<p>*We’re a single income family who pays full price for our local swim team, but I wouldn’t entertain comments from my children about families getting aid. *</p>
<p>Although I think it is bad manners to say it - I think it is probably bad manners to publicly comment on the fact someone else gets aid. I don’t find it classy behavior. Doing so creates an unnecessary distinction among students imho. I really liked your post, austinmshauri. </p>
<p>jym,</p>
<p>I think some people are offended if you ask where they live, at all. There’s a thread on here about it.</p>
<p>It does get to a point of ridiculousness, but apparently everyone has a different “offense” threshold.</p>
<p>Sally’s use of the phrase pages back that Fortgang should “put on his big-boy pants,” struck a chord with me as an example of irony in this context. Heaven forbid that Fortgang has recently come out as a cross-dresser and no long wears pants, or lost his legs in some horrible accident and can’t wear pants, or has some awful wasting disease so he can’t wear anything other than little boys’ size pants. Her “privilege” didn’t allow her to take those possibilities into consideration when she insulted him that way, but me bringing it up at all is pretty ridiculous, I admit. </p>
<p>Bay,
I am beginning to think we should all take a vow of silence (and surely I’ve offended someone by saying that). Or we all need to be issued a 2014 edition of the PC version of Miss Manners, or should it be Ms. Manners?</p>
<p>All too easy for people to misunderstand or misconstrue a simple question. Reminds me of the old joke about a kid who notices big pink balloons on the neighbors mailbox, and asks kids mom “how did the Jones’s baby get here?” Mom launches into a long, delicate response that begins with " when a mommy and daddy love each other…". After a few minutes of a biologically correct explanation, the kid turns to his mom and says " Thats very interesting, mommy. What I wanted to know is, did the baby get here by car or by bus?</p>
<p>I too was perplexed to hear that some people might take offense to the question “Where are you from?” With people that I am meeting for the first time it is a question I have asked, and been asked, innumerable times. I have never received a response that indicated the person was offended, and I have never been offended by the question. It communicates that the person is interested in getting to know you.</p>
<p>I have no intentions of changing the way that I interact socially as it has been working perfectly well for me for 50 years. And yes, I have a very diverse group of friends. Sorry, but if someone is offended by that question I honestly do not think there would be much likelihood of a friendship developing anyway. </p>
<p>Americans who don’t look like white Europeans sometimes have the unpleasant experience of being asked where they are from, giving an answer like “Connecticut” or “Texas,” only to have their rude interlocutor say, no, where are you FROM? Nobody here would rudely insinuate that an American who didn’t look like a white European wasn’t really American and must come from another country. But people do it, and I understand why it would get tiresome the tenth time someone insisted that you must be from China when you were born in New Hampshire.</p>
<p>Lots of things get tiresome, CF. I am often asked my nationality because of my last name (blaming H for that) but I never once thought it was rude. Maybe, mildly annoying. And, it never occurred to me that anyone was insinuating anything beyond curiosity.</p>
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<p>In some situational contexts such as meeting people for the first time or interacting with casual acquaintances, unbridled curiosity exercised in the wrong place and/or into certain matters can be perceived as tiresome, nosy, and a sign one was to use PG’s words…“raised in a barn”. </p>
<p>For instance, I can get pretty irritable with college classmates who keep pestering classmates like myself questions during the class about what the Prof lectured about a few minutes ago because he/she can’t be bothered enough to keep up. </p>
<p>Not only is it highly tiresome when done on a chronic basis and highly disruptive to students being asked to repeat what the Prof said, it’s also highly disruptive to the class & Prof. Several such Profs made no bones about telling them so…and not always with the most diplomatic words. </p>
<p>Not to mention sometimes…people can be touchy about some stuff like my White HS US Govt/History teacher was about being asked about where she/her family came from. </p>
<p>Now that we’re on the broader issue of microaggressions, I’m going to agree with Pizzagirl that some of what is currently going on on college campuses is a case of overcorrection.</p>
<p>I am sympathetic to the issues faced by trans people. But I am not going to stop saying “hey ladies” to a bunch of people who present as female - or who have willingly signed up for a women’s event – on the off-chance that one of them does not identify as female. I’m just not. If I happen to know someone in the group identifies as male or genderqueer, I’ll respect that. If someone presents as fairly androgynous, I can use my judgment and not use gendered terms. But otherwise, I’m going to go with the overwhelming likelihood that the group of long-haired people with the hips and chests of biological females are, in fact, “ladies,” in the same way that I might call something a “must-see” even though certain people are blind. </p>
<p>There seems to me to have been a shift in right discourse from the expectation that minorities be respected and included to the expectation that minorities should never for a second have to feel like minorities. It isn’t enough that we accept that gender and sex are complicated, and that some people will lie outside the binary; we have to totally eliminate the categories of male and female. It isn’t enough to have a diverse student body; we need to have a student body that either knows the details about every cultural practice of every other person on campus, or who knows enough to avoid revealing their ignorance, because heaven forbid someone who doesn’t know much about African languages asks a Nigerian student if she speaks Nigerian (this was one of the Princeton microaggressions).
