Abdi Nor Iftin’s excellent microaggression column rang a bell in my head (“Through My Lens: Verbal microagressions are common and painful,” July 8). I’m tired of women and non-white people talking about the “white man problem” in this country. Sometimes I’ll be walking down Centre Street or Washington Avenue in Bath and some woman will yell out her car window something like, “Who ya gonna go shoot today, crazy white man?” These microaggressions are hurtful. Even though crazy white men are responsible for most mass murders in this country, most of us are not participants in this activity.
But Mr. Iftin’s column made me realize that these incidents may be the result of the many microaggressions we white men have suffered over the past few years. If I were less stable than I am, I might do something bad due to my microaggression burden. Just the other day I found myself pointing the kitchen faucet sprayer at the microaggressive chipmunk who’s been raiding my backyard bird feeder.
Ever since we lost our affirmative action benefits, things haven’t been going well for us. We never were women or had dark skin. We had families to feed. So, of course, companies should have hired us first. And they did. But things changed, and the microaggressions came our way. No wonder so many of us crack up.
But things may go our way again. Thanks to Susan Collins and others like her, the Supreme Court has gone back to the 13th century, when women and many other non-white men were considered property, to find precedent for restoring the natural order. Then those others will have to behave, and the most delicate, sensitive flowers of white manhood can stop shooting people.
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