Their Happiness Hurt My Feelings
Attention, woke citizens. During the current lockdown, do you feel a need to “challenge microaggressions” – those “verbal, behavioural or environmental indignities that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative racial slights”? Specifically, those committed during video conferencing?
According to Michigan State University’s Amy Bonomi, director of the university’s Children and Youth Institute, and Neila Viveiros, associate vice chancellor for academic operations at the University of Colorado Denver, the expanded use of virtual meeting platforms such as Zoom and Skype has created “a ripe setting for unconscious bias.”
But of course. The frontier of indignation must forever expand.
“Unconscious bias includes using language, symbolism and nonverbal cues that reinforce normative social identities with respect to gender, race, sexual preference and socioeconomic status,” Bonomi said. “For example, when the virtual background of a Zoom meeting attendee has pictures of his or her wedding, it unintentionally reinforces the idea that marriage is most fitting between opposite sexes.”
It turns out that the reckless visibility of a wedding photo may be crushing the self-esteem out of the touchily unwed. You see, the mere sight of a photo of someone’s happy day can “crowd out the experiences of people with minoritized social identities,” albeit in ways never quite explained. Other taboos include references to “simple activities like family dance parties,” which are apparently a thing, and “gardening with a spouse.”
Curiously, given the stated importance of “sensitivity” and being mindful of what things might mean, we aren’t invited to ponder the kind of person who would resent someone else’s wedding photo. And then complain about it. Or whether such neurotic affectations, these unhappy mental habits, are something to be actively encouraged. In the name of progress. At a university.
Update, via the comments:
Regarding microaggressions, readers may be inclined to wonder if there’s an equally modish word for the low-level hostility of inflicting one’s own competitively hypersensitive psychodrama on others, like some prodnose nightmare, and all while expecting applause. It seems to me the above is a strange and self-destructive attitude to cultivate, a kind of psychological poison – as so many things are in the world of the woke.
As a stroppy gay teenager, which would presumably have counted as one of those “minoritized social identities,” I don’t recall seething at the sight of other people’s wedding photos, or being in any way hurt by them, or expecting the owners of such photos to hide them in my presence, as if they weren’t actually married. That would have been… weird.
But it seems we must make ever greater efforts to avoid giving the impression that “normative social identities” are, well, normative. That simply wouldn’t do.
Please update your files and lifestyles accordingly.
Update 2:
In the comments, Naz endorses the need for a term for the recreational hostility of the implausibly aggrieved. To help us in this quest, it may be worth pondering the dynamic favoured by people who stress the gravity of ‘microaggressions’ and the importance of their correction. It goes something like this:
“You’ve done or said X, some trivial thing – say, displaying a wedding photo – which I have chosen to construe as offensive and wounding, most likely in some unobvious or convoluted way. Whether you intended offence is immaterial and your protestations of innocence are irrelevant. I am the sole arbiter of what is offensive. I shall decide whether you are guilty, a bad person, an oppressor, and what penance should be extracted. Ideally, in the form of your humbling and humiliation, while I, the supposedly injured party, as decided by me, savour the attention and opportunist leverage.”
Clearly, this is a license for petty malice and elaborate psychological abuse. Which is to say, exactly the kind of thing that advocates of ‘microaggression’ policing claim to oppose.
Looking for a name for these people? I suggest Aunt Pittypat (from Gone With The Wind).
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=imANoNt6scw
Instalanch! Hide the good drinks and the breakables!
Hide the good drinks and the breakables!
The good drinks?
Um, if paved, a patio?
You’re not helping. [eye twitch intensifies]
The less bad drinks.
As so often, one gets the impression that these “minoritized social identities” can only exist in opposition to “normative social identities.” At least as conceived by the people mouthing the kind of bollocks quoted above.
Quite.
Also, having seen that stupid word quoted throughout the comments, I think it actually fits pretty well. I don’t think it was intentional, but it’s a portmanteau of “minority” and “monetize”, and isn’t that what the end game seems to be a lot of times? To monetize their minority status somehow.
