Alas, good intentions do not make good policy. The use of microaggressions is unscientific, and thus not ready for real-world application. Currently, it likely does more harm than good.
The old civil rights movement sought to make people from different groups more comfortable interacting with each other, to build empathy and understanding. Postmodern approaches to intergroup dynamics, in contrast, seem designed to foster self-segregation to avoid the risk of sanctions from verbal missteps, which could then be reported to the bias response teams operating at hundreds of colleges and universities.
Moreover, inherent to the psychological concept of aggression is intent on the part of the aggressor; yet those committing microaggressions typically intend no offense. Microaggressions are “often or usually extremely ambiguous in nature, rendering it difficult or even impossible to ascertain whether they have actually occurred” for either the “victim” or “perpetrator,” as Professor Sue repeatedly acknowledges. So far, researchers have not studied whether microaggressions might cohere with empirically established indicators of aggression in perpetrators.
Fighting bigotry by reporting microaggressions will punish a truck driver or janitor who works with, lives among, and loves others, while leaving untouched a bigoted lawyer, Hollywood mogul, politician, or business executive who talks right, but acts wrong.
Fourth, when everything is prejudice, then nothing is: charges of bigotry lose credibility.
Second, microaggression theory assumes that minorities, women, LBGTQ+, and other “marginalized” peoples both recognize microaggressions (remember that these are micro actions) and suffer harm when they occur. So far, the limited empirical evidence fails to support either proposition. While some researchers have found correlations between perceptions of widespread microaggressions and reported mental well-being, rather than one causing the other, each might be caused by Negative Emotionality (NE), the tendency in some to “be critical and judgmental of both themselves and others” and thus notice ambiguous interactions and interpret them negatively, as evidence of aggression. The ambiguous nature of microaggressions practically assures such outcomes.
Relatedly, science requires objective measures, not just individual feelings. Microaggressions, in contrast, exist in the eye of the beholder. They are thus unscientific and ripe for abuse. Anyone who wants revenge on a boss for a poor evaluation can charge him with a microaggression, and others have no objective standard by which to judge the complaint. Judgements then come down to who has what power. This will undermine rather than promote equity, posing serious normative concerns.
Better intergroup relations require both common sense and science; like diversity training generally, Microaggression training hasn’t got either.