'a problematic way of normalizing bigotry' What is this really saying? I mean, is there any way of normalizing bigotry? Moreover, who would be seeking to normalize unlawful discrimination and prejudice in the first place? If these are the sorts of epiphanies and insights emerging on college campuses today, I feel apprehension for the student body. What kind of pseudo-intellectual mish-mash is being proffered here? And microaggressions. Really? The word itself trivializes the sorts of attitudes/behaviors it attempts to describe. I wonder what Chomsky would think. And what would HE say? Or, for that matter, what about Pinker and his thoughts on diminishing violence? I am sorry.
But this seems absurd.

You probably handled the slights better than I did by turning a blind eye. But believe me
when I say that the phenomenon exists and it is used against all sorts of out groups.
The worst case for me was work related. I have seen first hand how black people are treated via
the slights. It is extraordinarily cruel. In the multicultural society of a large university there are all
the verbal mistreatments imaginable! Some of the worst I saw was the behavior of the fraternities.
But every other intergroup situation played out in the classes and in the student union.
One had to have a powerful shell not to be affected by the implicit cruelty.

The importance of this topic to me seems difficult to underestimate, and the fine distinctions which can be made in the course of its analysis require some careful attention. The term "microaggression" is set against its obvious counterpart "macroaggression", the overt aggression we're more familiar with, hence dropping the "macro". The former however is similar in one salient respect to Leibniz's "petite perceptions", perceptions which are within the range of our awareness without being explicitly focused on or thought about, but nevertheless without which there could be no full or explicit consciousness. By this criterion, microaggressions are characteristically unintentional byproduct effects of institutional injustices or systems of oppression which can endure even after the latter have ostensibly disappeared. That can include many different varieties. To take an example from symbolism, if a young man drives around with a Confederate flag on the back of his truck because his father or the people he grew up with did so as well, without ever realizing what it stood for or its history, this would be a case of simple uninformedness or ignorance, but would still fulfill the criterion since the action is perceived as aggressive. There may be cases however where the intent is non-aggressive or benevolent while at the same time deploying a deeply aggressive institutional form or background. In an example taken from aesthetics, a white host of a television program featuring contestants competing for a date with each other asks why it didn't work out for a couple who both happened to be of other than white racial identity, saying to the male, as grounds of his puzzlement: "you're a good looking guy".

The statement is meant as a compliment. But the structure of the claim is microaggressive on account of replacing an aesthetic claim of subjective response with a cognitive claim of object-predication. By way of explanation take the statement "that poodle is a beautiful dog". We know what a poodle is because the concept "dog" is already there. The general concept determines the particular which is given by experience: this animal is a dog. But when one says "that dog is beautiful", we start with the particular given by experience and look for the general concept which is not yet had: why is it beautiful? Perhaps because of its silky fur and noble stance; etc. The point here is that the host's claim is an aesthetic one based on what his specific experiences have convinced him counts as "good looking", and what doesn't, which could be very different from the contestant's experiences, which may find very different general concepts from the same particular. Stating it in the grammatical form of a cognitive claim is a way of claiming also that his own experience, and in this case that of those who share a similar ideal of what's "good looking," are more objectively based and therefore important than those whose experiences might produce a different system of general concepts which are not had before the particular given by experience provokes a search for them. One could then correctly call it a slight with clearly understood contents, but not intended as a slight; and therefore microaggressive.

I guess I am not following this very well. As I read the above intro piece, my conclusion was that microagression equals intended slight. Sure seemed to be the proffered message. I will, however, reserve further comment until there are more comments on the topic. One question though: how does microagression compare with passive aggression? They seem like different sides of one coin, with microagression being the more furtive of the two. Nuance is so confusing at times.

Terminology: Microaggression is a term used for brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral or environmental slights, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative attitudes toward stigmatized or culturally marginalized groups. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microaggression

Microaggressions differ from what Pierce referred to as “macroaggressions”, which are more extreme forms of racism (such as lynchings or beatings) due to their ambiguity, size and commonality. Pierce C (1970). "Offensive mechanisms". In Barbour F (ed.). In the Black Seventies. Boston, MA: Porter Sargent. pp. 265–282.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microaggression#cite_note-13

The term macroaggression has no relevance here. I think the term microaggression is for the most part so unconscious and automatic that we don't realize that we are doing it. It also seems to be dependent upon the attitude of the person(s) being addressed and whether they have grown thick skins. My brother and I are both hillbillies. I am thin skinned and "sensitive". He is thick skinned and oblivious to these slights.

So here is the substance of what I wrote a week ago:
During a thirty year stint in state government. I was often a target. Sometimes a perpetrator. Whether it rose to a level of aggression is arguable. Whether nit picking or pet peeving rise to the same level as microagression ( in your terms) is also debatable. One thing seems undeniable: it was always intentional; often malicious; occasionally playful. OK. That was three things. Quit being 'micro'.
If we are considering race, color, sex, or national, or some other lawfully proctected class,, it is difficult to excuse or explain away egregious treatment, however it might be characterized. The stereotypical descendent, displaying and defending the confederate flag because others in the family do, or have done so, is continuing archaic symbolism. Supporting a lost cause. This is more akin to passive aggression, until someone starts shooting. If I understand it correctly, microagression, although embarrassing, is relatively tame. This is not to say that I do understand it correctly.
New descriptions and terms for all manner of conditions are perennial. They emerge, then evaporate when we have tried harder and thought better. Microaggression will run a course and cease to be of interest. Something else will replace it, briefly,sounding profound and intellectually smug, until someone says: wait a minute. Just how problematic is this?

