What microaggressions affect you and your group?

Well, calling black people articulate isn’t so much a microaggression as it is just a plain racist statement. Funny we don’t hold the speaker accountable, isn’t it?

I’m a white, middle class American male. There aren’t microaggressions against us, there are macroaggressions. We are treated to an unending litany of stereotypes and universal generalizations. Examples: We are ALL racists. We are all Privileged. We are all homophobic. If you watch TV you will see that we are treated as either bumbling dolts, heavy browed Neanderthals, or childish.

@seawulf575 “If you watch TV you will see that we are treated as either bumbling dolts, heavy browed Neanderthals, or childish.”

Except of course, when we’re portrayed as the guy who gets the girl, or the hero who saves the day, or the one who solves the problem or outsmarts the villain, or the handsome romantic, etc…

As far as privilege goes, we DO have white privilege. That doesn’t me we all get a check in the mail or don’t have to work hard, it just means we’re not getting pulled over for being white, or having the cops called on us for walking down the street in a nice neighborhood, or when we put our hands up, the cops don’t pull the trigger. White privilege isn’t about getting things other groups don’t, it’s about not having to deal with a lot of the negatives that are “built into” their existence by virtue of their race.

I see a huge problem with this thesis, @jleslie.

As the speaker, I can say what I want to say, and I say it with generally good taste. I don’t go out of my way to insult or demean anyone.

BUT I have no control over how you hear it and how it affects you. Your understanding is based on your history, emotions, sensitivies, proclivities – and those are individual to you. The person standing next to you is going to hear (and process) what I said based her own history.

The corollary is that stereotypes are murky, at best. Yes, there are some pernicious ones, but there are plenty of mini-stereotypes that aren’t shared. Telling on someone because you think something might be a stereotype (according to you) is shaky, at best.

@elbanditoroso I’m pretty sure you and agree if I understand what you are saying in your answer. I do think people expect people to know too much about what might hurt someone based on their history. We can’t know and understand everyone’s history or every group’s history.

Here is the original Q, which halfway down started talking about the example of using the term articulate and led me to asking this Q. https://i.fluther.com/233894/can-you-use-the-word-microaggression-on-a-more-person-level/ basically I say now that I know I won’t use it, but it’s a little over the top to expect people to intuitively know it’s offensive when they customarily use it as a compliment and fully intended it that way. I mean, it’s a compliment it’s not like calling someone a derogatory name.

Then I thought what if someone said to someone Jewish, “you’re really good with money.” Would I think it’s a slight? I think it probably depends on the context and who is saying it.

@gorillapaws On TV even the guy that gets the girl is often a goof. That’s sort of the basis of the RomCom. As for the privilege, you and I are going to have to disagree. But it does point out the macroaggression I was speaking of. I have been given nothing in this world. I had to work for everything. I have gotten penalized, in fact, for being white. Your broad generalizations are just what I am talking about.

Hahahahaha, @seawulf575, you think being portrayed as a bit of a buffoon in some TV shows is a MACRO aggression? Really?
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

But to answer the Q, for women, things like being touched constantly by strange men unnecessarily, being talked over, being corrected (often wrongly, love the irony), being told to smile, having our appearance commented on to our faces, being glowered at (or mildly threatened) if refusing such attentions from strange men are microaggressions.

A little less micro: having ownership of something (that men think is more likely to be owned by men) questioned, trying to buy something (house, car, boat) and having the salesperson want to speak to a man, stuff like that.

I would consider an example of macro aggression to be more along the lines of a doctor patting my arm and diagnosing me (literally!) with “hysteria” when the pain I was describing was actually one of my kidneys starting to go necrotic because of an occlusion.

There’s a sad joke out there:
When a man agrees to a blind date, he’s worried she might be fat.
When a woman agrees to a blind date, she’s worried she might be killed.

Being portrayed as silly on a TV show is so far down on the list as to go mostly unnoticed.

