Except those two words actually mean two related but totally different phenomena. And yes, micro aggression is a mostly subjective word, because it's about the experience of the person, and personal experience is not objective.
Replies
Bleh, the act of unintended bias then. Either way, it’s an awful word.
aug 24, 2025, 7:56 pm • 0 0 • view
Personally I don't see the need to word police a term a group of people came up with to accurately describe their experience in our society. There was no succinct way to describe a common experience, so a term was born. And it has nothing to do with the intentions of the perpetrators ✌️
aug 25, 2025, 11:18 am • 0 0 • view
It was coined by Harvard psychiatrist Chester Pierce in the 1970s to distinguish between “macro” racism in his published academic works. Microaggression didn’t enter the mainstream lexicon until the 2010s after psychologist Derald Sue’s work made the term popular.
aug 25, 2025, 3:25 pm • 0 0 • view
As a mainstream word it poses several problems. 1) “Micro” means small, and I’m not sure everyday racism is a small thing. It seems quite weighty. 2) “Aggression” inherently places a deliberate mental state on the actor or speaker when such phrase or action may be unintentional.
aug 25, 2025, 3:30 pm • 0 0 • view
“Word policing” is an ironic use here because that’s kind of how people employ microaggression at large and why it is not well received by lay people. But for the sake of argument, I think “subtle bias” is a better term for “microaggression.”
aug 25, 2025, 3:32 pm • 0 0 • view
You're right, let's abandon the (published and heavily cited) work you mentioned (I didn't bother to name drop) that has been embraced by the affected communities to an extent, in favor of the term you prefer because you don't like it. You can say what you want, I'll keep using micro aggression 🤷🏻♀️
aug 25, 2025, 4:09 pm • 0 0 • view
Somehow simultaneously missing and making the point here
aug 25, 2025, 4:28 pm • 0 0 • view
Ok, and do you know why Pierce and Sue published about this? I'll give you a hint: they coined (and popularized) the term after looking for a way to describe their own lived experience - which is exactly what I said. Being academics doesn't make them also not minorities who dealt with it in US.
aug 25, 2025, 4:04 pm • 0 0 • view
You’re spending an awful lot of time to convince me you like the word. I get it. I don’t. I’ve explained why. I’m done.
aug 25, 2025, 4:07 pm • 0 0 • view