Miss Manners 12/11

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My family is actively trying to be anti-racist and would like some help understanding microaggressions. Can you put this in simple terms that we can explain to our children? It’s already a big word!

Our school plans to start tracking microagressions experienced by students, and I want to do my best to teach my kids about them at home.

GENTLE READER: Microaggressions are a tricky concept. Often disguised as compliments or pleasantries, and seemingly unintentional, they contain implicit bias and are rooted in a system of inequality and unfair advantages.

It is Miss Manners’ optimistic belief that, left to their own devices, children start out free from prejudice, but also with little understanding of their own privilege – if they have it. (Most adults are only now beginning to grasp this concept.) This gives you the opportunity to educate them early on. By the time unconscious bias turns to purposeful and aggressive bullying, it is too late.

You can start at home by educating yourself and then talking to children about intersectionality and demographics other than their own. Children respond particularly well to “How would you feel if …” scenarios. Here are some ideas for that question:

• If someone made assumptions about you based on what you looked like?

• If someone made jokes about you or singled you out for something that was part of who you are?

• If someone gave you a compliment, but you felt like it really wasn’t?

• If someone asked you pointed questions about your family or background but did not do that to others?

• If someone constantly made you feel different?

Finally, it might be tempting for you to ask others about their experiences in the name of “research.” Do not. Almost as important as the education itself is that the burden not be put upon the very people who are victims of it. Ironically, that in and of itself is a microaggression.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: For Christmas, I would like to give my husband a polo shirt sporting our son’s fraternity letters. I know he would be honored to wear it; however, I was wondering if this would be appropriate, as it is my son’s fraternity and not my husband’s. Our son would be thrilled to have his dad wear this.

GENTLE READER: Do they sell a “Proud Father of …” shirt, so that your husband can avoid appearing to claim a direct affiliation that he does not have?

Otherwise, she cautions that your husband may well be subjected to inquiries about his old fraternity days and bewildering attempts at secret handshakes. Here’s hoping that it does not extend to hazing rituals as well.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I got remarried, but kept my last name. My spouse and I have a child together, and children from previous relationships, so there are four different last names in our family. How should we sign our Christmas cards?

GENTLE READER: Why, Miss Manners wonders, are you issuing cards to people with whom you are not on a first-name basis? The obvious solution would be to sign them with only that. But then again, you could also take this opportunity to eliminate last-name confusion by writing them all out, and consider that a Christmas present for your correspondents.

Send your questions to Miss Manners at her website missmanners.com.