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Comment by Kenji | Hacker News Reader

"There are these tiny microaggressions that happen when people know you're a person of colour, they wanna know your origin, they wanna know your [...], they wanna know a bunch of things about you that don't really matter when it comes to work"

Or maybe, you know, someone just tries to get to know their coworkers better with small talk, because getting along with people, being friendly and knowing a little bit about their background improves the interactions at work dramatically. I'm not gonna lie, calling this a microaggression alienates me deeply.

To be honest, I wouldn't hire someone who thinks they are being 'microaggressed on' when the most ordinary of conversations happen.

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I'm with you on this. Everyday people are curious and not trained in cultural hypersensitivity (ethnic/gender/women/etc studies) , nor are they out to get you or piss you off on purpose. Let's have some good faith here.

So, why don't we just be a bit non-violent about it all, accept people as they are, and address their curiosity instead of jumping down their throat about their unconscious ignorance? Eh?

If you want people to behave differently then they do naturally, then the onus is on YOU to educate the populous. And education is hella expensive. You'll need outreach programs, door-to-door, slaughtering those that don't follow your holy book, regicide, etc... /s

For context, what is your race, gender, and economic background?

Not kleer001, but does it matter?

Would any of those traits invalidate his point or give more credit to his point of view?

identity politics divides us

Or maybe, you know, someone just tries to get to know other forum members better with small talk, because getting along with people, being friendly and knowing a little bit about their background improves the interactions at HN dramatically. I'm not gonna lie, calling this identity politics alienates me deeply.

(Personally, I thought it was a good bit of theater. But it seems to always be lost on people that their offense at having the tables turned on them is evidence that their opinion that this sort of question is not a problem is probably BS. Because it seems to be a problem when it is done to them.)

So, I am a white dude who was pretty skeptical about the whole microaggression thing. But I changed my mind.

My girlfriend is biracial and just watching how strangers interact with her taught me a lot about the state of race relations in this country.

Microaggressions (I am going to abbreviate this as MA) are more like micro-transgressions. In the vast majority of cases, the people who commit MA are not seeking to hurt the recipient of the MA, they are likely trying to be pleasant and friendly. But there is something about the interaction where the person expresses a subconscious bias that the target is not normal.

A great example, is the question "What are you?" How often are you asked this question? Me, I've never been asked this outside of Halloween. My GF gets this question a lot, at the grocery store, at the dog park, etc. Why? What does it mean? Why is it hurtful?

The questioner never means anything bad by the question. It's honest curiosity.

Based on the conversation that follows (a nice chat about our respective ancestries) and the fact that I never get asked this question, they are really asking, "are you black, Pacific islander, asian, or what?" but have learned that that is a rude question.

Why is this an unpleasant experience? It is "othering". Yeah, what does that mean? Well, it means that it is inherently exclusionary. It means that the asker of the question sees you as fundamentally different. And not in a good "let's celebrate our differences"-way, but in a hidden-deep-in-our-limited-monkey-brain "is this person safe" kind of way. It means "are you going to mug me" and "do I have to worry about saying something racist that my white friends would give me a pass on". It means "Are you one of us?" with the presumed answer of "no". For most of us, all of this is subconscious.

People who get asked "what are you?" regularly know what the implicit questions are, even if the person asking them doesn't. They questions feel aggressive, but they aren't outright, in-your-face, aggression.

Ask yourself, honestly, when you meet a white person who speaks with a local accent, how soon do you ask about their heritage?

What is your solution to this problem then?

It seems difficult to reconcile inclusivity with the inability to ask someone something as simple as where they are from. Not in a exoticized "Oh no, where are you REALLY from?", kind of way, but in the simple question about where you grew up, whether it's Chicago or New Delhi, kind of way. In a similar way, it seems difficult to debug a problem or help a coworker in a gender-blind manner, when subjectively speaking the wrong way places you at risk of being called a mansplaining sexist.

