggressive community that it is possible, to quote this delightful APA article, to be racist or discriminatory in a manner "so subtle that neither victim nor perpetrator may entirely understand what's going on". Wonderful.

The original definition was bounded by interracial interactions, but the Tumblr expands this to any social construction [their words]; any person could decide to "construct" a personal class and claim insult against it. If, say, a lactose-intolerant person is offered cream with their coffee at a café, the waitress would be guilty of microaggressing the customer: How dare she assume the customer can digest milk sugars! The scheme of Microaggressions is that we are all,  or at least have the potential to be vicious microaggressors. Soon, even I will be accused of microaggression for assuming the person-waiting-the-tables was a woman.

It is unfortunate, perhaps, that some of the anecdotes are in fact totally valid, universally recognized instances of racism and sexism that have "somehow" ended up on a website that is supposed to be about injurious but not malicious or overt discrimination. For example, with the statement, "Practicing already, huh?", a young girl's act of eating a popsicle is sexualized by her stepfather, a blatant disregard for feminine sensibility and a rude thing to say in any respect. But the stepfather is just a jerk; this is no microaggression. It'd rather look like this gem, which like many submissions, involved an interaction in an inanimate and immutable environment:

I am playing a racing game. The game says “Gentlemen, start your engines.” I am a woman. It made me feel marginalized and annoyed.

Apparently, the microaggresse has been so repeatedly violated by these injustices throughout their life that even the most common of phrases can set them off. The concept that you should [and eventually will] have your feelings hurt by every politically-incorrect, non-inclusive statement, that not having sole domain over commentary about your class, is like the petulant artist who insists that no one understands their artwork, and those who criticize it or reveal its lack of substance, are incompetent.

I wish I could say that Microaggressions was an even mildly open platform like Fuck My Life, an apparent progenitor of this website, but I don't think any of us will ever know the content of those submissions which never make it to the home page. [Can a Republican be microaggressed?] Their submission template does not call for creativity. The emotional value of those that do make the cut is diluted by the generic language that every experience is transformed with. First, the offender:  used an outdated racial term ignored gender identity perpetuated sexist stereotypes reinforced the patriarchy  which made the aggressee feel:  angry marginalized invisible misunderstood , et cetera et cetera et cetera.

In conclusion, the more and more I think about this website the more and more I fucking hate it and the way it gives people an excuse to inflate the tiniest incidents into class warfare.