A Microaggression Lesson from MSNBC's Melissa Harris Perry. Pay Attention Please!

[Derec]

Is she black? she looks a lot like that white woman pretending to be black

She is mixed, but then you have that stupid one drop rule.
She is, however 100% thoroughbred idiot.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

So her relative privilege she brought up was in reference to race not class?

I did not know Paul Ryan comes from a politician caste I mean class.
Come on, it's pretty clear what she was thinking.
I will be the first one to call Paul Ryan asshole but "Hard worker" is perfectly fine expression and can be applied to any profession including politicians.

Not most Republican politicians who are just being obstructionists.

And remember in context she was also talking about full-time mothers in comparison to Ryan.

So Ryan versus (cotton pickers who were probably slaves + full-time mothers) was the comparison.

What are you inferring from that exactly?

 

[Mumbles]

So her relative privilege she brought up was in reference to race not class?

I did not know Paul Ryan comes from a politician caste I mean class.
Come on, it's pretty clear what she was thinking.

Well, that's the problem. I agree that it's very clear what she's thinking, particularly when discussing the picture on her wall that she placed there to remind her of what serious hard work looks like. I doubt that she confused Paul Ryan with herself, after all.

 

[barbos]

I did not know Paul Ryan comes from a politician caste I mean class.
Come on, it's pretty clear what she was thinking.
I will be the first one to call Paul Ryan asshole but "Hard worker" is perfectly fine expression and can be applied to any profession including politicians.

Not most Republican politicians who are just being obstructionists.

And remember in context she was also talking about full-time mothers in comparison to Ryan.

So Ryan versus (cotton pickers who were probably slaves + full-time mothers) was the comparison.

What are you inferring from that exactly?

She went through the usual list - blacks, working mothers.
She implied that "hard worker" can not be used with respect to politicians, which is by itself is ridiculous. Then she implied that it can only applied to things like plantation workers and working mothers. I think she is working too hard and need a break.

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I did not know Paul Ryan comes from a politician caste I mean class.
Come on, it's pretty clear what she was thinking.

Well, that's the problem. I agree that it's very clear what she's thinking, particularly when discussing the picture on her wall that she placed there to remind her of what serious hard work looks like. I doubt that she confused Paul Ryan with herself, after all.

You mean picture of all white plantation workers?

 

[barbos]

Is she black? she looks a lot like that white woman pretending to be black

She is mixed, but then you have that stupid one drop rule.
She is, however 100% thoroughbred idiot.

You mean her ancestors were mostly plantation owners?
Well speaking of privilege, she could be more privileged than that white dude.

 

[barbos]

here is what that white dude was thinking:

 

[thebeave]

here is what that white dude was thinking:

That wasn't a white dude in the video. He was Hispanic. That's one microaggression for you. Two more and you will be suspended from the forum.

 

[Ford]

...I must have missed the part where MHP started talking about micro aggressions.

Or maybe she just didn't say anything about that.

I think what we're going for here is what the kids today call "meta."

She took a phrase out of context and spent a moment blowing it out of proportion, so now we - as consumers of anger-generating clips - are supposed to take THAT and blow it out of proportion. To do what she did, only none of us have our own show on cable. But lacking a cable show, we can still get our undies in a bunch about her weird little side track in the discussion and act like we're doing something really, really important by discussing it here.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Hard worker?

You mean a male porn star?

 

[Metaphor]

MHP wants us to be careful, actually "supercareful", about how we use a certain phrase. It has racial connotations so its possible the phrase may trigger some of you. I'll put it in a Hide box, just in case:

Show

Hard Worker

Folks, just keep this in mind when you're at work and you feel the need to complement a co-worker's work ethic. That is all for now. I will report on more "microaggressions" as they develop...

Saying something isn't a microagression is a microagression.

 

[Trausti]

Hard worker?

You mean a male porn star?

Thanks Dude. No one realizes how hard we have it.

 

[Canard DuJour]

...I must have missed the part where MHP started talking about micro aggressions.

Or maybe she just didn't say anything about that.

I think what we're going for here is what the kids today call "meta."

She took a phrase out of context and spent a moment blowing it out of proportion, so now we - as consumers of anger-generating clips - are supposed to take THAT and blow it out of proportion. To do what she did, only none of us have our own show on cable. But lacking a cable show, we can still get our undies in a bunch about her weird little side track in the discussion and act like we're doing something really, really important by discussing it here.

Is it an American thing?

As a Brit, it seems obvious to me that she's challenging the Conservative association of hard work with socioeconomic status. Race and gender seem tangential, yet hysterical Conservatives want to make it all about their favourite wedge issues because she happens to be a black woman. God forbid that anyone should challenge the hard work -> socioeconomic status thing.