Exoticization and mansplaining are real phenomena, but so are misunderstandings and damaging accusations based on a lack of pre-established comfort zones with the employee. Less verbosely, if I just met you why would I know that such a question makes you uncomfortable? Should I just assume all brown people get skeeved out by that question and simply not ask them the same questions I ask my white coworkers? How is that inclusive?

I think it may depend on how it's done.

If I have a coworker of color, and I want to find out where they're from because I presume they can't be from here, sure, they might be justified in considering that a microaggression.

If I ask where they're from because that's something people talk about, and I want to treat them like a human coworker rather than like a programming robot, hopefully they can tell the difference between that and the first reason for asking.

If they can't tell the difference, or if they've run into the first kind so often that even the second kind grates on them, fine, I'll not ask if they tell me not to. But I don't think it's objectively reasonable to assume that the second kind of asking is unwelcome.

(And yes, I'm well aware that people who are doing the first kind of asking are going to claim that they're doing the second kind of asking...)

I'm sorry you feel alienated Kenji. That was not my intention at all. There's more context in my comment above. If you have the time, do take a minute to read.

You don't sound particularly interested in understanding the perspective of others, but in the event that you are, this is a remarkably good analogy that may help you understand the reality of the situation: http://ask.metafilter.com/149204/creepy-filter-Is-it-normal-...

I already know and read this link. That alone should prove that I am more than equipped to participate in this discussion and willing to understand other people's viewpoints. I regularly force myself to read opinions I strongly disagree with. In this case, however, my disagreement remains firmly.

Your continued use of the word disagreement betrays a fundamental misunderstanding about the term "perspective." A Perspective is not an arguable or comparable thing, it's how a person views the world through a lens that is constructed from the sum of their lifetime of teachings, experiences and personal biases. It is not something anyone else can 100% understand, and therefore especially is not something that be compared between people, let alone argued.

I disagree with Hitlers perspective on Jews, even if I don't understand it.

Of course one could come with arguments that weaken/counter my disagreement, but I will still disagree.

If you see the world as good and I see it as evil, we have opposing perspectives and I would say I disagree with you.

Hitler's perspective on Jews is irrelevant and not really a topic of debate. His actions in being the figurehead for those who orchestrated the holocaust are objectively terrible, arguable and measurable.

I don't see the world as good, I see it as a collection of billions of people who all see things slightly differently which is why I don't attempt to seek truth in a viewpoint. There is truth in facts, truth in science, truth in that which is measurable and objectively quantifiable. The rest is entirely open for interpretation by everyone, and the best way to entire you have the most complete interpretation is to get as many viewpoints from as large a variety of people as possible, which is the fundamental idea behind diversifying, for example, a marketing team. That way you don't do something stupid like use an important, high ranking member of a Native American tribe as a football mascot.

By your definition, what Hitler did wasn't "wrong". Moral relativism is a slippery slope.

In my mind, you're free to think whatever you want, no one should ever be punished for thought-crime. If you go your whole life thinking Jews are the scum of the Earth that's your business, as long as you keep it in your own head. If you speak those opinions and lose a job, well, that's the consequences to those beliefs. If you act on those beliefs and kill people, then you'll be tried and convicted of murder.

Beliefs, no matter how stupid and shitty, are not a crime.

This is what I agree with. And thought crime is exactly what the article is insinuating.

I'm not sure how a barely concealed personal insult helps the conversation. Kenji is expressing a simple true fact: when we meet new coworkers and want to have a casual friendly conversation with them, the question, "So where are you from?" is the simplest and most normal of small talk. Someone interpreting it as a microaggression is a great indicator that they will be difficult to work with.

I can understand that for people who draw attention with their looks it can be annoying if the attention is not just a look, but more than that. I don't feel bad for looking at good looking women at all.

Anyway back to the topic, how is it an aggression to have small talk. Is it really that if you have dark skin that people only have small talk about your origins? Why is it seen as a hostile thing? People can't handle that others are interested, do people rather have it that everyone ignores them, ban all talking to these people.

I guess if one wants, one can see evil in everything, but its a choice, and it doesn't mean its true.

Ever asked the same question back? "what are your origins?"

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