Everyone has microaggressions directed at them in one form or another.

Mostly sexism from men, sometimes women, as well as ignorant misinformation about being a white, female conservative.

I’ll never forget someone here posting that women in my area are told how to vote by our husbands. Ha!!

@canidmajor Do I think being portrayed as a bit of a buffoon is a macro aggression? Once, no. Continually? Yes. Think about most of the sitcoms out there. Basic story line is the guy is a goof, or a man-child…fairly brainless and helpless. Meanwhile the woman is the voice of reason, the intelligent one, the one that can do anything. At some point the man will learn a very basic lesson of life like it is a stunning new concept. It is a common theme. Suppose that every show portrayed women as helpless little things that always needed a man to survive? Or that every woman was a jaded shrew that was offensive to everyone around her. If that was the common theme, how would you view it?

I rarely see microaggressions since I moved away from small towns and southern towns.

For all their issues, major cities really are the best places to live as a minority.

For an example of a more recent microaggression:

Doing electrical contract work in blue collar environments. When you’re a black person in this environment, some guys may want to “test” you, to make sure you’re one of the “good blacks”.

Making some small talk in an office I simply said “So you guys ready for the superbowl?”

Queue the test:
“Yea….as long as they don’t kneel….”

I’m now being stared at by multiple white men waiting for my response….

So I have to pander to them so I don’t cause an issue.

“Yea I agree man, I’m ex-navy so I respect the flag.”

Telling them you’re former military gains their respect and shuts them up.

I obviously am not gonna argue because we’re employed by this company and I’m not gonna risk losing a job/contract because I was a “mouthy negro”.

So I had to censor myself and pretend to be an entirely different person which is so mentally draining I have to take repeated deep breaths and basically act like none of it happened.

^^ So sad.

@seawulf575, what @Blackberry wrote is a microagression. What you are writing is not anywhere near the same ballpark. Not even close.

It hasn’t happened to me for a very long time, but I’ve been in situations where I could not refer to my boyfriend’s gender. I’ve had to filter my pronouns.

@Blackberry I can’t believe they say that to you. They say that type of shit to me all of the time, but I figured they say it because they think since I’m white I’m going to agree. Like I’m a safe person and they can be unfiltered.

I’m not in a work situation, it’s usually a social situation. That takes a lot of chutzpah to say something like that at work. Unbelievable. So inappropriate.

Plus, of course it is different that you are actually part of the group they are testing, but I wonder if they are actually testing me too?

I’ve had people who say something negative about Mexicans (my husband is Mexican) or Jewish people (I’m Jewish) or use a term like Jew it down, but when they say it they are clueless about me. They are stupid in assumptions.

You have me thinking about inappropriate things some men say to women, and it’s kind of similar to what happens to you. We have to brush it off or laugh it off to get along and not cause a disturbance.

A lot of people have to do that in different forms. I’m an atheist in the bible belt. People freaking hold hands and pray before meetings here at work sometimes. It’s not right, but I’m not telling those people I don’t believe in Jesus. They pamphlets they leave in the bathrooms telling nonbelievers they’re going to hell are microaggressions too.

@JLeslie
There’s not much one can do except leave those places and cut ties with certain people.

They may claim people are being more anti social or try to say the country is more divided, but those things aren’t true. People are just deciding to either be alone or have less friends in exchange for less stress.

Oh dear, well OK @seawulf575. You are talking about TV. Turn it off or change the channel. There are literally thousands and thousands of choices for you.
Historically, women, persons of color, queer people, anyone with an accent (that is not Caucasian/European) has been badly, demeaningly, offensively portrayed on TV. Until fairly recently, there were only a handful of channels, and not any means of saving or rewatching at one’s own discretion. So your great upset that TV, of all things, is being unfair is really really silly.
I can’t just change the channel or turn off the constant crap (which includes Age-ism, now) in real life. If you were disabled or disfigured I might have some sympathy about how you are treated, but citing TV representation as oppressive to your kind is like complaining about not getting as much money from the tooth fairy as your cousin.
It is asinine and juvenile.

