It’s all the latest rage in the PC fascism that’s running amok in our United States these days.
There are these, for instance, from a list of allegedly microaggressive statements put out by Janet Napolitano, late of DHS and now President of the University of California system:
- I believe the most qualified person should get the job.
- Of course he’ll get tenure, even though he hasn’t published much—he’s Black!
- Men and women have equal opportunities for achievement.
- Gender plays no part in who we hire.
- America is the land of opportunity.
- Everyone can succeed in this society, if they work hard enough.
- Affirmative action is racist.
The whole list goes on in this vein, but these are the ones most directly and deliberately aimed at the fabric of Americanism.
Of course it could be argued that the second on the list is, indeed, racist, but it’s a direct fallout of the last item on the list. Affirmative action isn’t only racist, though, it’s sexist, too, and by design: deliberately, race and gender are additional selection criteria, and for the explicitly racist and sexist purpose of achieving “diversity”–because, so the Liberals believe, blacks, minorities generally, and women simply are incapable of competing on their own–while simultaneously downplaying qualification, much less merit, in the selection.
Another problem with foolishness like this is that while many remarks are certainly rude, and polite people shouldn’t use them, courtesy is a thing that can come only from within the person; it cannot be imposed from without, and certainly not by diktat. That only leads to rule-following, or rule-breaking; the courtesy of the thing will have been wholly removed.
Lists like these are themselves plainly microaggressions.
Keep in mind, too, that the Napolitano of this list is also the Napolitano of the DHS lists that called American military veterans “right-wing extremists” and that cynically, if not cowardly, substituted “man-caused disaster” for “act of terrorism,” and on and on.
Now that’s microaggression of a hugely macro nature.
There’s something else going on here. The entire concept of microaggression implies that the (micro)aggressor is either too stupid to know what (s)he’s doing, or is deliberately hurting, and doing so in a way that supposedly can’t be considered illegal. Either way, a True and Right Thinking People must condemn them.
However, the entire concept fails by a simple look at human history – and we needn’t go back very far. Those with thin skins have historically bled themselves white, if not unto death, and thus made themselves irrelevant. They have neither prospered, nor survived except on the generosity of others. Perhaps knowledge of their dependence has made them extra sensitive. The rest of us ignored fools or dusted ourselves off and carried on – thereby shaming the whiners.
For myself, if I want to hurt someone, I’ll leave no doubt. And because I am clear about that, I almost never need to do it.
Gosh – another form of deterrence. Macroaggression indeed does the big jobs better, for less.