I can't tell, given the edit, whether she is taking him out of context. He is apparently executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, so I wouldn't be surprised if he'd just been saying all sorts which associates hard work with socioeconomic status (welfare recipients are layabouts, progressive taxation punishes hard work, etc) since that is what "Conservative Principles" mostly boil down to.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I think what we're going for here is what the kids today call "meta."

She took a phrase out of context and spent a moment blowing it out of proportion, so now we - as consumers of anger-generating clips - are supposed to take THAT and blow it out of proportion. To do what she did, only none of us have our own show on cable. But lacking a cable show, we can still get our undies in a bunch about her weird little side track in the discussion and act like we're doing something really, really important by discussing it here.

Is it an American thing?

Not really.

As a Brit, it seems obvious to me that she's challenging the Conservative association of hard work with socioeconomic status. Race and gender seem tangential, yet hysterical Conservatives want to make it all about their favourite wedge issues because she happens to be a black woman. God forbid that anyone should challenge the hard work -> socioeconomic status thing.

I can't tell, given the edit, whether she is taking him out of context. He is apparently executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, so I wouldn't be surprised if he'd just been saying all sorts which associates hard work with socioeconomic status (welfare recipients are layabouts, progressive taxation punishes hard work, etc) since that is what "Conservative Principles" mostly boil down to.

I think the problem is that many people cannot get past her bringing up people working in cotton fields no matter what else she said afterward tying everything together into a common political theme.

 

[Derec]

As a Brit, it seems obvious to me that she's challenging the Conservative association of hard work with socioeconomic status.

It seems to me that it's her who is making that connection, in the opposite way.

Race and gender seem tangential, yet hysterical Conservatives want to make it all about their favourite wedge issues because she happens to be a black woman.

It isn't because she "happens to be" a black woman but because she used "cotton plantation" as a dog whistle example and also because of her longstanding history of race baiting.

God forbid that anyone should challenge the hard work -> socioeconomic status thing.

Well the connection is far from perfect, but it is clear that hard work (including not only hard work at work but also school for example) will make it more likely that one will improve one's socioeconomic status than lying around.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I don't think it's race baiting for her to identify the truth that Paul Ryan shouldn't be called a "hard worker" except in a very specific context involving the Republican congress. If you look at other contexts, then he's not a hard worker. Look at some working class professions or full-time mom who also work 3 part-time jobs because no job wants to give the health benefit. Guys, too, who have to work multiple part-time jobs and are barely making it. People in Chinese factories working 16 hour days making keyboards, making pennies per hour, getting docked for using the bathroom...

Compared to the privilege of being a congress person...who gets nice benefits...who can go around and campaign to be vice president when he's got a current job to do...who can write stupid non-binding resolutions to talk about his "feelings"...

Imagine getting all that out of your boss.

No, Paul Ryan is not doing hard work in comparison.

 

[dismal]

I don't think it's race baiting for her to identify the truth that Paul Ryan shouldn't be called a "hard worker" except in a very specific context involving the Republican congress. If you look at other contexts, then he's not a hard worker. Look at some working class professions or full-time mom who also work 3 part-time jobs because no job wants to give the health benefit. Guys, too, who have to work multiple part-time jobs and are barely making it. People in Chinese factories working 16 hour days making keyboards, making pennies per hour, getting docked for using the bathroom...

Compared to the privilege of being a congress person...who gets nice benefits...who can go around and campaign to be vice president when he's got a current job to do...who can write stupid non-binding resolutions to talk about his "feelings"...

Imagine getting all that out of your boss.

No, Paul Ryan is not doing hard work in comparison.

Tip: if you feel the need to vigorously criticize such casual, common and inoffensive figures of speech there is a good chance your social receptors are not calibrated quite correctly and people find you very annoying.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Calling someone very annoying for saying something that is true--especially that Paul Ryan is not a hard worker--is itself a micro-aggression.

 

[dismal]

Calling someone very annoying for saying something that is true--especially that Paul Ryan is not a hard worker--is itself a micro-aggression.

See previous post.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Ditto.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Calling someone very annoying for saying something that is true--especially that Paul Ryan is not a hard worker--is itself a micro-aggression.

Only that isn't what happened. She didn't just say "I disagree that he is a hard worker. The guy takes a lot of time off". She started preaching in a holier than thou tone and talking down to the guy who just spoke.

I assumed it was a race thing due to that tone and the way she was behaving. Perhaps I was too quick to jump to that conclusion. Maybe she is just an annoying lady. But that is the exact same manner people go off on when they over react and make a race issue or a gender issue or some other PC issue out of nothing.