I’m the type of person who does speak up because I’m generally confrontational and I like to have the last word and I don’t like letting bigoted comments slide. It’s fortunate that I haven’t encountered the kind of things some of you are describing much. I can think of one instance in college when a friend commented about a gay guy in his fraternity, describing his distaste for him and relief that I didn’t “flaunt it” like the guy in question. I don’t remember exactly what I said in response, but it was something fairly crude and it shut him up. Even gay guys themselves sometimes have this prejudice against more feminine gay guys and I don’t put up with it.

@Demosthenes I think you forgot to put the word “don’t” in the last phrase of your first sentence.

@janbb Thanks. I added it. :)

@seawulf575 Here’s an article on it. There is definately a white hierarchy, or phrases like ‘white trash’ wouldn’t exist. A few crybabies in denial don’t change facts.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1362480608093308

@KNOWITALL

Everyone is well aware that pharmaceutical companies targeted poor white people in west Virginia for opioids.

Welcome to the party.

If you claim to love deregulation and the free market then you shouldn’t have an issue with this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/west-virginia-opioid-legal-battle-foster-care/

@Blackberry Even though those microaggressions you describe are very real and understandably stressful, do you feel the current situation in the country is overboard and ignoring the people who want to improve things and who aren’t racist might risk alienated people who only want to do the right thing?

These race talks that I sat through several times that are fairly large on Facebook and this small subgroup I talked about in my Socrates group, I disagreed with some things and had questions about other things, but I learned early on that both Black and white people in those groups don’t want to hear anything that doesn’t agree with their POV, especially if it sounds anything like a Republican talking point (which is understandable). They are not really “safe” places.

@JLeslie Are you asking @Blackberry how much bigotry is acceptable?

@Hawaii_Jake Not at all. I’m not defending bigotry in any way shape or form. I’m asking about acknowledging there are people who actively do things to help combat bigotry and there are people who aren’t bigots. Just what @Blackberry did by saying in the city he doesn’t encounter problems like rural areas and the South.

@JLeslie Thanks for the clarification. Your writing just above my question is unclear.

@JLeslie
I would try to use your own discretion when it comes to groups with many many commenters. There’s just a lot going on with most large forums now.

The internet definitely made our worlds much larger, and as a result there’s just a lot of opinions out there.

Things are very much gray, depending on where you live and your age etc.

There’s definitely going to be a lot of collateral damage in these online and real world wars unfortunately.

@Blackberry Yeah, I don’t say anything in those large forums. They often have special guests, and a specific POV. One of them even gets paid sometimes for speaking engagements I think, so there is capitalizing on the moment in that one, but my smaller groups are nothing like that, people meet like book clubs meet.

@Hawaii_Jake I’ll give you an example of something I’m interested in regarding race that I have even discussed on fluther before. It’s about when to teach about race, segregation, and slavery, and the opinion I hold has been very misunderstood I think. My opinion is rooted in wanting to protect Black children. Protect their self esteem and relationships with children who aren’t Black.

Watch Tyler Perry on this video starting at minute 4:30 through to the end. https://youtu.be/Y9eE4jmKZlI

He talks about his 7 year old and when to introduce talking about race.

I’m always told as long as it’s age appropriate it’s good to start early. Many people perceive not wanting to talk about these things at young ages as wanting to protecting the white children.

I was watching one of those large Facebook race talks several months ago, and a man talked about his 8 year old son coming home very upset from school because they learned about some of the racism and horrible things that happened in the past. He said his son had trouble sleeping, cried, but this dad said it was good he was learning about it, but let me tell his tone and expression didn’t agree with his words. I disagree it was good. This young boys innocence was taken. It sounded like he was blindsided and internalized it. If he was twelve or fourteen I completely agree, but not so young.

