We now understand what microaggressions are. We also understand that they can be hurtful towards minority communities. However, not much has been said about why they happen and what can be done about them. This blog is my attempt to answer these questions through a psychoanalytic perspective.
Psychoanalysis hopes to explain the why and how of microaggressions through the defense mechanisms that operate unconsciously. Let us try and understand these unconscious processes through some real-life examples.
Let the first example be that of a Delhite sharing a lift with the security guard in a building, who happens to be a migrant worker from Bihar. As soon as the security guard enters the lift the woman holds on to her wallet even tighter. Projection is a single-person process, here the security guard has no idea what is going on in the woman’s mind. What’s going on here is that the Delhiite has an unconscious fear of losing anything that may be important to her. Be it a wallet (prosperity) or her work or relationships and she is attributing this fear to the external world ( in this case the migrant from Bihar) and that in turn reduces her anxiety and fear of loss, nonetheless unconsciously.
Another example could be that of a college professor who is unsure of a certain topic and is quite conscious of it. Suppose some of her students ask her about that very topic, she will try to explain and later pick out some students from the northeast who look just as confused as the others. By projecting her lack of understanding onto some students she no longer has to deal with the anxiety of not being sure of herself while the students from the northeast continue to feel unsure of their understanding. What’s happening here is that the professor's ego (part of our minds that navigates the differences between the conscious and unconscious mind, a close analogy could be that of the mediator between the two) is split into two. (imagine cutting an apple from the center into two equal parts) and she is attributing unwanted parts of herself (in this case the lack of understanding about a certain concept on to the Asian students and is also controlling them by making them question their competencies.
When this kind of attribution takes an utterly evil form it leads to urges of destruction. Let’s take a casteist, for example, he is unable to deal with cultural differences to such an extent that he/she wishes to destroy them completely and that hate is projected onto a person from a minority community.
Addressing Microaggressions
Now we know why and how microaggressions play out. Now let’s try and understand what we can do to address them. Let’s say you hear someone ask a north-eastern where he or she is from. You could inquire if this is what the person said and meant to ask them to elaborate upon what made them say that. This will help bring why the person made this statement and highlight what was wrong with it.
Let’s take another example: suppose you hear someone say that everyone can achieve everything with sheer hard work, social issues like caste and gender do not exist. Some of the questions you can ask to help the person reflect on what he/she said can be, “what do you think you believe in, what makes you say that?”.
Another example close to home could be your notice that your female colleague is being interrupted repeatedly during a presentation. You could interrupt the situation by asking the person interrupting to explain a particular point spoken of during the presentation. This will help people look at the situation differently.
In other words, responding to a microaggression involves interrupting the situation or asking people to elaborate on what they think made them say something. So next time you witness microaggression make sure to intervene.
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