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I was traveling abroad in Japan and was asked by a Japanese woman if I was lost or needed help. I was looking at the station map looking for how many stops unt

by Nadya 11y ago

I was traveling abroad in Japan and was asked by a Japanese woman if I was lost or needed help. I was looking at the station map looking for how many stops until the station I had to get off at. I'm fluent in Japanese though - and don't think I was giving off a "I'm lost" look. She simply assumed I was lost because I don't look Japanese and was staring at a map. Instead of assuming she was racist, intentionally or unintentionally, I assumed she was trying to be nice and offer me help because she thought I looked lost. But extending hospitality or a helping hand is now seen as a microaggresion against a person. It's gotten to the point that I let doors slam into peoples' faces less I make them think I'm being sexist for holding the door for them. After all - if they want me to hold the door they can ask me to hold it for them. Otherwise they're fully capable of opening the door themselves. Once-upon-a-time it was polite to keep a door held open for someone. Not anymore.

intopieces 11y ago
Why do you feel like the topic needs to be about your feelings and not the feelings of the person who wrote the article?
- Nadya 11y ago
  People can have misplaced feelings. If they feel the world is out to get them and everyone around them is racist - they'll only ever see actions towards them as racist. It's called offering alternative points of view that are more likely than them being a victim of some form of implicit racism. Perhaps, maybe it isn't the person is racist, but that the person is a nice person who wants to help. God forbid someone wants to help you without you having to explicitly ask for help. Sorry if my post came off to you as more about my feelings than about nice people not being racist. Nice people will see a person crying and ask them what's wrong?. Not wait for the crying person to ask for someone to talk to (crying people will almost never ask a stranger for someone to talk to). Likewise - nice people will ask if you need directions if you appear lost. The world would be a better place with more nice people willing to help others without having to be asked. I think most people, not just me, would agree with that sentiment. But turning everyone who's just trying to help into some aggressor is exactly how to make the opposite world.
  - mc32 11y ago
    I recall a group of coworkers. Some had been there a while, some were new. One of the new ones was trying to do something but was having some difficulty understanding the systems. A couple of the workers who'd been there a while were having a conversation and apparently something funny came so they giggled and laughed. Their laughter coincided with the new person's struggles... The new person took offense at the laughter asking, are you laughing at me? You all are laughing at me! It was furthest from the truth. It was just coincidental timing but that new person fully believed they were being laughed at. So, just because someone thinks something is being directed at them or is being malicious doesn't make it so.
    - intopieces 11y ago
      Both you and the other user have brought up examples of things that happened one time. The article is about something that happens repeatedly. So in order to make your comparison apt, let's pretend the coincidence of laughter happened every day for a week. Do you see how this person might mistaken that laughter for being at their expense?
      - mc32 11y ago
        I can also tell you about having to walk thru a working class neighborhood on my way to class --it was the only place I could afford sharing rent with other classmates. On more than one occasion, I had people in front of their buildings casually spit towards me but always managing to just miss. Other times they might pump their chests up as one might walk by... Do I go ahead and write on that all so and so are a bunch of baddies, look at what I went thru? Most people get similar or different shit from other people. We don't all feel like it's worthy of traffic driving blog posts.
  - intopieces 11y ago
    You responded to a post about a person feeling alienated in their school by reminiscing about a pleasure trip to Asia while lamenting the death of chivalry. You missed the point while claiming that a person's opinion in invalid because you can't relate to it. You remind me of the guy I had in an econ class who said, "I don't understand why people hate airport security so much. If it's that bad they can just charter a private jet." Not only does she feel like she doesn't belong there, she's not even allowed to feel like she doesn't belong there because you know better than she does about how she should feel. And this is not about asking if you can help. This about the assumption that the person you see before you must be lost because they don't belong there. It's about the fact that most white CS geeks aren't used to seeing black women in their midst. I have a feeling that you picked up on this point (she makes it pretty plain) but the implications make you too uncomfortable, so you've taken the pedantic position of 'they're just trying to help' to avoid confronting the idea that maybe, just maybe, this boys' club we've built for ourselves ends up excluding some pretty talented people. Also, the question I asked you wasn't rhetorical: why did you read this article and immediately decide that your experience, which doesn't relate to this person's at all (she being asked several times in her school if she's lost, you being asked once in a foreign country) deserved to be heard? Why do you insist on covering up someone else's experience with yours? Why do you feel like you get to dictate whether someone's emotions are correct or not? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting
flippinburgers 11y ago
I agree with you entirely. And the thing is, it is a microaggresion. How convenient is it that it is something that most reasonable people would consider to be not consciously noticeable. Awfully convenient to be able to sling around these terms that a person cannot reasonably defend themselves from. This is on the same level as trying to prove that something doesn't exist eg I am not a --- (fill in the blank) is akin to Unicorns don't exist. You can't do it! But, hey, I guess people who just want to assume the worst in everybody are winning these days?
- Nadya 11y ago
  Anything (and I do mean anything) can be perceived as a microaggression towards a person if they try hard enough to twist the other person's motives. Negativity feeds into itself.

by Nadya 11y ago

intopieces 11y ago

Why do you feel like the topic needs to be about your feelings and not the feelings of the person who wrote the article?

