Bitesize: Why are microaggressions wrong?
Microaggressions – as first coined by Pierce (1974) – explain subtle but commonplace ‘put-downs’, targeted based on someone’s real (or perceived) membership of a social group. These acts remain distinct from overt discrimination, by the fact that the perpetrator need not intentionally cause offense. McTernan (2018) argues that these microaggressions are wrong – and, by extension, are microaggressions – when they have the function of contributing to the structures of oppression in society. Against thinkers who argue that microaggressions can be wrong also when the victims belong to advantaged groups in society, I argue that the structural account convincingly demonstrates how microaggressions are wrong only in those cases which contribute to oppression.
Note, for a concise analysis, discussions of objectivity and subjectivity in microaggressions are omitted. Likewise, the structuralist-individualist theoretical distinction is simplified – though, in reality, there is much possible overlap between the two approaches. To determine in which cases microaggressions are wrong, a case study of Prof. Sato-Rossberg of SOAS university is used; here, it is assumed to be an instance of a microaggression, but the purpose is simply to reify the conceptual analysis, rather than prove the facts of that specific case.
First, then, McTernan argues that microaggressions are always wrong, since they are defined in terms of “a social practice that contributes to structures of oppression and marginalisation”. In particular, they involve ‘objectionable hierarchies’, which “[rank] people…as having greater or lesser standing on the ground of characteristics like race, sexuality, and gender”. This is echoed by Huber and Solorzano (2015), who argue similarly that “racial microaggressions are a form of systemic, everyday racism”. For McTernan, the wrongness of microaggressions flow naturally from their harm on marginalised people; microaggressions ‘make status salient’ through highlighting it, thus also creating an ‘in’ and ‘out’ group over a perceived norm.
To reify this example, we can apply this to the case of Prof. Sato-Rossberg, who – in 2024 – took SOAS university to tribunal, over alleged microaggressions of another staff member. Sato-Rossberg is of Japanese heritage and alleged to have experienced repeated microaggressions from a colleague, who made continued references to how much she and her family loved sushi, and recommendations for where to eat sushi in London.
For McTernan – whilst innocuous on the surface – these comments clearly make salient the difference of Sato-Rossberg in terms of her Japanese heritage, and harmfully remind her of other instances of oppression she has faced in the past. Likewise, given the subordinate position of people of colour in society, compared to white people, McTernan would argue that the harm experienced is not the same as if Sato-Rossberg had made comments about liking fish and chips. Thus, as a form of clearly unjust, prejudicial harm, McTernan’s account of microaggressions convincingly establishes structural wrongdoing.
On the other hand, McTernan does anticipate a potential counter. Namely, that the structural approach places microaggressions in too broad terms – which would better be characterised as personal, individual slights. However, by the same logic, McTernan argues that climate change ought to be considered as a series of small, isolated events – which have no overarching links between them. Indeed, an analysis of microaggressions would, it seems, remain compelling without an understanding of the wider power dynamics at large in society.
Nevertheless, some – with Perez-Gomez (2021) – argue that McTernan is too limited in the scope of which microaggressions are wrong. In Perez-Gomez’s case, a white waitress who is constantly referred to as a “Becky” by her black coworkers, likewise experiences a wrong form of microaggression. Indeed, just as harm and offense would be caused by Sato-Rossberg making slights to her white staff members on the basis of their ethnicity, so too is it possible to conceive of unjust harm being caused to members of an advantaged group in society. In this way, wrongful microaggressions may feasibly occur to ‘anyone’ who is judged on their perceived membership to a group; regardless of power dynamics, “the judgement strips the individual of her individuality”.
Whilst this approach maintains some conceptual utility, Perez-Gomez seems unable to fully-articulate the role of power dynamics in affecting – if not determining – the wrongness of microaggressions. On this basis, McTernan argues against the wrongdoing in such cases; since microaggressions are inherently a matter of injustice, it appears that our account is limited by not recognising any ‘difference in harm’ by groups of different power. Indeed, Perez-Gomez’s account restricts the wrongness of the acts by not including the wider forms of oppression faced by, say Japanese people instead of English people, in England, and the greater individual harm that implies. Whilst Perez-Gomez recognises special wrongdoing wherein a microaggression ‘breaks the camel’s back’, from accumulated harm, it is not clear that the reason why harm is accumulated is accounted for.
Recognising the merits of both approaches, it appears the work of Foucault (1975, 1982) is of relevance here. Foucault argues that there are in fact ‘micro-sites’ of power; within larger and smaller domains, it indeed seems inevitable that power dynamics and histories will determine the wrongness (by level of harm) of microaggressions. However, just as it does not appear substantively wrong (or substantively harm) for Sato-Rossberg to make slights to her English colleagues on the basis of their Englishness, it is still clear that a single father – attending a baby-care class – will face meaningfully harmful put-downs on the basis of his membership of being male. This is not, however, by Perez-Gonez’s rejection of the importance of structural analyses of power, but instead, since this space his dominated by women, who – despite being disadvantaged in general in society – may still exert dominance in this particular microsite.
In these ways, then, it is clear that McTernan’s structural account of when microaggressions are wrong – namely, when they contribute to the structures of oppression and marginalisation – is the most convincing account. Despite mounting an initially-appealing critique, Perez-Gomez fails to argue for the complete omission of a structural explanation and determination of wrongness, as omitting power dynamics and historical oppression fails to account for the differential harm – and thus differential wrongness – experienced by members of advantaged and disadvantaged groups when made victims of microaggressions.
