Microaggressions

The NYtimes has an article on "Students See Many Slights as Racial ‘Microaggressions’" by Tanzina Vega.

 "A tone-deaf inquiry into an Asian-American’s ethnic origin. Cringe-inducing praise for how articulate a black student is. An unwanted conversation about a Latino’s ability to speak English without an accent.

This is not exactly the language of traditional racism, but in an avalanche of blogs, student discourse, campus theater and academic papers, they all reflect the murky terrain of the social justice word du jour — microaggressions — used to describe the subtle ways that racial, ethnic, gender and other stereotypes can play out painfully in an increasingly diverse culture."

See also the article in the guardian, on "Oxford University's cultural elitism has been exposed by this student campaign"

" Inspired by a similar effort at Harvard, a viral campaign called I, too, am Oxford surfaced last week highlighting the prejudices students from ethnic minority backgrounds experience at the university. It featured pictures of students holding up placards that read "No, I'm not on a scholarship from Africa" and "My voice is not the voice of all black people"; even one saying "I do not sell cocaine"."