I don’t hold my opinion because I’m trying to stop the telling of history, my opinion comes from a place of knowing how I felt as a child. I’m not even saying I’m right, I’m only saying I’m not necessarily wrong just because I don’t agree with the liberal talking point right now. Maybe both opinions are correct, but I’m not trying to give white people a pass. Being accused of that isn’t listening to me, but it’s the knee-jerk reaction from the left right now.

For you it might have been learning as an 8 year old in school how many gay boys have been beaten or killed while in a class of 30 classmates. Is that the time? When do you think is there time for that?

It looks like I’m late to the party. To directly answer your question, I am going to focus on recently learning that I (40-something female) am autistic, as is my middle child. Common themes in conversations that involve autism include prevention (in which we perceive that we should not exist), condescension (in which we perceive that we must not have talents/abilities/independence), and avoidance (in which we perceive that it is not socially acceptable to talk about this identity). In addition, I am commonly perceived as (or told I am) inapproachable, “resting bitch face”, unengaged, dishonest (when avoiding eye contact), etc.

My 10 year old had me read a bedtime book to him that was told from the viewpoint of an older sibling of an autistic child. This main character’s greatest wish was that she would wake up some morning and her brother’s autism would no longer exist. I was enraged and refused to continue reading the book. Can you imagine your child having a primary identify (impacting how they understand and interact with the world around them IN ALL WAYS) that is regarded with such distain in a children’s book? Would we ever accept this in a fiction children’s book for gender, race, etc?

@Cupcake That children’s book is shocking to me.

@Cupcake I’m probably somewhere on that spectrum myself, but I don’t think anything “caused it.” It seems to be natural. I strongly suspect about half the engineers I work with are too. A lot of “normies” believe it’s something that needs fixing. The truth is a good number of scientific advances, technology, art and other things we have are from people on the spectrum.

I’ll also say that if you’re straight, white, male, healthy, christian, educated, middle class or wealthy etc.. There is a lot of literature out there being pushed that has the adjacent effect of making those people feel that they should feel guilty for being privileged. While that’s not generally the intent, those effects are real and not unlike the reaction we have to a book teaching children that Autism is something that needs fixing. Those are indirect microaggressions or microaggressions by proxy. People don’t have to agree, but it’s not deniable that the effect is there.

@Cupcake Wow, that’s wildly inappropriate. You are worthy of love, respect and all good thing’s. Hugs.

@Cupcake May I ask “How reliable are online tests like this one? https://mind.help/assessments/autism-test/
Because I scored an 80% (Your test score indicates that you are likely suffering from Autism Spectral Disorder. You have many of the prominent and severe symptoms shown by people diagnosed with autism. You probably experience repetitive speech and movement patterns, fixated interests, marked delay in language skills, poor social development, difficulty expressing emotions, and many other serious symptoms. Your condition needs proper medical care and treatment. Get in touch with our qualified mental health professionals who will guide you on the therapies and treatments you need after performing a complete evaluation of your symptoms)

@rayahope They are often very helpful. Keep looking around and learning. Because there are so many barriers to formal diagnosis, self-diagnosis of autism is perfectly valid. If it is a framework that helps you, then keep exploring.

While a professional evaluation will consider things like verifying that signs/symptoms started in childhood and will exclude other conditions, there are a lot of biases that get perpetuated in the diagnostic process, especially for women, people of color, people who have experienced trauma, people with high intelligence, etc.

Oh God, I don’t want to have this too. I’m good I’ll be fine I don’t think I want to look any further I might find more bad stuff.

As a white middle-class 50-somthing man, I don’t feel I suffer from micro aggressions.

Many people treat me with deference. Young women see me as a harmless cute grandpa instead of a potential partner.

