The Many Problems with the Concept of “Microagressions”

If you would like to explore the many ways that the modern usage of the term "microagressions" has fallen off the tracks at the hands of modern "anti-racists," consider reading a soon-to-be published law review article by an attorney and a psychologist, Edward Cantu & Lee Jussim, Ph.D. Their article is titled: MICROAGGRESSIONS, QUESTIONABLE SCIENCE, AND FREE SPEECH.

I'll begin with their conclusions:

When scientists speak, people listen, even if the science is unscientific. If scientists are going to declare a broad and indeterminate number of acts inherently subtly racist, and a critical mass of those in positions of power and influence are ideologically inclined to believe them, it is imperative that the claims not be grossly exaggerated and that they be grounded in solid scientific methodology. The [current micro aggression construct- "CMC"] fails in this regard. After critical analysis, the CMC appears to be a project in attempting to retroactively validate initial ideological hunches; or, at best, to give voice to POC by substituting the scientific method for the perceptions of some of them. Whichever it may be, it is clear that, at this point, nobody—neither diversity administers, academics, or journalists—should take currently propagated lists of microaggressions as representative of anything meaningful. We assert this not to be gratuitously insulting to CMC researchers, but to forestall the harms that the CMC we fear may cause.

The authors acknowledge that the concept of "microagressions" is a worthy subject of study (beginning with the research by psychologist Chester Pierce in the 1970s), but they find  that the list of words and phrases that might have some legitimacy as racial slights have now been coupled, through concept creep, with numerous expressions that are innocent or even complimentary (see their Appendix for many examples). In step with this concept creep, the Overton Window has been slammed down to forbid numerous verbal expressions that are A) not problematic to the great majority of those who are purported to be victims of these slights and/or B) depend for their meaning almost entirely upon the intent of the speaker and the context in which the words are spoken.

The authors warn that current "anti-racist" ideology refuses to take into account the intent of the speaker. This tactical use of microaggressions, combined with sloppy "science" is harming society socially, by shutting down needed conversation:

Yet, we fear that microaggression researchers via their alleged insights are increasingly teaching POC that they are under constant assault; that they are being conditioned to be constructively offended—that is, offended because they’re taught that they’re supposed to be—in situations that do not implicate racism.

The research regarding microagressions has increasingly been motivated to find something invisible to attempt to explain (often simplistically) observable racial disparities:

Although the civil rights legislation of the 1960s ended legal racial discrimination, inequality still persists almost 60 years later. Why? Many have concluded it must be because of something secret, subtle, hidden, and underground. But what? By the 1970s, the social sciences were on a quest to find these supposedly hidden, camouflaged, or unconscious forms of racism. Those efforts generated a slew of concepts, such as “modern”  or “symbolic racism,” “implicit bias,” and “stereotype threat.” Interestingly, just as is the case with microaggressions, each of these areas have been characterized by a wave of initial enthusiasm including many publications, followed by critical reviews highlighting weaknesses, flaws, confounds and alternative explanations that consistently indicated that the initial enthusiasm was largely unwarranted.

The term "microaggressions" has been given an ideologically-laced strategic labeling to dramatically increase the perceived threat-level, creating an inverse-Trojan-horse: The term "microaggressions" puts us all on edge, even in the absence of a rigorous scientific foundation for the commonly-made claims regarding microaggressions. In recent years, the number of words and phrases allegedly encompassed by "microaggressions" has exploded (again, see the Appendix of the article) to the extent that ordinary conversation is increasingly feared as a social minefield:

Interestingly, just as is the case with microaggressions, each of these areas have been characterized by a wave of initial enthusiasm including many publications, followed by critical reviews highlighting weaknesses, flaws, confounds and alternative explanations that consistently indicated that the initial enthusiasm was largely unwarranted. intentionality, and less directly but atmospherically, oppression and domination. Rarely if ever would the lay person label an act committed with benign conscious intent a form of “aggression.” But consistent with tactical concept creep, this is the term chosen, even with the knowledge that use of the term means imputing to well-meaning actors a state of mind normally associated with culpability.