But microaggression has become such a fertile topic, in my view, because many different parts and aspects of similar phenomena have at length been given a name, and therefore have become able to be investigated under a single heading. Your distinction between passive aggression and microaggression to my mind offers a keen insight into why an additional name has become appropriate. Passive aggression is a state of the subject. It's at first hidden from other people and tends to at some point become explosive when it can no longer be suppressed. Microaggression on the contrary constitutes a state of the object, or better, a state of the contents of perceptions by or within the object, the target of microaggressions, so that sooner or later it can no longer be tolerated and expressions of anger can occur in the contexts of the targets themselves, viewed incredulously by those not affected, as though to say, "what's the big deal?" In terms of philosophy, one could say that the concept of microaggression is Ontic Historicist in character, representing an effort to dispel the Cartesian- Subjectivist baggage under which the passive-aggressive state of mind is understood, in an attempt to bring sociological conditions of coexistence in the post-colonial era under sufficient conceptual management.

I think I understand your views on these distinct states. It all makes sense. What I am unconvinced of returns to Dwells' remarks concerning relevance. If microaggression is, and remains, a fertile subject, time will tell that tale. If something, related or no, supplants the fertility, then thinkers will move on. An example which suggests itself is the perennially hot topic of dualism. It has been around in some incarnation or other since long before Rene DesCartes. Lately, panpsychism has re-emerged. And stirred both controversy and interest. I am not moved by the current clan of panpsychists, particularly those who assert. consciousness to be property of everything.. I find the notion implausible. Atomic structure,for me, is only lifeforce in living things, not inanimate matter. My favorite analogy asks whether these is conscious intensionality (this may be the wrong meaning, if so, my bad) within a gold nugget. I just don't think so. OK. I am off-subject here. Take it as you wish. My layman's point is there are two domains at loggerheads here: animate vs inanimate. Believe panpsychism or don't believe it. Philosophy asks questions; takes positions and then changes its' mind. As our friend Ken Wilber wrote: and just so.
Warm Regards,
Neuman.

Has anyone found a working definition of these terms microaggression and macroaggression? What domain(s) do the terms come from? Philosophical? Psychological? Sociological?

Because macroaggression = aggression, and microaggression refers to phenomena not typically perceived as aggressive (except by its targets, often due to unexamined institutional histories or traditional relationships), I would put its study as in largest part belonging to the domain of sociological objects.

Sociological in addition because a mediate relation between individuals and groups constitutes a central component of all cases. This mediate relation can work in both directions, however. In the case of the white M.C complimenting a non-white participant on his physical appearance discussed above, the direction is from the unreflective group to the isolated individual, where any expression of displeasure thereupon would be met with consternation and confusion as to why this person is rejecting identification with the larger or more dominant group. There may be cases however where the direction runs from the individual to the group, whose shock at the refusal to participate in the group-identity results in a de-facto exclusion from the group. To my mind, the "high five" strikes me as of this latter variety. As a compulsion to group behavior, its denial entails some kind of exclusion, even if that behavior is entirely arbitrary and impractical. A folk musician imploring members of his audience to clap their hands along with the song being performed, and slighting those who refuse, might be another example.

Does anyone sense a circularity herewith? Or a regressive backtracking? The term, microaggression cancels itself from any sort of relevance., to wit, if it is neither illegal, immoral or fattening, it is not worth consideration. Let's talk about something more important.

That some people are oppressed, that there is ignorance to this oppression and that others share this ignorance with the oppressed in the form of microaggressions are all facts with which I would align. I fail to align on; the idea that one can microaggress against oneself, that desire can be remade into microaggression, and that healthy states of brain and body are productively discussed as microaggressions. The show helped shed jerkiness from my thought but left a little jerk. This is to be expected as this philosophy is new, and my jerkiness is deep and old.

I won’t rehash too much what Josh and Ray worked out with Lauren Freeman. The majority of which I take as fact. Words hurt. Oppression can be acted out in terms. In the case of microaggressions without intention even.

I had some recollection of slights that once WERE considered slights. They consisted in a context of what is now termed passive-aggressive. At that time, if someone used a term like, for example, blackish, it would have been taken as insulting. By Black people and non-Blacks alike. Sensitivities change. We have had a television sit-com titled Black-ish. Popular, if I understand it correctly. So, I have gotten away from television viewing. Am no longer interested. Covid seems a good reason to hunker down. There are some friends whose company I miss. Yet now, with all that has changed, I don't know where they would stand on a range of issues, some of which were not issues when last we met.

A new(?) Term has emerged in my limited experience: moral encroachment. I am wondering what, if any, relationship exists between this and microaggressions? Any thoughts?