It is the opposite of aggression.
’

@RayaHope In my psych courses, one of the things I learned was that most psych students (people who look inward) tend to diagnose themselves with pretty much everything they study. I heard the same thing about medical students – they get everything they study about. They’ll be like, “Gosh I have those symptoms too! I must have this fill-in-the-blank disease that’s so rare that only 0.5% of the population of the earth has it!”

Just listen to the experts and don’t borrow trouble…you’ll be fine. {{hugs}}

@smudges This is true. I’m not sure if you’ve ever met a neurosurgeon, but it’s an interesting self-selecting group.

Yes, I recently had back surgery performed by one. He was in his 30’s and still cocky, but hey…he got the job done right! I can’t imagine having that kind of talent!

I haven’t read most of the replies.

Not sure if it counts, but as a teacher, I’ve seen some negative perception around us. Teachers are very often depicted as villains who like to inflict unnecessary torture toward innocent young children in media. And a lot of people in real life seem to hold the same bias as well especially students :P I’m a teacher in a language center instead of an established school, so I face another negative stereotype as well: “teaching worker”. It’s an insult for people who, according to the ones saying it, don’t have any real qualification and doesn’t deserve to be teachers. A lot of people hold the belief that only teachers in schools deserve respect and teachers from anywhere else are too incompetent to teach at school, which is why they don’t teach in school. Sadly it puts a lot of pressure onto people and make them desperate to be considered “real” teachers. But the sadder and more ironic truth is that due to the amount of incompetent teachers at schools, students who learn at school tend to disregard schoolteacher and look up to language center teachers instead, which creates another stereotype. It’s a messy situation.

Being a teacher is a really weird position to be in. On one hand you are pampered by the traditional view of teacher being a respectful member of society. But on the other hand the progressive view of student’s rights is perverted into unreasonable rebellion, and that reinforces teachers’ negative stereotypes. You are constantly being pulled into two directions at once.

@smudges I hope you are right. But I did 4 different test with 4 different sites and answered the questions as honestly as I could and all of them pointed to me being moderate to severely autistic. I know an online test is no match for a professional diagnosis but it’s not looking good.

@RayaHope Never think of being on the spectrum as “not looking good”. Various types and degrees of defined autism carry some really marvelous benefits, after all. Hyperfocus (for example) on various projects has stood me in good stead over the years. If you are interested in any of the STEM fields, being somewhere on the spectrum will likely benefit you.

As more and more comes to light about various neuro-diverse conditions, I am really starting to believe that “neurotypical” is at the center of a very shallow bell curve.

Research the indicators of various levels of autism, you may find there are some very cool traits and abilities you can embrace.

Most of the time, the way others react, (as @Cupcake describes) is the problem because they are ignorant. Of course, the more extreme the condition, the more compassion is required for understanding, but I doubt you are on the extreme edges, as your language usage here indicates a certain level of ease in communicating.

@RayaHope It has been a great relief and joy for me to learn about my autism. And as a result of how I navigated my own diagnosis, my 10 year-old followed suit by wanting to be congratulated on his autism diagnosis. We are logical, loyal, funny, curious, have deep interest and knowledge in certain areas, notice patterns, and have great empathy for others.

And it’s not “one more thing”. It’s either a framework that helps you understand yourself, or it’s not. You’ve either had it all of your life, or you haven’t. It’s not a new condition, just information.

While I understand where you’re coming from to some extent, we’re also posting on a question about microaggressions where someone (me), in a position of vulnerability, disclosed a diagnosis and discussed how people negatively respond, which you reinforced with your “don’t want to have this too”, “more bad stuff”, and “not looking good”. Maybe you’re “at-capacity” dealing with other things, or maybe you have internalized biases against autism. Might be worth thinking about.

I took that test, but it wanted my email and it seemed like it was going to sell my info so I have no idea how I did on it, because I would not sign up.

^^ Strange, because it gave me my results right there, and I think it did for @RayaHope too. You went to https://mind.help/assessments/autism-test/ ? I noticed that if I scrolled down to the blank part of that page and waited a minute that the test would show up. I didn’t click on the blue word “test” at the top of the page which I guess is a link to the test. I’m wondering if they have it set up differently.

