Microaggressions are real and hurtful

And progressive Christians aren't immune from committing them.

Photo of a sticker reading “Acknowledge your privilege” is by Jon Tyson on Unsplash.

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About eight years ago I took my son, then a preschooler, to a movie. We showed our tickets to the attendant, who pointed us toward our auditorium. The two Black women behind us, though, were subjected to a search of their purses before they were waved through. I overheard the attendant say that she was checking for outside food. The bags that the women were carrying were no bigger than mine, and truth be told, I did have a couple of treats tucked away.

I have thought about this moment many times since then - about how the attendant apparently never thought to search my purse, about how I froze up instead of going back to the attendant to point out that she had “forgotten” to check my bag. This incident was when I really began to understand what a microaggression is.

Aggressions against those with less power because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or other marginalized status are generally obvious. They are loud or violent. They are overtly hateful. Microaggressions, though, are more subtle. They might even be unintentional. These are the smaller acts or seemingly benign (at least to the microaggressor) words that communicate bias. In my movie theater example, no racial slurs were uttered. The women were not thrown out of the theater. The attendant let them know, though, that their actions were being monitored more closely than mine, as if there was something inherently untrustworthy about the women.

I sought out further wisdom microaggressions through two books that I commend to you. I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown details the author’s experiences as a Black woman navigating predominantly white spaces. In Microaggressions in Ministry: Confronting the Hidden Violence of Everyday Church by Cody Sanders and Angela Yarber, two members of the LGTBQIA+ community educate readers about how all kinds of microaggressions show up in church.

It is that last bit that brings me to writing this article. I primarily work with progressive pastors and congregations (predominantly white) in my coaching, those who are committed to justice as a theological imperative. AND, progressive churches are not at all immune to microaggressions against the very people they are committed to serving, including the people of marginalized communities who sit in their pews on Sunday mornings. I have often wondered why this is so (aside from the fact that it is human to think and act without speaking sometimes, which is not an excuse).