And bartender – a drink, on me, for the person who said “metastasize” also fits. These woke types are a cancer on the body politic.
The good drinks?
I’ll just leave this one here.
Look, it even comes in its own jar, so someone is guaranteed to know it’s upscale . . .
And bartender – a drink, on me, for the person who said “metastasize” also fits.
[ Slides a large Smoker’s Cough along bar. ]
“Minoritized?” MINORITIZED??
I’m deeply offended by this blatant example of verbing. There’s nothing for it now but to open my veins. I hope you’re happy now!
There’s nothing for it now but to open my veins.
Oh, good, I’ve read that the bar needs to be resupplied.
Thanks, Shawn McMillan, for pointing out the obvious: The author is herself so steeped in heteronormative conventions that she can’t conceive of a wedding photo containing two men or two women. Any wedding photo is assumed heterosexual. Yeesh.
I would think that Zoom backgrounds would be an excellent venue for self-expression. From my background you ought to be able to tell either that (1) these are some of the things that I personally care about and choose to have associated with me; or of course (2) I don’t give a rat’s *ss what anything look likes to you. Or both. Funny how not so long ago “self-expression” seemed the only thing that mattered. Now it’s your duty to disguise yourself as fully as possible. I suggest full niqab, and a black background.
. . . any other period in the history of any people group, in which taking offense is the highest form of social status?
. . . mebbe anything involving duelling?
—and an initial thought was late Tokugawa(1) samurai, particularly referring to aspects of the Hagakure . . . Mebbe.
(1)—and especially the later the better, as in those less and less likely to have actually gotten involved in actual combat, instead of merely wearing a sword while hosting tea for the purpose of being seen hosting tea.
Oregon Health Authority reports 1,708 male COVID19 cases and 1,910 female cases. Only 1 non-binary case reported. They must be immune. A bright woke day.
It’s one thing to be “triggrized” by such trivialities; it’s entirely another to be “offendicized” on behalf of other groups with which one has little or no connection. I’m willing to bet that Amy Bonomi (certainly not bonhomie) doesn’t really feel “micro-aggressed” by any of this.
Virtue has been signalled and received.
It’s telling that the *first*, most egregious example of micro-aggression she can come up with is a wedding photo background. Real bringing down the Bastille stuff, that.
I mean, it’s a little tacky, sure. But micro-aggression?
If anything I say or do gives offense, I’m sure the woke assume that means they’ve silenced me. However, what they’ve done is given me permission to say or do anything I wish to, as their opinion, whining, and shrieking mean nothing to me. In fact, they may have just given me an impetus to be as “offensive” to their fragile psyches as I can be, just to see if I can get their blood pressures high enough to trigger aneurysms.
It’s telling that the *first*, most egregious example of micro-aggression she can come up with is a wedding photo background. Real bringing down the Bastille stuff, that.
Does this mean a photo of a rainbow flag with a slash through it would be a macroaggression?
Is there anyone on here with an anthropological background…?
Should you receive a response, ignore it. Anthropology has nothing to say about anything. I spent three years of my life discovering this. And that was in the Before Times when the current madness wasn’t even the hint of a twinkle in the eye of the most floridly psychotic.
Regarding microaggressions, readers may be inclined to wonder if there’s an equally modish word for the low-level hostility of inflicting one’s own competitively hypersensitive psychodrama on others, like some prodnose nightmare, and all while expecting applause.
Performative umbrage? Pique preening?
I believe the root word of this whole woke business can be found all the way back in the mists of postmodernity–the early 1990s, when the catch phrase at the tip of every academic writer’s cursor was “problematize”. And boy have they been beavering away ever since to problematize the hell out of everything. Prizes for the most strained example I’m sure are handed out regularly. David, you ought to have some kind of altar or totem to honor “problematization” as one of the things keeping this barge afloat.
the mists of postmodernity
Professors in the Mist.
