Microaggressions. # 148. 20/02/2024.

Out of Many, One People

Welcome. After several fairly theoretical blogs, a much more relational one. If it connects with you, do give it a like, better still send it on to someone you think will find it helpful.

Microaggressions.

Several years ago friends were driving through the Essex countryside. They stopped at a garden centre and the wife, who is Indian, asked a question of the lady behind the counter about the availability of a particular plant. The lady responded looking entirely at the white husband (who knows barely anything about gardening) and ignored his wife. This was a micro-aggression. How widespread, how damaging, and how seriously should we take microaggressions? [All incidents described in this blog actually happened].

There has been a puff of media attention to microaggressions recently, following the news that since 2021 the government has spent more than £160,000 on hiring consultants to train staff to recognise micro-aggressions. In one case £1,000 per worker was spent on the training. It is easy to dismiss this concern as a passing gust of snow-flakery that should quickly dissolve before the hot winds of outrage at what is happening in Gaza, as well as Ukraine, Sudan, Yemen and a half-dozen other foci of pain around the world, but the well of pain is bottomless. So we address it where we find it, without need to carefully ration out our responses. At Lent especially as we contemplate the suffering of Jesus our concerns too  should be bottomless, to see the alleviation of suffering, wherever, and at whatever level.

What are examples of microaggressions?

The psychologist Derald Wing Sue defines microaggressions as "brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to certain individuals because of their group membership". The term was first coined in 1970 in the United States with specific reference to race, and is used with that reference here, though it has since expanded to cover other areas of identity difference.

* Ignoring. Person A is white and chosen for a particular task, even though they are less qualified than person B who is not white. ‘Lynne’s Story’ (see blog #113) recounted someone’s suggested work procedure being overlooked, only shortly afterwards for a very similar proposal by a white person to be enthusiastically accepted. People who aren’t white often speak of their experience of ‘invisibility’. ‘I am invisible, understand,’ wrote the novelist Ralph Ellison in ‘The Invisible Man’, ‘because people refuse to see me’.

* Low expectations. The ‘soft racism of low expectations’ can affect teachers and employers demands of people, including the ‘anti-racist’ acceptance of poor performance in the name of tolerance or affirmative action.

* Stereotypes. ‘They are like that because they are …..’ It was an assumption like this that was an example of racist behaviour that was featured in the April 2021 Panorama documentary “Is the Church of England racist?’.

* ‘Othering’. The infamous ‘where are you really from’ question of Lady Susan Hussey to Ngozi Fulani became, whatever the justification, a national controversy. Talking to a person in ways that assume, and quite possibly exaggerate, the differences between you serves to disadvantage the person not from the ‘mainstream’ background.

* Misusing names. Our names are precious to us (as ‘How to win friends and influence people’ identified several decades ago); the more so in cultures where names have important meanings, and family names are to be a source of honour not shame. Therefore casually or repeatedly mispronouncing names indicates disregard; joking about them is even more demeaning – as in calling someone named ‘Jignasu’ as ‘Jigsaw’.

* Beware the English sense of humour. We weaponise it. The one-line put-downs that seem like clever, edgy banter in contexts where parity is assumed, can be insulting where ethnicity destabilises parity. ‘The sarcastic humour that seems to enhance informality and collegiality in one organisational culture might erode that trust in another’ (David Livermore: ‘Leading with Cultural Intelligence’, p121). The dismissive defence ‘only joking’ may well have done incalculable damage to good race relations.

* Assuming white superiority. A white office-holder in a church unapologetically interrupts a

minority ethnic warden engaged in a conversation. The formal, though unemphasised, order of superiority buckles under the assumption that in reality white people are the players who matter round here.

Questions about Microaggressions?

* How can we identify it? Quite simply, we can’t be sure. Because we are all ‘racialised’ there is no ‘authorised version’ about what happens in inter-racial relationships. Whilst some people are offended by the mispronunciation of their name, Tomiwa Owolade has written that it little bothers him – especially as non-Yoruba people will never get the subtlety of Yoruba inflections. Are white people callow and insensitive in shrugging off accusations of microaggressions or are minorities over-playing fragility and grievance? No one can give a definitive answer, but it ought to be accepted that people have different thicknesses of skin, and therefore a person’s sense of grievance ought to be responded to appropriately, caringly and respectfully, whatever weight we personally think it ought to be given.

* Is it ‘unconscious bias’? Yes, or even worse. That is, very often people may be reflecting assumptions and prejudices that they have grown up with or developed, and that they need to be helped to identify and renounce, but in other cases the intention may be more malign and be verging on a conscious but ‘hidden’ attempt to put another person down, as with a sense of humour above. When someone does a mock bhangra dance behind an Indian in a pub then that is not so much a microaggression as simple racism. Microaggressions have been described as ‘the new face of racism’ as society becomes more defensive about accusations of straight racism, and can develop alternative, more insidious aggressions.

