Microaggressions

As an Irishman, I know how to hold a grudge.  Just ask the Limeys.  There are also a couple of attorneys I'm gunning for who won't know what hit them when I get done with them, and their misdeeds were committed years ago.  In short, if anyone knows how to hold a grudge, it's me.

That being said, I don't believe I'm unreasonable.  My grudges are for acts that were beyond the pale, not perceived slights that to an ordinary person would be laughable.  Just because someone looks at me sideways, or acts gruffly, or doesn't acknowledge me, is not a reason to go to war or even stage a protest.  Apparently, however, there are people who are aggrieved for slights that very few people would recognize.

Recently, students at a school not in California -- it's a surprise that the school's not in California -- but in Ohio, Oberlin College, have complained that the unsuccessful attempt to make authentic Asian food was a microaggression in that it was a cultural appropriation.  That is, for trying to provide an authentic Asian dish but failing, the students suffered a microaggression and have a grievance.  Rather than looking at it as an attempt to acknowledge, honor and include elements of a foreign culture into the American melting pot, the failure to authentically complete the dish is an insult worthy of protest. 

The term microaggression arose in the 1970's when a professor at Harvard University named Chester M. Pierce developed the theory.  Whether it's been hijacked I can't say; I think most of psychology is just common sense with labels.  But it's spawned a cottage industry that allows it to be extended to women, other minority groups and people in categories that didn't even exist when Professor Pierce coined his new word. 

What this really is is victimhood.  People with an axe to grind -- real or imagined -- can elevate their nonsense by using this pseudo-science and making it sound that much more important.  It's gotten to the point that virtually an act taken by one person can cause a claim of microaggression by another person.  Or, to flip an old saying, one man's free speech is another person's microaggression.

Not surprisingly, Lena Dunham, the highly liberal darling of the Left, is a leader in claiming microaggressions or in standing with the unwashed masses, graduated from Oberlin.  It would appear that Oberlin is in the business of producing people highly trained at perceiving microaggressions and calling them out.  A professor, Joy Karega, claimed this past spring that ISIS was, in actuality, a joint CIA-Mossad creation and that Jews were behind the 9/11 attacks.  It's positively amazing how Oberlin people can see things other people can't even imagine.

This blog, then, must be a constant source of aggression for Oberlin graduates.  I'd like to think, however, that instead of being a mere microaggression, it's a macroaggression, because I don't give a rip about these people's feelings.  If they're offended by something I post, I applaud their perception, because I'm not about to apologize for expressing my beliefs and if they're insulted or offended, they probably deserve to be.

Molon labe.

(c) 2016 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles