We Need To Talk About Micro-Aggressions

And then when we’re done talking we never need to mention them again.

The world is full of micro-aggressions. They’re currently everywhere you look and everywhere you’re going to look for the next few years. You won’t be able to go outside of your house without the crushing reality of micro-aggressions impeding on your life.

Micro-aggressions, they’re awful, aren’t they?

Read those words in whatever tone you like and you can infer that I’m being sincere or I’m being sarcastic. Your interpretation of my intention happens in your own brain. It’s based on what you know of me, it’s based on your own value judgments on context.

As it happens, I was being sincere and sarcastic at the same time.

Sincere because…

… being in a space where you’re not welcome can be hugely psychologically damaging. Most of us have experienced a version of this in some capacity or another. We’re hard-wired for social awareness and so most of us have some sensitivity to how others think.

And the world is a complicated place full of people who have differing world views. People who may wish us well or wish us ill. Not everyone we meet will like us, not everyone we meet will be straightforward or psychologically cogent.

When you factor in further social influences and whether or not our interactions with others are positive it becomes a veritable feast of miscommunication. This can be confusing and distressing, particularly if your brain is primed for danger.

Microaggressions can genuinely be the worst thing ever.

Sarcastic because…

When compared with macro-aggressions… or ‘aggressions’ as they’re commonly known, these are a relative doddle. Sure, it might be unpleasant to remain in a space where you’re not wanted — but there’s very little that can be done to legislate against it.

People are going to think what they think.

How much of this is confirmation bias? When your psychological model of the world groups people into set categories and attributes certain behaviours to a given group — won’t you see those behaviours everywhere you look? I think people often do exactly that.

Therein lies the problem. There’s no real way outside of subjective experience to differentiate between micro-aggressions and life.

So what do we do?

I’d suggest that subscribing to a worldview that includes micro-aggressions is self-defeating. The behaviour of other people is difficult to define and their internal processes are quite complicated. We have no idea what is happening inside the mind of other people and we must be very careful about making such assumptions.

It’s especially true of behaviours that are neutral. Passive-aggressive behaviour fits into this category quite nicely. I have been into some spaces where I have not been welcome even though it has not been explicitly stated. The effect is not very nice, but it isn’t illegal either.

Covert acts of aggression cannot be proven and they will subsume your entire psychology. You project your worldview out into reality and presume the information you get back is cogent with what you already think… but there’s no real endgame. You lose from the outset.

A worldview of consistent malignant oppression by nefarious forces will lead to anxiety and depression. You will eventually withdraw from engaging with the world at all — self-imposed segregation, all the time claiming that others are the ones making your life impossible.

That isn’t to say you aren’t being treated badly by other people, you likely are. People are sometimes awful and there are many complicated and multi-faceted reasons for that. This happens to be true aside from the level of melanin in their skin and/or their genitalia where instances of ‘micro-aggressions’ are commonplace.

The answer is two-fold. The first is simply to ride it out. If people have decided they don’t like you, that is their problem. Not everyone has to like everyone else. Individual people can be benevolent or they can be absolute asshats. If they are the latter, the less time you spend thinking about them the better.

Identity politics has a tendency to treat groups as though they oppress each other en masse. I don’t hold with this. I think it’s far healthier to view the world as a collection of individuals and sort them accordingly. I don’t intend to give any micro-aggressions to anyone even if I really can’t stand them. If I don’t like someone the world is a big enough place for us to get on with our lives.

Presume everyone likes you despite any evidence to the contrary or they tell you otherwise. That’s far psychologically healthier