It isn’t enough to excuse a PTSD sufferer from an assignment when she explains that this novel is triggering to her as an abuse survivor; we have to make the assignment optional in the first place, and perhaps eliminate it altogether so that she never has to undergo the additional trauma of asking the professor for an accommodation. </p>
<p>Similarly, we are expected to automatically defer to anyone who claims offense for any reason. Af-Am studies is a minor rather than a major? Surely, it can’t be because enrollment doesn’t warrant offering it as a major, it must be systemic racism. Most of your professors are white? Must be because the school hates minority applicants, not because there just aren’t all that many minorities applying in the first place. No need to present numbers or reasoned arguments, just call the university a racist place perpetuating institutional violence against the very students it has, in many cases, taken some pains to attract and support. </p>
<p>I don’t normally like slippery slope arguments. But in this case, what all of this seems to be leading to is an environment where real discourse has been chilled because the onus is always on the “oppressor” to avoid any of a growing number of minefields that appear as quickly as someone can find a reason to claim offense.</p>
<p>There are truly offensive things out there. But we’re never going to be able to have an honest discussion about them if those who suffer from various forms of injustice and oppression treat would be allies like bitter enemies just because they haven’t reached the precise place of enlightenment that the group has deemed proper - which will invariably include precisely the opinions shared by the offended party. </p>
<p>Great post! </p>
<p>
Most folks who have even the most basic understanding of social skills can discern the difference between what harvestmoon describes- initial social discourse vs “unbridled curiosity”, and certainly sees the difference between an initial introduction and personal conversation or inquiry vs a classmate who may be having trouble with class content. Puleeze. And if a person is not comfortable with a conversation, they either change the subject or find a delicate way to excuse themselves. Everything in your life that involves interacting with liveware rather than hardware seems to annoy or irritate you. Beginning to see a pattern? </p>
<p>“There are truly offensive things out there. But we’re never going to be able to have an honest discussion about them if those who suffer from various forms of injustice and oppression treat would be allies like bitter enemies just because they haven’t reached the precise place of enlightenment that the group has deemed proper”</p>
<p>I agree with that. When everyone is claiming offense and oppression about every little thing, it completely dilutes true forms of injustice and oppression. When everything is a travesty, after awhile nothing is a travesty. People just stop listening and caring, and become cynical about everything. Here we go again. While terrible things continue to happen.</p>
<p>On a different note, my son has said he’s heard, “Check your privilege” at school many times. Though he’s only heard it said in his fraternity, at random times, for no particular reason. Apparently this has already become a joke.</p>
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<p>However, the original post wasn’t about microaggressions per se, but an article in reaction to a statement that is usually in response to highly privileged folks who are not only ignorant about the lives/situations of those less privileged in a given context, but insist on making statements which are ignorant generalizations and/or highly dismissive of the firsthand experiences of those less privileged in a given context or those who are close to those who had such experiences. </p>
<p>It’s especially ironic in this article writer’s case considering anyone who knew about NYC area history would roll their eyes at some aspects of the author’s Horatio Algerized portrayal of his family. One was his omission of the fact his father received a substantial government subsidy to attend what was a highly renowned public college(City College) whose admission standards were such they were closed off to students from poorer neighborhoods…especially minority ones because their local HSs didn’t have the resources to teach the curriculum necessary for admission due to unequal educational funding due to neglect of lower SES neighborhoods…especially many populated by racial minorities. </p>
<p>Very ironic considering the article was prompted in the author’s own words by critics of his position on government debt and being compared to the Tea Party. </p>
<p>More ironic considering his omission is similar in hypocritical tone to those made by his political fellow-travelers considering like them…they also seem to forget the times they’ve received benefits from government social spending when they’ve been spotted with protest signs with the words “Get government out of my Medicare/Social Security.”</p>
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<p>One luxury those with less privilege do not have from firsthand experiences is the assumption everyone with greater privilege in a given context is making ignorant and/or dismissive statements about their experiences in good faith.* </p>
