轻微的怠慢会造成严重的伤害吗?如果没有恶意，这有关系吗?情人眼里出西施?或者它们是一种让某些群体保持原位的方式?This week we’re thinking aboutMicroaggressions.

Microaggressions are everyday slights that demean or debase others based on their race, gender, sexuality, etc. However, they don’t always look or sound like insults. In fact, the person committing the microaggression might think they’re paying the other person a compliment. For example, when Asian Americans are told they have "excellent English," even though they grew up here speaking English like everyone else, that is offensive and demeaning, even if it is meant as a compliment. It assumes that Asian Americans will lack English proficiency based purely on their appearance and racial stereotypes rather than any facts about the individuals in question.

Joe Biden received a lot of pushback whenhe described Barack Obama back in 2007as “the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Obviously he thought he was paying Obama a compliment, but what he was implying with his comment is that African Americans are usually inarticulate, dull, and dirty, and that they look bad. Obama, being “the first,” was the surprising exception to that rule. Even if Obama himself didn’t take offense (or so he said), the comment was nevertheless demeaning to other African Americans, which is why Biden received a lot of criticism for his remark.

This example illustrates that when it comes to microaggressions, intentions are not what’s really important. Someone may think they’re being nice, that they have no intention to demean any group, and yet the impact of their words may not align with their avowed intentions. No one should get a pass for being racist or sexist or homophobic just because they weren’t intentionally trying to be.

你可能认为这太苛刻了。人们可能打算做一些好事，但有时只是把事情搞砸了，但我们不会用对待故意有害行为的方式来对待这些错误。把它们放在一起并不能识别出一个重要的区别。假设我故意踩你的脚，只是为了好玩。我做了那样的事，你叫我混蛋是有道理的。但假设我是个笨手笨脚的不小心踩到了你。在这两种情况下，你的脚所感受到的疼痛可能是一样的，但我们不会以评判傻瓜的方式来评判傻瓜。为什么?Because intentionsareimportant. If we only look at impact and ignore intentions, we would have to treat these two cases as the same, and that seems unfair to the klutz.

If we are considering a once-off incident, like accidentally stepping on someone’s toe, then sure, it would be unfair to treat the klutz like a jerk. However, if the incident is part of a larger pattern of harm and mistreatment, that distinction starts to lose its explanatory power.

想象一下，因为你是某个边缘群体的一部分，你必须占据一个特定的地方，在那里呆上一段时间意味着人们更有可能踩到你的脚。Are you going to feel better if someone says that none of the individualsintendedto hurt you? Even if it keeps happening over and over again? At a certain point you will start asking why you have to occupy this space where this keeps happening to you, when clearly those with more power and status never have to worry about it happening to them.

I think this is a more apt analogy because microagressionsarepart of larger patterns of discrimination and abuse. If only one Asian American was told on only one occasion they have excellent English, we might be willing to chalk it up to one person’s ignorance. But the fact is that this happens to many Asian Americans, and it happens on a regular basis.

And it’s not just this particular comment. Asian Americans born and raised here, like other Americans of color, are often asked where they’re “reallyfrom,” (“You’re obviously notoriginallyfrom Wisconsin...”). They are often assumed to be good at math, bad at driving, and so on. If you’re on the receiving end of these kinds of microaggressions that keep reminding you that you are considered “other” or not truly belonging, or you are not seen as an individual, but as a stereotypical member of a homogeneous racial group, the intentions of the individuals committing the microaggressions start to fade from importance.

So what is the best way to combat microaggressions? Do we just need to educate people so that they better understand the impact of their words and actions? Perhaps, but this assumes it is the ignorance of individuals that is the main source of the problem, and I’m not so sure about that. It seems that microaggressions do serve a purpose and that is to reinforce social hierarchies and to remind people belonging to marginalized groups of their place in that hierarchy. As such, they are a part ofsystems压迫，需要系统地加以解决。

Our guest this week is Lauren Freeman from the University of Louisville. She’s co-editor of a new volume calledMicroaggressions and Philosophy, and she’s also writing a book about microaggressions in the context of clinical medicine. Most scholarship on microaggressions, starting in the 1970s, has been done by psychologists such asDerald Wing Sue. Lauren thinks it’s important for philosophers to make a contribution to the debate, so I hope you’ll listen to this week’s episode to hear what insights philosophers have on the subject.

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