* How does it relate to institutional racism? It is possible to see the accumulation of stereotypes, low expectations, and ignoring of potential or achievements as coalescing into a strong social current which pulls down some minorities into minor roles and limited outcomes. The overall result can be characterised as ‘institutional’ or ‘systemic racism’ – a situation not consciously sought, but emanating from a thousand often unobserved minor incidents. Whilst unequal outcomes can have many sources the debilitating impact of microaggressions should not be ignored.

* So, how serious is it? Kehinde Andrews in ‘The Psychosis of Whiteness’  speaks of the ‘paper cuts’ of microaggressions, and gives several examples from his own experience (p 13)  though his propensity for insulting those who disagree with him may not help). The ‘Race Equality Matters’ work-sheet speaks of ‘a thousand little cuts’, and quotes Professor Derald Wing Sue: ‘These everyday occurrences may on the surface appear quite harmless, trivial, or be described as ‘small slights’, but research indicates they have a powerful impact upon the psychological well-being of marginalised groups, and affect their standard of living by creating inequities in healthcare, education and employment’.

How may we respond to microaggressions?

* Microaffirmations. Making a particular effort, but without ostentation, to relate to someone who looks different ought to be second nature to someone with a modicum of curiosity, but it is disheartening how often minority ethnic people speak of being not noticed in various contexts, including only just churches but training institutions. Along with interest there ought to be awareness of the sense of vulnerability that so often comes with being in a minority, and therefore an enhanced keenness to find opportunities for affirmation. This brings with it a commitment to respect the ‘others’ distinctiveness, such as pronouncing names correctly. I remember hearing the late John Stott pronouncing with careful accuracy the name of an overseas student who was welcoming him as a preacher. Such careful respect for ethnicity was a significant factor in his strategic world-wide effectiveness. Of course, because of the complexity of relationships a desire to be positive is at risk of toppling over into being condescending and patronising. You can never always get it right, but experience, humility, and build in learning from mistakes all help us to affirm in ways that strengthen rather than demean.

* ‘Calling out’? How do you respond when someone else inflicts a microaggression? The material on microaggressions in the ‘Race Equality Matters’ recent 5-day challenge gives several tips on how we can call them out. If we come across to family, friends or colleagues as race equality police officer then we risk impairing honest and open relationships. But good relationships should also mean that at times we can tell someone we thought their words/actions were thoughtless, or insensitive, or unfunny, or reflected simple ignorance. If as noted above, for many people microaggressions are not just part of the regular cuts and bruises that happen as we jostle our way through life but have a deeper, sustained, recurring and debilitating overall impact on their life experience then we need to take them seriously and do what we can in eliminating them from ourselves, and others as opportunity gives.

* Being relational rather than institutional. Do the courses mentioned in the introduction to this blog make any actual difference? As with other courses on ‘unconscious bias’ or ‘racism awareness’ their effectiveness is increasingly questioned. Is it a ‘white establishment’ circling its wagons to protect itself against any criticism? Or is it the new class of institutional engineers carving out for themselves yet another profitable (though useless) niche in the market? It is hard to be sure. Efforts to increase people’s self-awareness and understanding of the harm microaggressions can inflict are important and worthwhile. But if they come at the cost of institutionalising relationships and of creating codes of procedure in organisations then the upshot is to make relationships performative, wary and cautious rather than free and spontaneous, and overall we may be taking three steps backwards over against two steps forward. Large-scale inter-ethnic relationships are comparatively new in our society, and are therefore exploratory. Explorers make mistakes, serious ones at times, but the alternative to exploring is staying within our safe four walls, and we never learn at all. Better to take initiatives, learn, make mistakes, humbly self-correct, and then travel on, conscious that a richly inter-relating multi-ethnic society is well-worth striving for, and that you have something valuable to contribute to it.

Finally, words from Patricia J Williams ‘Seeing a Colour-Blind Future - The Paradox of Race’ (1997 Reith Lectures): ‘My subject has been the small aggressions of unconscious racism, rather than the big-booted oppressions of bigotry in its most extreme manifestations. I've chosen to speak of these quieter forms of racism, because I think that the eradication of prejudice, the reconciling of tensions across racial, ethnic, cultural and religious lines depends on eradicating the little blindness, not just the big. It depends upon eradicating the troublesome attitudinal divide between the paralysing anxiety of well-meaning ‘white guilt’ and the smouldering unhappiness of blacks who dare not speak their minds’ (p 59).

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Drawing on Scripture: Proverbs 17:5: ‘Those who mock the poor insult their Maker’. Microaggressions insult God.

Second Anglican Intercultural Mission Conference - Wednesday 20th to Friday 22nd March. Great line-up of contributors. Full details at the end of blog #146 on 6th Feb.