Microaggressions

 As I mentioned the other day, I build and am int he process of building training for our leaders in our industry (see here). Well, I was talking to Cami the other day about our training, specifically about training so that our leaders can understand and talk to our newer employees coming into the field. Millennials and Gen Z'ers want different things out of life (see here). Are we doing what we can to help them? To work with them? Based on my reading of Brookfield's book (see here, here and here) we are not, and my discussion with Cami brought this into focus. 

Chapter 7 of Brookfield's book was a doozey. I hated every moment and I came away thinking that the guy was quite a little racist in his own right. Is he trying to make up for it? Sure. Is he actually making things worse? I think so. 

He relates a story about microaggressions. He is a firm believer in Critical Race Theory (CRT) and that everything boils down to race. He believes microaggressions are prevalent and valid. He teaches this and promotes it all in his classroom settings according to his book. The story about the microaggression is telling. 

He told a story about taking attendance in the class and forgetting to call on one young lady. She was black. When she brought up the fact that she had been left out he realized how his missing her was a microaggression on his part and apologized and related that it was a microaggression to her. She said she felt that from him. 

How bout he just forgot? How come we just can't have it be a slip of the mind? If he didn't intend to be racist, is it? Is it a microaggression? 

If I fail to call on Christine in a meeting, is a sexist microaggression? What if I fail to call on Karen? Is that a racist microaggression? If I don't have time to talk to Tom is that a microaggression against him cause he's Chinese? What about if I do all these same things to Tommy? Another white male? Is that not a microaggression in that case because he and I share a common skin color? 

It all becomes quite ridiculous. 

One problem I have is that microaggressions seem to be identified and defined by the receiver. I didn't say victim on purpose. I think that microaggressions and CRT in general make us all into victims. I like the idea of not being a victim. One famous instance of this was when the flight attendant on I think a Southwest Airlines flight said, "Eeny meenie miney moe, take a seat we have to go." All very silly and harmless. Except one lady said that it was racist. She said that nursery rhyme has racial undertones. I know that I used that rhyme all the time as a kid. Never once did we have overt or covert racial intentions in using it. I didn't even know that it could be racial till someone told me. Isn't that on the receiver to understand the intent? Should that flight attendant know the history of all nursery rhymes before making up her own? How bout we just all have a bit thicker skin. 

Thick skin is a prerequisite for anyone with a name like Dick by the way. 

Regardless, what stunned me was that college aged kids in the 2000's were being taught from Brookfield's book. If this is what they had been taught, we are in trouble. Now, it's on us to craft and develop a training that helps our leaders lead them. I'm sure microaggressions will be a part of that training. But, wow, these generations are gonna have some issues if they can't be a bit tougher.