Let's talk about 'Tiger Microaggressions'

On Dec. 5, a few Princeton students revived an old Facebook page that started last semester called “Tiger Microaggressions.” The purpose of the page is to call out the microaggressions Princeton students face on a daily basis in an anonymous and safe way. The term “microaggression" in its modern use was popularized by Columbia professor Derald Sue to refer to “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color.” It has now been generalized to include other minorities as well. Calling out these microaggressions could be hugely beneficial for Princeton’s campus. Unfortunately, the current page is severely undermining its own cause by mixing the harmless with the offensive.

Most of the microaggressions featured on the page are screenshots from Yik Yak, the popular social media app that essentially allows you to send anonymous tweets to others in your immediate vicinity. Those messages, called "yaks," are then voted on by other users. The tone taken on the app is generally very lighthearted, but the anonymity gives some users the ability to make racist or sexist comments that they would not admit to offline. Tiger Microaggressions has highlighted some of these. For example, a recent post featured a yak that responded to the recent election of Ella Cheng ’16as USG president with, “Not only do we have a female president … She’s Asian too … Could this get any worse?” This yak clearly targets Cheng on the basis of her gender and race. It is aggressive and uncalled for.

However, the potency of such yaks is severely diluted when other less inflammatory statements are presented on the same page in the same manner. Let’s look at another election yak featured on the page. Someone posting as “#thanksella” yakked, “Just ate an unripe fruit.” This one is clearly a reference to Cheng’s opponent Will Gansa ’17and his popular campaign promise to personally ripen all campus fruit. Although it does lightheartedly target Cheng, it is clearly because of a desire to support Gansa, rather than to comment on any part of Cheng’s identity. Unless any support for Gansa must be considered racist and sexist, I personally don’t see how this can be a microaggression.

There are two obvious solutions for this problem. First, whoever is running the group can be very careful about which stories and screenshots are featured on the page. As a minority student on campus, I do want people to be aware of my experience and the things that can make students like me feel unwelcome. However, I do not want these concerns showcased alongside harmless jokes as though the two are in any way comparable.

Another possible tactic is simply to post explanations of why each story or screenshot was chosen. If the purpose of the page is to educate people about the experiences of minority students on campus, then there should be some sort of discussion. Obviously, presenting the stories without context is powerful and, in particularly egregious cases, it serves to raise awareness by showing the blatant racism and misogyny that still exists on this campus. However, in cases in which the offensive nature is less than obvious, the lack of context only serves to confuse. A reader is left wondering why the post is considered a microaggression, which is harmful because some might come to the conclusion that microaggressions simply do not exist and that minority students are only deliberately misconstruing certain jokes.

I am not claiming that the posts whose inclusion I do not understand are all 100 percent innocuous, but that is how I see them. Perhaps there is a very strong reason for the inclusion of the “Just ate an unripe fruit” post, but personally, I will never know it. I know that I could simply ask a question in the comments. However, questions to minorities are often, no matter how sincerely they are meant, met with a request to “educate yourself.” As a minority, I do understand that answering questions about your identity can get wearying, but with neither an explanation for the posts nor a valid outlet for discussion, a page like Tiger Microaggressions is not meeting its full potential.

Zeena Mubarak is a sophomore from Fairfax, Va. She can be reached at zmubarak@princeton.edu.