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has written about the phenomenon of concept creep specifically in the context of microaggressions. In lamenting that psychology is “becoming a tribal moral community bound together by moral commitments to social justice and progressive ideals,” 95 Haidt noted that psychologists are incentivized “to find new ways in which members of allegedly victimized groups are harmed by current practices”; 96 hence the creeping expansion of the concept of harm. Particularly on point, Haidt also described as a “central innovation[] of microaggression theory” the disposal of a mens rea predicate for concepts such as “abuse” and “discrimination” “in ways that make it ever harder for anyone to defend themselves against ugly moral charges.”

Cantu and Lee Jussim have written a long, carefully researched, balanced and important article that will provide many of us the the confidence to raise our hands when we are next compelled to attend "anti-racist" training where the concept of "microaggressions" is blithely bandied about (as it often is). The authors were at least somewhat motivated to do this research because they were witnessing good-hearted people being chewed up in the current ideological juggernaut of "anti-racism."  Their article will help all of us to speak up whenever we are told to assume that "microaggressions" A) are ubiquitous and B) that labeling dozens of taboo expressions as taboo obviates the need to do real work to determine the mindset of those who speak.

The modern use of the concept of "microaggressions" is the equivalent of doing surgery with a chainsaw. All good and decent people know that we can't off-load human complexity to a simplistic list of taboo phrases assembled ad hoc by (often well-intentioned) ideologues.  Human beings are much more complex than that. Good-hearted people earnestly and make charitable case-by-case holistic determinations about whether people who are engaged in speech are being ignorant and rude or whether they are well-intentioned and kind-hearted (or something in between). I applaud the work done by Cantu and Lee because it will allow us to have more meaningful conversations going forward.

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About Team-Thinking

On this issue, I agree (more or less) with Helen Pluckrose. I consciously strive to gather my information and do my thinking à la carte. No team-thinking for me, because hypocrisy is ubiquitous. For me, it's issue by issue, person by person. This makes gathering and evaluating news stories much harder than permanently signing up for, e.g., e.g., NYT/NPR/CNN or e.g., FOX//Drudge/National Review. I admire Helen's courage, intellect, kind-heartedness and humility. She recently founded Counterweight, which I can generally support (but not always!).

I find this position easy to adapt, given that the first 20 years of my life forced me to develop deeply rooted defenses against my father trying to force/humiliate me into declaring allegiance to the Catholic Church as the "one true holy apostolic church.  Lots more on my journey here, in a five-part series I titled "Mending Fences." I think and hope that I am immune to anyone trying to get me to express belief in anything based on social pressure.  It has been a long, sometimes difficult, journey, given the anger many people express when you don't show loyalty to their "team."  That, however, is a small price to pay for the ability to look in the mirror and not see a sell-out.

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Jeopardy’s Wokeness Contagion

From the NYT, a Jeopardy story of liberal contagion following a contestant gesturing that he won three games with three fingers:

A full 595 former contestants eventually signed on to the final draft of the letter, asking why “Jeopardy!” hadn’t edited out the moment. It went on to proclaim: “We cannot stand up for hate. We cannot stand next to hate. We cannot stand onstage with something that looks like hate.”

.    .    .

So the element of this story that interests me most is how the beating heart of nerdy, liberal fact-mastery can pump blood into wild social media conspiracy, and send all these smart people down the sort of rabbit hole that leads other groups of Americans to believe that children are being transported inside refrigerators. And, I wanted to know, how they could remain committed to that point of view in the absence of any solid evidence.

What caused this insanity? It's a well-written article by Ben Smith, with applications far beyond Jeopardy. One of the reasons: "Social media turns just about everything into a kind of team sport, including analyzing the ills of social media."

This is a clear example of liberal contagion, in a world filled with both liberal and conservative contagion.

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No Apparent Solution to Homelessness in San Francisco

Christopher Rufo reports on escalating homelessness in San Francisco. As he reports, the city has tried many approaches, yet nothing seems to be working. It is, indeed, an incredibly complex issue that is taxing experts from many specialties. In his article at Real Clear Investigations, Rufo offers many facts and figures, as well as a concern that the currently favored approach, destigmatizing hopelessness and addiction, leads only to more of the same. Here are two excerpts:

The nexus between homelessness, addiction, and crime is clear: According to city and federal data, virtually all of the unsheltered homeless are unemployed, while at the same time, those with serious addictions spend an average of $1,256 to $1,834 a month on methamphetamine and heroin. With no legitimate source of income, many addicts support their habit through a “hustle,” which can include fraud, prostitution, car break-ins, burglaries of residences and business, and other forms of theft.