<p>In fact, it’s often cited as a sign of manifest privilege and for those less privileged, an additional burdensome tax they have to put up with on top of other burdens from being in the less privileged position. </p>
<p>It’s similar to the default mentality that it’s the less privileged responsibility to teach the more privileged everything about their culture and lives at any time upon request that some who are involved in writing and discussing these issues have become irritated about. </p>
<p>An irritation I have not experienced myself…but can closely relate as I’ve been irritated in class by slacker classmates who pestered me, other classmates, and/or the Prof at close intervals…sometimes as little as every 5 minutes because they can’t be bothered to pay attention to the lecture or discussion as it’s happening. </p>
<p>They also don’t seem to realize/care that it’s disruptive enough to be annoying not only to those being pestered directly in class, but also the Profs and the rest of the class. </p>
<p>A translation of a Mandarin phrase some of my relatives and I have used for this practice is “using [named individual] as a dictionary/reference book”. This practice is considered the same as trying to ride to coattails of someone else’s hard work without the accused individual putting in commensurate effort him/herself. </p>
<ul>
<li>It’s especially understandable with the article’s author considering his admitted political positions and willingness to use the same Horatio Algier theme so many other political fellow travellers used to be dismissive of acknowledging the real burdens and issues those with less SES or racial privilege face in their daily lives.<br></li>
</ul>
<p>Ok, Cobrat, fine. Everyone has the right to be offended, and now it is my turn: I find your consistent diminution of the struggles Fortgang’s family faced offensive in the extreme. This is no longer a matter of arguing whether or not this history has anything to do with Fortgang’s present privilege (it doesn’t), but of acknowledging that the Jews of the 40s and 50s (and earlier) didn’t live super cushy lives on the backs of government handouts. My grandfather was selling newspapers in a stand in front of a particular college when he was six years old. After taking a first job in a Manischewitz factory out of high school, he took night classes over the course of many years to earn a BA and, much later, a PhD. He finished his career teaching at that same college. That IS a Horatio Alger story, and the fact that he couldn’t have done it if he had been black doesn’t diminish it. And oh, yeah, that’s not even addressing the fact that plenty of these Jewish immigrants were Holocaust survivors, the part of Fortgang’s family history you conveniently don’t touch. </p>
<p>This is why these kinds of comparisons are unseemly. It is one thing to tell me “my grandfather couldn’t have done what yours did because of segregation.” It is another thing to say “But see, your grandfather had white privilege,” especially when you’re not actually using the term, any longer, to compare my grandfather to yours, but my grandfather to YOU. When you point out, not that I have white privilege, but that my grandparents did, the subtext isn’t actually that my grandparents’ struggles don’t factor into whether or not I myself am privileged, but that my grandfather, whatever else he may have undergone, was by virtue of white privilege somehow less oppressed than the present-day Ivy-league student raising the issue. Granted, that may not be a sociologically accurate reading of the term, but it is the impression given.</p>
<p>As to your second point: yes, obviously members of a majority culture don’t have to explain themselves as often as members of a minority culture. I suppose that is a form of “privilege.” But having a less-known cultural practice that may, in fact, generate questions is also the definition of being a minority; there isn’t anything insidious about it, and it isn’t a problem that needs solving. Of course there are situations in which such questions are inappropriate - I was one of those who agreed that, in the context the OP of that thread described, asking only students of a certain ethnicity where they were from was wrong. But otherwise, what is the alternative? Would it be better if we just never asked anyone questions about their observances, mode of dress, etc, for fear of offending? And why is the non-malicious question “why do you wear that turban?” to a Sikh more of a problem that the equally non-malicious question, to a twin, “do you two ever switch places,” which is also an inquiry that becomes annoying when asked repeatedly?</p>
<p>Conflating an ill-educated question about someone’s culture with some of the legitimately malicious things that also fall under the excessively wide umbrella of “privilege” and “microaggression” have combined to make those terms all but meaningless and, when used against people on the benign end of the spectrum, downright damaging. </p>
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<p>It’s no more offensive than comments he likely made to those when he made remarks about “government debt” and being compared with Tea Partiers as a result of his expressed political positions which prompted the “check your privilege” comments from his own admission. </p>
