eyeroll “Victim culture”?
So microaggressions are a real thing. There’s a long history of research on them, and documented evidence in scholarly literature of them and the effects that they have on minorities of all stripes (women, racial/ethnic, people with disabilities, LGBT students; religious minorities, etc.). Asking an Asian American woman where she’s from and being skeptical when she says northern California is a microaggression; telling a female speaker that she’s “way better at math than I expected” with a hint of surprise in the voice is a microaggression; telling a person who uses a wheelchair that you’re so proud of how they get around it’s like they don’t even have a disability is a microaggression.
Simply, a microaggression is an act - usually spoken, but sometimes not - that’s not necessarily ill-intentioned but has the effect of reminding a minority that they are of an “other”, lower status, and/or conveying some sense of role slotting or stereotyping: that Americans can’t be Asian; that women can’t be good at math; that people with disabilities shouldn’t be able to get around well. In fact, microaggressions are sometimes intended as compliments! And usually the speaker didn’t intend to offend, nor are they bad people.
But at the title “victim culture” and their characterization of it, I have to roll my eyes so hard they nearly fall out of my head. Neither Manning nor Campbell is a scholar on microaggressions or identity issues; both of them are researchers in morality and deviance, and Manning in violence and aggression.
I also fail to see their point. They claim that victims of microaggressions, in this case, are advertising a need for sympathy or a plea for help: but I think that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of both this case in particular and reactions to microaggressions writ large. This response by this Hispanic student emanates anger and frustration, but there’s nothing resembling a call for help or a plea for sympathy in the response the student wrote. In fact, most of the responses to microaggressions I’ve seen have actually included a dismissal of any possibility of support or sympathy from the majority party in that case.
Secondly, they claim that “dignity culture” members would not approve of appeals for “minor” offenses. But who gets to determine what is minor and what is major? (I have no feelings on the matter either way, but I’m not Hispanic). There’s an analogy that we use sometimes in discrimination and stigmatization research. If people are stepping on your toes all day - a few people deliberately, but most people by accident, and most without even realizing it - by the time the tenth person stomps on your toe without realizing it you might blow up. It’s not necessarily the best reaction, or the most rational one, but it is a human reaction. Racial/ethnic minorities have to deal with many reminders each day that they are marginalized/other and often lower-status. Other role strains add to that. So perhaps the reaction was disproportionate to this particular slight. But, if the student’s response is any indication, this “minor” insult made a whole bunch of deeper stuff much more salient (perceptions of tokenization, fetishization, suppression of his culture, etc.) In fact, on a normal day this might not even be something that the student would normally react to or interpret as offensive, but something else set him off. Again, not the smartest or best reaction, but a human one.
And, because a person might not see the entire history of a student’s feelings/perceptions of marginalization (sounds like the kid’s father was discouraged from using his native language, for one), to us it may seem “minor” and like he has a “thin skin” and “how will he ever function in the world?” But he IS functioning, and apparently quite well, given that he goes to Oberlin.
The example of the Spaniard is irrelevant. The student is obviously speaking about race and ethnicity at an American college in an American context. (Besides, there are lots of white Hispanics here in the U.S., too. That was obviously not the point of the student’s rant, and I think the example is actually disingenuous.)
Not comparable. Cultural appropriation assumes, by its definition, that the culture being appropriated is an oppressed/marginalized one. Western European/British culture is not marginalized in the U.S. In fact, one could argue that Shakespearean literature (and other white, Western European playwrights and authors) are taught often to the exclusion of the voices of authors and playwrights of other descents.