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Comment by istvan__ | Hacker News Reader

A new invention of the SJW community.

"The term “microaggression” was used by Columbia professor Derald Sue to refer to “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color.”"

Like when they say white male. Oh, nevermind that does not qualify because it is against whites and males, so it is ok. Sorry a little confusing here... :)

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Anecdotally speaking I used to think microaggressions were utter BS.

Then I got into an interracial relationship (I'm white, she's black) and the way I was treated when with my girlfriend and alone were very noticeably different.

I noticed being physically tired after going somewhere with my girlfriend as well as many looks, weird tones people took with me I'd never experienced, and generally ruder people.

> Like when they say white male. Oh, nevermind that does not qualify because it is against whites and males, so it is ok. Sorry a little confusing here... :)

I experienced microagressions as a result of being in a relationship with a black female, so it is possible.

On a near-noise level, virtually all conversation or interaction can and mostly does contain shades of meaning expressing things that when verbalized explicitly would be considered rude or inappropriate. From that POV, the term appears meaningless or redundant. Otherwise we'd communicate like Vulcans.

EDIT: I find it also peculiar that the explanation you've cited only mentions "racial slights", despite neither "micro-" nor "-aggression" containing this meaning. But it's comforting to know that one is at least safe from committing such things across all the other social boundaries! /s

Is that a fresh summer breeze blowing through my hair? Or is it a sinister micro-hurricane?

It is kind of sad that these things are getting traction in the society, even on HN, see how they are downvoting us without any comment.

> Like when they say white male. Oh, nevermind that does not qualify because it is against whites and males, so it is ok.

The kindest way to interpret this is that it is your opinion, and if it is, it is wrong. It is not ok to harass white males for being white males. A more likely way to interpret it is that you're putting words into other people's mouths, then sneering at those words.

I feel like this is obvious enough that it's not worth commenting about. Do these wasted words qualify me to downvote you?

The difference is that white males are rarely a minority in their schools and workplaces. So no, it's not just small expressions or aggressions, there's an overarching social-structural context.

You say in Africa where black are majority it is ok to be racist against them?

Your logic is so broken I don't even know where to start.

Deleted comment

But your logic suggests that racism is not the dictionary definition but it has to do who is in minority or who is in majority. That is wrong. The definition "the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races." Until you change it in the dictionary this will be the definition and it has nothing to do with who is in majority and your "social constructs".

I prefer to go by this definition of racism:

"Racism, however, describes patterns of discrimination that are institutionalized as “normal” throughout an entire culture. It’s based on an ideological belief that one “race” is somehow better than another “race”. It’s not one person discriminating at this point, but a whole population operating in a social structure that actually makes it difficult for a person not to discriminate."

Racial slurs not backed by institutionalized racism are just laughable. For instance if someone called me "Cracker" I'd laugh about it since there isn't a huge past history of people lynching, raping, and harming my race while they chant "Cracker".

You can't say the same about the N-word however.

0: http://racismschool.tumblr.com/Racism:Definitions

> It’s based on an ideological belief that one “race” is somehow better than another “race”.

I would actually think that the belief is, or at least used to be, scientific. Note that this is not a statement about the truth value of the claim, but the claim itself was or used to be posed in a way that referred to certain broadly quantifiable phenomena such as intelligence. That in itself is hardly "ideological". "Intelligence is good for a proper society", now that is ideological.

> tumblr.com

Oh my...

Again, come back to this when you definition made it to the dictionary.

Comments like this one and "Your logic is so broken I don't even know where to start" break the HN guidelines. Please read and follow them when commenting here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Asking somebody to stick to the dictionary definition of words is against HN guidelines??

I am going to take a screenshot and put in on the wall in the office.

Thank you!

No, what is against the guidelines are (a) taking swipes at other users, (b) calling names, and (c) posting unsubstantive comments.

Funny that you never asked the other guys who did the exact same thing to me publicly to stop.

I like how HN just like Reddit is turning into a propaganda machine where you remind everybody who does not support your agenda to follow the rules while all the guys who support your agenda can happily do against the rules, regardless how big lies they are spreading.

Thanks for proving to me that you are no different, double standards for the win!

I guess I will just stick to commenting outside HN.

It's not only possible but certain that we don't chastise all violations of the HN guidelines equally, simply because we don't see them all. There are overwhelmingly too many comments for us to read. That doesn't matter in most cases, though, because commenters on HN are required to follow the guidelines even when others are not. Especially when others are not.

There's no agenda that I'm aware of, other than to have HN threads be civil and substantive.

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