“The invisibility of microaggressions may be more harmful to people of color than hate crimes or the overt and deliberate acts of White supremacists such as the Klan.” So claims Dr. Derald Wing Sue, the leading “expert” on microaggressions.
Yes, he claims that a microaggression—that’s micro as in microscopic—can be “more harmful” than a hate crime, which the Department of Justice says is “often a violent crime, such as assault, murder, arson or vandalism.” To drive home his point, he mentions the Ku Klux Klan.
Of course, microaggressions are real, and in areas of prejudice, they often follow systematic patterns that are much more harmful than single incidents. But as Sue admits, they are so small it is often impossible to even be sure they happened. This is no excuse for ignoring them. Instead, my point is that Dr. Sue’s solution just makes race relations worse.
“America is the land of opportunity.” That’s one possible microaggression listed by Dr. Sue and the University of California. But this claim was checked by a Cato Institute/YouGov survey in 2017, which found that 93% of Blacks and 89% of Latinos did not find this assertion offensive, let alone “more harmful” than a Ku Klux Klan hate crime.
Ripped Apart
