The University of North Carolina has published a guide for the perpetually aggrieved that adds immeasurably to the number of words and phrases that all good snowflakes should avoid like…like..well, like the plague (if it’s still permissible to use that loaded word).
Please be advised there is no longer a “Christmas vacation.” Nor can you compliment a woman on her shoes, refer to a “husband/boyfriend,” or play golf.
In the topsy-turvy, upside down world of campus speech Nazis, a microaggression is pretty much anything that reflects the normal life of normal people.
The school categorized microaggressions based on “social identity group,” with separate sections for race, gender, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, ability, national origin, and class.
The document asserts, for instance, that “referring to ‘husband/boyfriend’ of women, ‘wife/girlfriend’ of men who are coworkers instead of partner/spouse … sets the expectation that people do not identify as LGBTQ until they say otherwise or disclose their sexual orientation.”
Similarly, saying “I don’t know any LGBTQ people” implies that “you have to openly declare your gender identity and sexual orientation for me to care about LGBTQ issues.”
Moreover, the guide adds that “addressing trans people with incorrect gender pronouns, calling them by former names, inquiring about their ‘real’ identity, asking them to explain their gender identity, and denying or failing to acknowledge their pronouns, name, or identity” suggests to the recipient that “as a trans person, you are inferior to and less authentic than cisgender (non-trans) people.”
Even a simple compliment like “I love your shoes,” at least when addressed to a woman in leadership during a Q&A after a speech, really means “I notice how you look and dress more than I value your intellectual contributions. How you look is really important.”
The post also addresses microaggressions against individuals with physical and mental disabilities, warning against phrases that trivialize such conditions.
“Please stand and be recognized,” the school explains, “assumes that everyone is able in this way and ignores the diversity of ability in the space,” while using expressions such as “I’m totally OCD about my files” and “I get ADHD sometimes” “minimizes the experiences of people who live with mental health issues.”
According to UNC, “having an office dress code that applies to men and women differently assumes that your staff fits into one of two gender categories; can also be a violation of anti-discrimination policies.”
For the same reason, the guide adds, “only having ‘man’/’woman’ or ‘male’/‘female’ as options for gender on forms” constitutes a microaggression because it means that one “must fit in the gender binary and select among these predefined categories.”
Suggesting that the staff play golf at a retreat is also a microaggression, UNC contends, since it “assumes employees have the financial resources/exposure to a fairly (expensive and inaccessible) [sic] sport.”
Do you know any woman anywhere on the planet who would be offended by someone complimenting her shoes?
I wonder how these guides are compiled. Does someone sit in the library poring over a dictionary and come up with unique and off-the-wall reasons why something is a microaggression? I mean, is this an actual job that someone gets paid to do?
Wow.
It’s clear that these people are so oblivious to the world around them that they can’t see the 95% of the rest of us laughing at them. They have now created so many microaggressions that they probably walk around with a handbook as thick as War and Peace to keep track of them all.
As for most of us, I’m sure we can’t see walking on eggshells around these people simply because they are desperately looking to be offended or “aggressed.” In fact, they deserve to have all of these words and phrases thrown in their faces with great rapidity in order to bring them to tears quickly. The only cure for this sort of nonsense is to publicly humiliate them. And to do it often.
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