Are we fast-becoming a culture of victims, endlessly seeking new grievances and hurts in order to define ourselves? Or, are we simply becoming increasingly and appropriately sensitive to the impact of our words upon others? A key to unlocking that puzzle may be found in conversations popping up all over the place about something called Microaggression. Don’t know that is? Neither did I until a very short while ago, so don’t worry.
Microaggression is defined by Tanzina Vega, race and ethnicity reporter for the New York Times, as a catch-all for “the subtle ways that racial, ethnic, gender, and other stereotypes can play out painfully in an increasingly diverse culture”, with the emphasis on subtle, and it’s fast-becoming the ‘next new thing’ in conversations about social justice, good manners, and creating a more decent society. And who doesn’t want those? The challenge is how we get there.
For some, including social commentators and cultural architects, Amitai Etzioni, and John McWhorter, microaggression is a tempest in a teapot – people getting all bent out of shape about really small stuff, as the term itself admits. And I admit that I am sympathetic to their arguments, but not entirely so.
I am actually reminded of the first time someone shared really useful definitions of both “major surgery” and “minor surgery” with me. The former, they explained, was any surgery performed on you. The latter, they continued, was any surgery performed on someone else!
It’s easy to dismiss someone else’s hurts as minor, even when we imagine (pretend) that were the same things said or done to us, we wouldn’t mind. It’s easy, because, after all, we are NOT that person, we are ourselves, and hurt is at least as much about the experience of the person to whom it is directed as it is about the objective nature of the offense.
But how do we know when people are crossing the line from demanding appropriate sensitivity, to being overly sensitive – breeding a culture of perennial victims and whiners? How do we balance between the concerns haunting Etzioni, McWhorter and me, with the easy slippage into “it’s no big deal” because it is happening to someone else? It’s pretty simply really.
Start by imagining that the real problem to address in microaggression, is NOT preventing them from happening to us, but learning how not to perpetrate them on others. Maybe some people are being overly sensitive, and there will certainly be circumstances when we treat others as if they were, but that should be our secondary response. The first response would be to imagine that their hurt is real because it’s theirs, and we try to treat them accordingly.
Nobody gets a free pass on this. Etzioni and Mcwhorter need to ask where, even in their pursuit of a reasonable and reasonably sensitive society, they may be practicing microaggression. Conversely, their critics need to ask the same question as they respond to them and those who agree with them.
And when it comes to dealing with whatever we experience as microaggression perpetrated against us, we need two additional practices, which taken together, could be thought of as microcompassion. First, without apologizing for our hurt, focus just a little bit more on the “micro” part than upon the “aggression” part. And second, try and remember that most small hurts are a function of ignorance more than insensitivity.
What people don’t know, or don’t know how to say, is a lot. Offer them alternatives instead of moral outrage, and in my experience, you find out how much most people want to help, not hurt.
Listed for many years in Newsweek as one of America’s “50 Most Influential Rabbis” and recognized as one of our nation’s leading “Preachers and Teachers,” by Beliefnet.com, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield serves as the President of Clal–The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a training institute, think tank, and resource center nurturing religious and intellectual pluralism within the Jewish community, and the wider world, preparing people to meet the biggest challenges we face in our increasingly polarized world.
An ordained Orthodox rabbi who studied for his PhD and taught at The Jewish Theological Seminary, he has also taught the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs an ongoing seminar, and American Jewish University. Rabbi Brad regularly teaches and consults for the US Army and United States Department of Defense, religious organizations — Jewish and Christian — including United Seminary (Methodist), Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (Modern Orthodox) Luther Seminary (Lutheran), and The Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative) — civic organizations including No Labels, Odyssey Impact, and The Aspen Institute, numerous Jewish Federations, and a variety of communal and family foundations.
Hirschfield is the author and editor of numerous books, including You Don’t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism, writes a column for Religion News Service, and appears regularly on TV and radio in outlets ranging from The Washington Post to Fox News Channel. He is also the founder of the Stand and See Fellowship, which brings hundreds of Christian religious leaders to Israel, preparing them to address the increasing polarization around Middle East issues — and really all currently polarizing issues at home and abroad — with six words, “It’s more complicated than we know.”