Unlike most commenters on microaggressions, I view the entire concept as a joke. And I feel it is a joke that anybody takes the idea seriously. And nobody hardly does, outside of the peculiar testosterone-challenged administrators on American campi.
Here's the deal: Since no real aggressions are anywhere to be found, some people invented the micro. Next will come nanoaggressions. Why? Because the victim/oppressor narrative must continue. It's, like, you know, the System.
It is pure bullying manipulation - aggression in fact - and anybody who falls for it is a putz in my view. Even Haidt, I feel, takes it a bit too seriously: Where microaggressions really come from: A sociological account. A quote:
In sum, microaggression catalogs are a form of social control in which the aggrieved collect and publicize accounts of intercollective offenses, making the case that relatively minor slights are part of a larger pattern of injustice and that those who suffer them are socially marginalized and deserving of sympathy. [The social conditions that give rise to this form of social control] include a social setting with cultural diversity and relatively high levels of equality, though with the presence of strongly superior third parties such as legal officials and organizational administrators… Under these conditions, individuals are likely to express grievances about oppression, and aggrieved individuals are likely to depend on the aid of third parties, to cast a wide net in their attempt to find supporters, and to campaign for support by emphasizing their own need against a bullying adversary.