Nadya 11y ago
People can have misplaced feelings. If they feel the world is out to get them and everyone around them is racist - they'll only ever see actions towards them as racist. It's called offering alternative points of view that are more likely than them being a victim of some form of implicit racism. Perhaps, maybe it isn't the person is racist, but that the person is a nice person who wants to help. God forbid someone wants to help you without you having to explicitly ask for help. Sorry if my post came off to you as more about my feelings than about nice people not being racist. Nice people will see a person crying and ask them what's wrong?. Not wait for the crying person to ask for someone to talk to (crying people will almost never ask a stranger for someone to talk to). Likewise - nice people will ask if you need directions if you appear lost. The world would be a better place with more nice people willing to help others without having to be asked. I think most people, not just me, would agree with that sentiment. But turning everyone who's just trying to help into some aggressor is exactly how to make the opposite world.
- mc32 11y ago
  I recall a group of coworkers. Some had been there a while, some were new. One of the new ones was trying to do something but was having some difficulty understanding the systems. A couple of the workers who'd been there a while were having a conversation and apparently something funny came so they giggled and laughed. Their laughter coincided with the new person's struggles... The new person took offense at the laughter asking, are you laughing at me? You all are laughing at me! It was furthest from the truth. It was just coincidental timing but that new person fully believed they were being laughed at. So, just because someone thinks something is being directed at them or is being malicious doesn't make it so.
  - intopieces 11y ago
    Both you and the other user have brought up examples of things that happened one time. The article is about something that happens repeatedly. So in order to make your comparison apt, let's pretend the coincidence of laughter happened every day for a week. Do you see how this person might mistaken that laughter for being at their expense?
    - mc32 11y ago
      I can also tell you about having to walk thru a working class neighborhood on my way to class --it was the only place I could afford sharing rent with other classmates. On more than one occasion, I had people in front of their buildings casually spit towards me but always managing to just miss. Other times they might pump their chests up as one might walk by... Do I go ahead and write on that all so and so are a bunch of baddies, look at what I went thru? Most people get similar or different shit from other people. We don't all feel like it's worthy of traffic driving blog posts.
- intopieces 11y ago
  You responded to a post about a person feeling alienated in their school by reminiscing about a pleasure trip to Asia while lamenting the death of chivalry. You missed the point while claiming that a person's opinion in invalid because you can't relate to it. You remind me of the guy I had in an econ class who said, "I don't understand why people hate airport security so much. If it's that bad they can just charter a private jet." Not only does she feel like she doesn't belong there, she's not even allowed to feel like she doesn't belong there because you know better than she does about how she should feel. And this is not about asking if you can help. This about the assumption that the person you see before you must be lost because they don't belong there. It's about the fact that most white CS geeks aren't used to seeing black women in their midst. I have a feeling that you picked up on this point (she makes it pretty plain) but the implications make you too uncomfortable, so you've taken the pedantic position of 'they're just trying to help' to avoid confronting the idea that maybe, just maybe, this boys' club we've built for ourselves ends up excluding some pretty talented people. Also, the question I asked you wasn't rhetorical: why did you read this article and immediately decide that your experience, which doesn't relate to this person's at all (she being asked several times in her school if she's lost, you being asked once in a foreign country) deserved to be heard? Why do you insist on covering up someone else's experience with yours? Why do you feel like you get to dictate whether someone's emotions are correct or not? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

flippinburgers 11y ago

I agree with you entirely. And the thing is, it is a microaggresion. How convenient is it that it is something that most reasonable people would consider to be not consciously noticeable. Awfully convenient to be able to sling around these terms that a person cannot reasonably defend themselves from. This is on the same level as trying to prove that something doesn't exist eg I am not a --- (fill in the blank) is akin to Unicorns don't exist. You can't do it! But, hey, I guess people who just want to assume the worst in everybody are winning these days?

Nadya 11y ago
Anything (and I do mean anything) can be perceived as a microaggression towards a person if they try hard enough to twist the other person's motives. Negativity feeds into itself.