Mine said: Your response indicates that you display moderate signs of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Your test score meets the diagnostic criteria for Asperger Syndrome, a type of autism where the person doesn’t face any problems with language but they have social interaction issues and a limited scope of interest. However, they score well (average and above average) on intelligent tests. Since autism is a spectrum disorder, it includes a wide variety of illnesses that people with ASD can undergo. This test is just an indication of possible health issues and not a complete diagnosis. For proper diagnosis and treatment, it’s best to seek help from a qualified mental health professional. Without further delay, contact our team of experienced psychologists for a complete evaluation.

@RayaHope why is it a problem that you have autism? @Cupcake are others are examples of people who don’t let their diagnosis rule their life. In fact, I don’t even know @Cupcake has autism until she said it.

Even if you do end up having autism, I think the question you should be asking is “what can I do?” Are you able to function right now? If you have any difficulty, find ways to work over it or ask for help. Just be the best person that you can be. Excluding assholes, no one cares that you have anything if you are a good person.

@Cupcake has a point when she said you may be enforcing negative stereotypes about autism when you are worrying you have it. Please take time to consider it, because negative stereotypes about autism have hurt a lot of autistic people unfairly.

As a caucasian, cisgender, mostly hetero male who speaks EFL, I’m well aware of the intrinsic privileges I have.

Even though my family and I are immigrants from Canada, nobody has ever told any of us to go back to where we came from.

Nobody has ever tried to force me to use a bathroom I wasn’t comfortable using.

As far as I know, nobody has ever denied anyone of my ethnicity or gender the right to vote, based solely on those attributes.

No cop has ever hassled me for driving around in the “wrong neighborhood”.

AFAIK, nobody has ever said it was okay to rape me because of what I was wearing or because I was married to my hypothetical rapist.

Nobody has ever passed any laws forbidding me to marry the one I love.

However, when I was about 10, my mom told me that women are smarter than men! ;(

In other words, none that I can recall.

@Brian1946 my mom told me that women are smarter than men!

That’s not microaggression, that’s the truth. Deal with it ~

LMAO!

Many of us are aware from what @RayaHope has shared here that she has a number of medical issues going on so our job as Jellies is to support her feelings as she discovers things. She has stated she’s going on a vacation with her family so perhaps when she is ready she may want to revisit this subject.

Thank you @janbb I do, but right now I need to relax and stay calm.

@RayaHope take your time to calm down. But I’ll just write it here so that you can read it whenever you feel ready. you can ignore it if you don’t feel like reading right now.

I don’t want you to be defined by your diagnosis, whatever it might be. There have been a lot of people who have disabilities, either physically or mentally, and they go on to be great people that bring positivity to society despite their setbacks. They are more remembered by what they have done, not what they were afflicted by. You can find examples everywhere, from this very site to the Internet to real life. They might be upset with their setbacks, but at the end of the day they push aside their setbacks and learn to work with them, and that’s how they become so great. Sometimes, what seems like a tragedy can actually be a blessing if you know how to work with it.

When you calm down, please do some reading on autism to gain more insight on it beyond stereotypes. You can search for famous people with autism for inspiration. Over time, with more knowledge, you will be more objective about the condition and learn ways to work with it. You may even be able to use it to your advantage. In the meantime, you don’t need to tell everyone that you have autism if you fear you will be discriminated against. Maybe just share your struggle with people you trust. I’m sure people who love you will accept your condition no matter what, and no one cares what you have if you prove to be a contributing member of society.

Even if you do have autism, it’s not a death sentence, I promise.

Hey, @RayaHope!

Don’t worry too much about this. Nothing has really changed. You’re still the person you’ve always been.

If anything, a diagnosis can be a powerful tool for understanding the things that you struggle with. And that you’re not alone in your struggles.