Talk:Microaggression

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This article was the subject of an educational assignment in Spring 2015. Further details were available on the "Education Program:University of Ontario Institute of Technology/Critical Race Theory (Winter 2015)" page, which is now unavailable on the wiki.

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 January 2022 and 4 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): LilliBaldner, Caelenmw (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Oskeans, CKRRKQ.

There is a tag saying this article needs to be told from a less americentric point of view. I therefore introduced language/accent as a possible trigger for microagressions and made the definition more general to include minorities in general as opposed to "historically marginalized social groups".

For example, a person from Portugal who has moved to Spain goes out in Madrid to run errands. She receives a call from her relative and speaks in Portuguese on the phone. As she is standing in the aisle, someone forcibly bumps into her shoulder, shoving her since they had overheard her speaking in a language other than Spanish. Then, at the cash register, she tells the cashier that she'd like change in €1's. The person behind her hears her accent and calls her a pejorative under their breath, but within her earshot.

Wouldn't these count as microagressions? Shouldn't a language minority be included? Why does this even need to be sourced?

Language politics inside the US namely revolve around hispanophones whose plight is more multifaceted than in this example, but language minority status undoubtedly plays a part in the discrimination they face. However, in Europe and India in particular, a discriminated person doesn't necessarily come from another minority (religious, ethnic, etc) like our Portuguese woman here. 142.118.111.198 (talk) 21:36, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, everything you're talking about needs to be reliably sourced, see

WP:RS. That's core policy. NightHeron (talk) 22:29, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

@DBooth: The word aggression is often defined (e.g., in dictionary.com) as an "offensive action or practice" and the word offensive can apply to an action or practice that is perceived by the recipient as offensive even if it resulted from ignorance rather than intent. For example, if someone tells an employee that the way he wears his hair looks unprofessional and he should change it, that microaggression could have been caused by ignorance (not knowing that the man is a Sikh, and his appearance is part of his cultural/religious tradition) and the intent could have been to be helpful. In fact, people who write about microaggressions acknowledge that a large proportion of them can be unintentional. Of course, the term microaggression itself has been criticized on the grounds that the use of aggression as part of the word could cause confusion between relatively minor matters and much more serious acts. Whether one agrees or disagrees with this usage of the word aggression, the fact is that in many contexts (often in psychology) the word is used for much less serious matters than beating someone up or invading their country. In contrast, the word unconscious doesn't fit. The person making the microaggression is not unaware of what they're saying, which is what "unconscious" would suggest, although they might be unaware of the cultural context of their words and their likely effect on others. The words unconscious aggression might apply if someone turns over in their sleep and hits their spouse, but that would probably not be called a microaggression. NightHeron (talk) 12:14, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The article in its present form uses the word "harm" repeatedly. I believe that in some of the contexts within this article, the word "harm" conveys more strength and suggests more damage than is warranted. I have changed some of these to "offended", but editor NightHeron prefers the word "harm". NightHeron pointed to

"Offended" is certainly not the word to use here. What do the RS say? EvergreenFir (talk) 18:36, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 January 2023 and 9 May 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cdarcy234, Jmyers100 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by CommDocBDS (talk) 19:36, 27 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Noticed there is no mention of microaggresssions based on not belonging to certain career backgrounds such as going to a certain school or branch of the military. Being asked one of these question in a group can be used to exclude individuals.

Yes, such questions could very quickly draw people together. There is no limit to how many small groupings can potentially form bonds. This raises the matter that different affinities can include some people and therefore not include others. If somebody wants to classify such questions as a type of aggression, this seems to be a smaller level than microaggression. Nanoagression? Picoaggression? Pete unseth (talk)

SiekMeng 175.100.6.136 (talk) 23:31, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]