Microaggressions Are More Harmful Than We Think

Continued from page 13 wary of the term “microaggression:” All these interactions are “micro”-aggressions, until they’re not. Until your professor gives you the wrong grade, having mixed you up with your friend. Until you’re constantly interrupted during discussion sections, with your classmates feeling nothing wrong with it. Until you realize that the theoretical academic conversations the people in your classes are having are real life matters to you. Until you’re forced to assimilate and give up aspects of your identity for sheer survival. Until sitting in an Amherst College dormitory, you are told that you were “most probably an affirmative action” admission, so don’t get too full of yourself.

My parents have always told me that the way to deal with microaggressions is to ignore them, (which is, admittedly, mostly what I end up doing) but I think a lot of people don’t realize how “macro” these “micro”-aggres- sions can become, how even these small comments and interactions can build up over time to threaten your sense of self and identity. Most people I know, myself included, often dismiss the microaggressions we face in our day to day life, not wanting to blow what are often harmless comments out of proportion. But in doing so, we become complacent in the ways society treats us and — excuse my cliché wording here — part of the problem. To say that microaggressions are only done by white people is purely false: Internal racism within POC communities is very real, and I’ve witnessed microaggressions from white and non-white people alike. If we don’t call out the microaggressions done to ourselves, how can we be allies and call out the microaggressions done to others?

The popular advice for avoiding making microaggressions is for us to “interrogate our biases,” explicit and implicit. I don’t disagree — but I think hand-in- hand with that comes the need to develop a culture of care — to value the individual for who they are. On this campus, I want to be seen as just another Amherst student, not just as a Brown person or international student or Bangladeshi or low-income student or any of the -isms and categories we are attached to. We are all here on this campus to learn and grow and hopefully succeed together — no need to make this journey even harder for ourselves and others.

by Quinn Nelson ’25