Topic 5 Harmful Impact of Micro-aggression

So far, we have explained the general definition of micro aggression and illustrated this with some examples. This showed that micro aggression is something of everyday life and often very subtle with no harm intended. Considering this, is micro aggression really that harmful? If the remarks or acts are subtle, and no harm is intended, why should it be such a big problem? Aren’t we overreacting?

The problem with micro aggressions is that they never stand alone. Micro aggression is a constant, continuing and cumulative experience. This YouTube video (full URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDd3bzA7450) makes a striking comparison between micro aggression and mosquito bites:

If one person gets one mosquito bite every year, no one would feel bad for the person. It’s just part of life. However, if a certain group of people constantly get multiple mosquito bites every day of every year of their life, that becomes a problem. It becomes a problem because it has such a big presence in your life that it can’t be ignored. We would most definitely go look for solutions or ways to prevent this.

The same goes for micro aggression. If a person gets a remark based on a prejudice about a group they belong to once a year, it’s probably easy to ignore and will not have a big effect on your life. However, micro aggression describes the situation in which a certain group of people constantly get the same kinds of remarks based on the same prejudices all the time. In this case, the cumulative effect of all those remarks, become a problem which we should try to prevent.