David, you ought to have some kind of altar or totem to honor “problematization” as one of the things keeping this barge afloat.
Problematizationing.
There’s nothing that can withstand verbing. It is the strong force incarnate.
. . . any other period in the history of any people group, in which taking offense is the highest form of social status?
. . . mebbe anything involving duelling?
I thought duelling too, maybe Prussian army officers in the time leading up to World War I. The aim there seemed to be to get the very macho scar on the cheek, to show you were a guy not to be messed with.
Blut und Eisen, bring it back I say, they would know how to deal with these perpetually aggrieved wimps.
I think if I were required to Zoom the first order of the day would be setting up a green screen background on which humourous images could be projected. A tropical beach, a corner office, a bit of jungle with a velociraptor snout sticking out, that kind of thing.
On the other hand, this could finally be the “in” for clowns, bagpipers, mimes, Elvis impersonators, battle reenactors, etc., to claim their piece of the grievance pie. These folks have been minoritized for years.
Please no. That would be the thin end of the wedge — and before you know it we would be expected to respect LARPers. That is a world I could not live in.
Ray,
There are so many amusing or disturbing things one can do with zoom backgrounds.
My current favorite background is a video clip loop showing a guy delivering himself a fresh cup of coffee.
I think if I were required to Zoom the first order of the day would be setting up a green screen background on which humourous images could be projected.
Well, there has already been the green screen queen . . .
I rush to locate my wedding picture.
Professors in the Mist.
From the archives, when look-at-my-woke-piety meets Gorillas in the Mist.
Zoom background redux:
https://www.alexcartoon.com/index.cfm?cartoon_num=7656
readers may be inclined to wonder if there’s an equally modish word for the low-level hostility of inflicting one’s own competitively hypersensitive psychodrama on others, like some prodnose nightmare,
That.
That.
Well, that’s the thing about ‘microaggressions’. The basic dynamic is something like this:
Clearly, this is a license for petty malice and elaborate psychological abuse. The kind of thing that advocates of ‘microaggression’ policing claim to oppose.
Let’s see. I have a pretty good sized pic of my friends and i looking pretty roughed up at Ft. Benning, and as if we were loving it. I’ve got my father’s commissioning sword I could put above it. Got some other cutlery which could, with some thinking, balance the whole thing. Then a couple of pix from my lacrosse days. Got several wedding pix. Somewhere, i have a coffee mug with a US flag on it.
Heh. I have a captured WWII Japanese flag on one of my home office walls. Not that it’s ever likely to be in the background considering how my desk is positioned, but I did get a tad self conscious about it once when leaving the room with my laptop during a conference call.
For example, when the virtual background of a Zoom meeting attendee has pictures of his or her wedding, it unintentionally reinforces the idea that marriage is most fitting between opposite sexes.
Well, I think we can safely assume such a horrible fate as marriage is not likely to happen to her. It’s like those “incels” who claim women are subhuman and should be raped and killed, and then have no idea why they’re alone. These women claim men are all rapists and monsters, but are certain they’re alone due to the “patriarchy not respecting independent-minded women of color” or something.
I’m going to be VERY generous here and assume that this… utterance counts as a publication credit under the ‘publish or perish’ rubric.
Of course if we shifted to a publish AND perish paradigm society
would in short order heave a sigh of relief and we would perforce move into Churchill’s broad and sunlit uplands.
A connsumation devoutly to ne wished.
( It’s odd that when I move here to comment from an American site, say Ace or Insty my style becomes more flowery, if not fustian.)
my style becomes more flowery, if not fustian.
[ Applies powder, fans self. ]
The animating principle of a Karen is the need to scold. It’s the larger Venn circle that encompases those who label others ‘istaphobes’.
Asking seriously, is there a DSM 5 entry for this behavior?
“Minoritized” seems to carry a connotation of passivity, of victimization, or being acted upon. “I wouldn’t be a minority if not for YOU oppressive bastards!”
“I’m offended by your words/actions!”
“You’ll get over it.”