Boudin’s plan to decriminalize such property offenses – the mirror opposite of the low-tolerance “broken windows” approach adopted in the late 1980s as crime rates began historic declines – has contributed to the sense that he is not holding criminals accountable. In 2019, the city had an incredible 25,667 “smash-and-grabs,” as thieves sought valuables and other property from cars to sell on the black market. The following year, rather than attempt to prevent or even disincentivize this crime, Boudin has proposed a $1.5 million fund to pay for auto glass repair, arguing that it “will help put money into San Francisco jobs and San Francisco businesses.” In literal terms, Boudin is subsidizing broken windows, under the notion that it can be transformed into a job-creation program.

. . .

The final plank of San Francisco’s policy platform is “destigmatization.” Public health experts in the city have gradually abandoned recovery and sobriety as the ideal outcome, preferring the limited goal of “harm reduction.” In a recent task force report on methamphetamine, the San Francisco Public Health Department noted that meth users “are likely to experience high levels of stigma and rejection in their personal and social lives,” which are “often reinforced by language and media portrayals depicting individuals who use alongside images of immorality, having chaotic lives, and perpetual use.”

On the surface, this is a strange contention. If San Francisco’s perilous trifecta is any guide, methamphetamine use is heavily correlated with chaotic lives, perpetual drug abuse, crimes against others, and various transgressions against traditional morality. The harm reductionists’ argument, however, rests on the belief that addiction is an involuntary brain disease, akin to Alzheimer’s or dementia. In this view, addiction is better seen as a disability, and any stigma associated with it is therefore an act of ignorance and cruelty. According to the Department of Public Health, the goal of harm reduction policy is to reduce this unjustified stigma and focus public policy on “non-abstinence-based residential treatment programs,” “supervised injection services,” “trauma-informed sobering site[s],” and “training for staff on how to engage marginalized or vulnerable communities in ways that do not perpetuate trauma or stigma.”

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John McWhorter Discusses Anti-Racism with Bill Maher

Linguistics Professor John McWhorter sat down with Bill Maher on a recent episode of Real Time to discuss "anti-racism." McWhorter describes himself as someone who is hearing things that don't make sense and his quest is to try to obsessively make sense of things like "anti-racism."  The interview was as intense as it was fast-moving. Several take-aways:

A) "Anti-racism" condescends to people who identify as "black," infantilizing them.

B) There is a great diversity of thought among those who identify as black, almost two-thirds of whom are middle class (or even higher earning), the majority of whom do not live in ongoing fear of being harassed or shot by the police,

C) None of this is to suggest that there isn't still racism, which needs to be addressed.

D) Wokeness is a religion where "whiteness" functions as "original sin" that afflicts even babies, a religion where Robin DiAngelo's misguided book, White Fragility is mistakenly being treated as "research" instead of second-rate literature that advocates for victimization;

E) People pretend to "atone" for "white privilege" by posting on FB that they are "doing the work." This solves nothing.

F) White Fragility is not representative of "the general black view of things."

G) There is no one "black view" of things - Also, "'Yes we can't'" has never been the slogan for black America and it's not now."

H) In the religion of Wokeness, advocates pretend that "racism has never been worse" than today, even in the 1960's and even during the 1850's. These are palpable untruths to any person who knows even a tiny bit of history. "Why is it un-black to address degree?"

I) It is childish for anyone to shut down opposing views to protect themselves from never being told that they are wrong. This "cathartic" approach will never change anything. We need meaningful engagement.

J) Social media has everyone "peeing in their pants," afraid to defer even minimally from Woke orthodoxy, which is making "mendacity" ubiquitous.

K) The fear of being honest and the fear to even tell a joke is "becoming almost everywhere. The only exceptions are people who are "weird like us and you don't mind being hated. But most people are not going to have that disease, and so we are stuck where we are."

If you'd like to follow John McWhorter, you can find him on his own Substack Website, It Bears Mentioning.   Also, McWhorter often joins Glenn Loury for conversation at The Glenn Show on Patreon. 

Continue ReadingJohn McWhorter Discusses Anti-Racism with Bill Maher