[ POLL ] What Are Your Experiences With Microaggression?

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Microaggression

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Microaggressions are everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership. In many cases, these hidden messages may:

• invalidate the group identity or experiential reality of target persons
• demean them on a personal or group level
• communicate they are lesser human beings
• suggest they do not belong with the majority group
• threaten and intimidate
• relegate them to inferior status and treatment

The most detrimental forms of microaggressions are usually delivered by well-intentioned individuals who are unaware that they have engaged in harmful conduct toward a socially devalued group. 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 marginalized groups and affect their standard of living by creating inequities in health care, education, and employment.

Microaggression does not include what people are thinking, but only what they actually say or do.

Examples:

• An Asian American, born and raised in the United States, is complimented for speaking "good English." (Hidden messages: You are not a true American. You are a perpetual foreigner in your own country.)

• A female physician wearing a stethoscope is mistaken as a nurse. (Hidden messages: Women should occupy nurturing and not decision-making roles. Women are less capable than men).

• A same-sex couple holding hands in public are told to not flaunt their sexuality. (Hidden messages: Same-sex displays of affection are abnormal and offensive. Keep it private and to yourselves.)

• A blind man reports that people often raise their voices when speaking to him. He responds by saying, "Please don't raise your voice; I can hear you perfectly well." (Hidden message: A person with a disability is defined as lesser in all aspects of physical and mental functioning).

The Topic Question:

Keeping in mind all of the foregoing text, and focusing on you as a person with some form of autistic spectrum disorder, what forms of microagression have you experienced?

When someone says something stupid or slightly offensive about autism, I seldom get upset, I see an opportunity to set the person right about what they said in a respectful manor. I try to cover all points of view on the specific topic(eg. pro cure, vs anti).

In my personal opinion, microagressions is simply an excuse for people to be thin skinned and get upset at the drop of a hat.

The closest thing to a microagression I have experienced as a diagnosed autistic person, is the old saying "You don't look autistic.".

I believe microagression theory is off the mark and nurtures a victim mentality. It masquerades as empowerment and leads people to place responsibility for their thoughts and feelings on something they can't control, other people.

Are you both saying something like "People who claim to be victims of microaggression are snowflakes"?

I disagree ... sort of.

While there are people who see insult in every action and a detractor behind every piece of advice, there are some acts that only the victim would notice -- a person comes out as autistic, and suddenly all of his friends and family start talking loudly, slowly, and clearly enunciating every word without realizing it, for example.

My guess is that someone has re-labeled passive-aggression and "snubs" as "Microaggression", if only to provide a seemingly new topic for a research paper.

But I'm sure that some people out there may be able to relate some personal experiences, as well.

People yapping about microaggressions are conducting a microaggression ... against me.

It invisibly harms me to have to listen to their self-pity, self-importance, and hypersensitivity. Over time, it discourages me from interacting socially, for fear of provoking a charge of microaggression when I least expect it.

I have seen the concept used to guilt trip and invalidate people.

The whole concept of "microaggression" is a bunch of crap.

People who speak of this concept tend to look for offense in every little thing.

There was a poster at WP some while ago, names will not be used, who used to get offended at every bloody thing I said.

I avoided them to the best of my ability, such as not posting on their own threads or addressing them directly, but it was almost like they stalked me on general threads so they could be offended by me.

This person may not even have had autism. If that don't beat all... Anyway, they voluntarily withdrew from this site because it was constantly "triggering" them.

And that's what I mean about microaggression.

Just as the name implies, someone taking offense by or claiming victimization from a "micro-aggression" is someone who is even taking "making a mountain out of a molehill" to the extreme. Can you imagine living in a society where everyone is offended by virtually everything that other people say or do or don't say or don't do? Wow.

^ I honestly think we're not that far off as it is. This is something that has really taken off over the last few years.

I'm with grahambaster, Bea, kraftie, ASPOM, and Magna on this one.

I suspect a lot of people on the spectrum don't experience microaggressions the same way as neurotypicals -not because they don't happen to them- but because microaggressions often rely on subtle social rules of behavior to operate. If you're like me, then those are already kind of hard to perceive without effort. For this reason I think I often miss microaggressions until people point them out to me.

I have noticed that when people mean me ill, they tend to get mad when I treat them in the same way they treat me. When people are kind or indifferent towards me, then treating them same way is actually what they want. I've used this to kind of weed out people who tend to do microaggressive or passive aggressive things. Usually they can't take what they deal out, and usually they get frustrated when I am unaffected by their actions.

Examples:

Former Boss: Mmm, that looks good! <steals several fries from my plate without asking>
Me: Mmm, so does yours! <takes a bite from his churro without asking>
<silence>

Former co-worker at a camp: Look at you rowing two big boys across the lake all by yourself! Young lady, now where on earth did you learn to operate a row boat?
Me: I think I can't remember that far back. Nice job rowing those two little girls across the lake by yourself too. Where on earth did you learn to operate a row boat?
<silence>

Neighbor (in a group text): "Hey guys, when the recycling bins get too full they're annoying to carry out, so let's save our recycling for the next week if you see that they are full. Okay? Thanks"
Me: "It might also help to make sure everything in the recycling bin is recyclable. I've noticed a lot of plastic bags and pizza boxes. They don't actually recycle those curbside. There's a label on the side of the can that says what can go in it. Maybe we can all check that too? Thanks"
Neighbor: "I doubt the problem was my one pizza box, and I don't even throw out plastic bags because I have a dog. It's also not my fault that I didn't bring the recycling out for the last two weeks when I was the only one home. I was busy and missed it. There is no need for your passive aggression, okay? Don't be a jerk."
<confused silence>

That last one still has me confused. That was last week, and I'm still mulling it over. I thought she wanted to solve the problem of the overflowing bins. I think what she actually wanted to do was blame someone else for the overflowing bins.