“Minoritized” seems to carry a connotation of passivity, of victimization, or being acted upon. “I wouldn’t be a minority if not for YOU oppressive bastards!”
Oh, no. More like, “He’s not a real minority until identified as such in the intersectionality literature!” Then: CONGRATULATIONS! He is now an oppressed minority ranked appropriately in the hierarchy and all those shoved down the list shall grovel before him while devising new language and neuroses to achieve a higher position
More like, “He’s not a real minority until identified as such in the intersectionality literature!”
Let’s not forget this revealing incident from Midwestern University, where Hispanic students refused to pretend that they were oppressed by “white privilege,” and were promptly denounced as racist by sociology professor Maria Isabel Ayala .
. . . students refused to pretend that they were oppressed . . .
_)#*(&$_()#&$ Math students!!!
They keep insisting that two plus two equals four!!!!
—From the comments, Absolutely. It’s no different than a cult that recruits new members and drains their life savings while filling their heads with useless, self-serving dogma.
Ticket To Heaven.
Let’s not forget this revealing incident from Midwestern University…
I could have sworn there is a term for this, but it’s the idea that those who build, maintain, and defend the hierarchy are not the ones at the top (and are often near the bottom). Ms. Ayala appears to be much (much, much, much) more ‘spaniard’ than ‘latina’ but is heavily invested in the pro-“latinx” and anti-white aspects of the box she is trying to shove everyone into.
Let’s not forget this revealing incident from Midwestern University, where Hispanic students refused to pretend that they were oppressed by “white privilege,” and were promptly denounced as racist by sociology professor Maria Isabel Ayala .
Sociology is a blight on the land.
I could have sworn there is a term for this, but it’s the idea that those who build, maintain, and defend the hierarchy are not the ones at the top (and are often near the bottom).
Um, a very much sort of Stockholm Syndrome comes to mind, as do football hooligans.
Virtue has been signalled and received.
Like so much else in the world of the woke, it’s all about pretending. And rather than sparing people from emotional injury, the attitude quoted above more typically results in insufferable narcissism, competitive pettiness, and farcical self-indulgence.
A kind of practised neuroticism. Which is supposedly an ideal, the measure of enlightenment and personal sophistication.
Whether you intended offence is immaterial and your protestations of innocence are irrelevant.
I’m a teacher in a liberal Commonwealth in the USA. Have suffered through so many Professional Development sessions on micro-aggressions and privilege that I now have a Black Belt in tolerance. In the the gingerly conducted conversations which would help us determine the level of threat our privilege presented to students (such conversations were facilitated by certified minorities and/or allies of the same), we were told to be mindful that “IMPACT is just as important, if not more so than INTENTION.” In other words, “Shut up.”
“IMPACT is just as important, if not more so than INTENTION.”
Which is the complete opposite of how these types operate in the political world when things go wrong (which they invariably do). In such instances, they wish to be judged by their intentions and not their results.
The way of the tribe as they yearn for the “good old days” of their Messiahs – Lenin and Stalin!!!
I do not for one second believe anything about these perverts that this cognitive dissonuance is anything but conscious malicious targeted. This is the human extinction movement in action.
The ultimate goal aside from destruction of traditional America, is the objective of normalizing pedophilia. This form of the victim stance derives straight from the top. Child trafficking is one of their most coveted and lucrative, never mind the most foul evil fulfilling elitist privilege to the hedonist globo=pedo’s, out of all the organized criminal activities they run, under the cover of a hollowed out shell of a constitutional republic they created. Mexico is a perfect analog, a narco state operating behind a shell of an illusion of a sovereign nation state.
Make #pizzagate great =’s destroy all the codes, revise all the history, it’s genocide, White genocide. Genocide via a thousand victim stances. Inclusivity, diversity, etc is dress rehearsal for their class/race war.
Say this though, these actors think they are something special, cunning, ruthless, sly, what they do not appreciate here, is just how mean us good folks get when you violate our codes.
And we have guns…lots of guns.