<p>He also arguably made it fair game by citing those family experiences to be dismissive of those who told him to check his privilege and in light of his own admitted political positions on the issue of “government debt” in that very article. </p>
<p>An issue which is often used by those sharing similar political views to criticize social spending including educational spending which he omitted to mention his father was a huge beneficiary of by virtue of attending City College…especially if he did so before 1975 as tuition was free for city residents who qualified for admission. As such, he omitted a critical part of the Horatio Algierizing of his family history…and in a manner similar to his political fellow travelers who had signs making similar omissions of being beneficiaries of social spending…such as medicare or social security. </p>
<p>Ironic considering their political compatriots from earlier periods fought hard to prevent such social spending from becoming law on the basis of the same principles of being against government debt and social spending. Just look at the political struggle FDR had over the implementation of social security during the '30s. </p>
<p>Another thing to keep in mind regarding this discussion is that while his grandparents and parents had discriminatory struggles during their earlier periods in the US, they were of a very different kind from what was faced by racial minorities. </p>
<p>More importantly, those struggles were those of his grandparents’ and parents’ generations. NOT the author himself. </p>
<p>An apropos point considering some Jewish neighbors who are of the same generations of the author’s parents and grandparents have expressed outrage at how this author in their view, wrongfully appropriated and applied the struggles of his grandparents’ and parents’ generation to himself. </p>
<p>“An issue which is often used by those sharing similar political views to criticize social spending including educational spending which he omitted to mention his father was a huge beneficiary of by virtue of attending City College…especially if he did so before 1975 as tuition was free for city residents who qualified for admission. As such, he omitted a critical part of the Horatio Algierizing of his family history…and in a manner similar to his political fellow travelers who had signs making similar omissions of being beneficiaries of social spending…such as medicare or social security.”</p>
<p>Just because you, in a Rain Man sort of way, are practically obsessed with the reputation of CCNY in New York in the 1950s (good LORD, how many times do you have to repeat it in umpteen threads?) doesn’t mean that anyone, anywhere, whose parents or grandparents attended it need to stop and provide a lengthy explanation of how-tuition-was-free and how-it-was-regarded. And the comparison between “I neglected to mention that CCNY was free because it’s irrelevant to the story” and the comparison to the Tea Party is ludicrous. </p>
<p>My father, who was poor and went hungry as a child, dropped out of high school, joined the army and went to Vietnam, came back and attended college (not a fancy one) on the GI BIll, didn’t graduate, went to work in an unrelated field and wound up highly successful. He has a very rags-to-riches story too. I am not “obligated” to provide every detail in talking about his success. He worked hard and brought himself up for nothing. That’s always worthy of applause. </p>
<p>“An issue which is often used by those sharing similar political views to criticize social spending including educational spending”</p>
<p>But so what? I eat bread, and I’ve heard members of the Tea Party eat bread, too. </p>
<p>Sounds like some sort of absurd competition. “My culture’s suffering was worse than your culture’s suffering”. That adds no value to a discussion. Rather than try to diminish the experiences of others families and cultures, cobrat, perhaps you could acknowledge for once the struggles fortunate positive outcomes that some have had and shared.</p>
<p>"One luxury those with less privilege do not have from firsthand experiences is the assumption everyone with greater privilege in a given context is making ignorant and/or dismissive statements about their experiences in good faith.*</p>
<p>Sure they do. They CHOOSE not to take those statements in good faith. </p>
<p>Anyway, you make dismissive statements about what you perceive to be “privileged people” with your incessant ragging on them all the time. Why are you “allowed” to be dismissive of other people’s experiences? Isn’t that a tad hypocritical? </p>
<p>“In some situational contexts such as meeting people for the first time or interacting with casual acquaintances, unbridled curiosity exercised in the wrong place and/or into certain matters can be perceived as tiresome, nosy,”</p>
<p>And yet whenever you meet your coworkers’ college classmates or your neighbors’ cousins, they miraculously open up to you their deepest feelings on virtually any topic that can be found on CC. This is why the common perception is that you exaggerate or make things up. </p>
<p>
Is anyone believing that these supposed fanciful older neighbors (a) read this article and/or (b) had a conversation with cobrat in the past weeks since this was published and “expressed outrage” at the authors comments about his family’s experiences. Hogwash.</p>