Vic H., I remember him well. Vic was in my class in high school in Pleasantville, New York. Yes, there is a town by that name. Vic’s clothes weren’t considered stylish and he buttoned the top button of his shirts, definitely not cool at the time. It seemed Vic was agitated much of the time. He would come up to you and ask you your birthday, and usually we told him. From then on, Vic would refer to each of his classmates by his birth date, and that would elicit a laugh and typically some pretty weird looks. I think back to Vic, and we were not very nice toward him. We viewed him as an oddity; my friends mocked him and I did nothing. Vic had virtually no friends.
I am not proud of how I behaved around Vic. Interestingly, Vic’s autistic-like behaviors are similar to my son Jimmy, who was diagnosed as autistic early in his life. But when I was in high school, we had never heard of autism. And if we had, I am not sure it would have mattered.
Vic encountered microaggressions each day in high school. Microaggressions are those daily insults and indignities that we engage in, often unthinkingly, that can make life difficult if not painful for “others.” Others are those people who are different. Sometimes the spotlight is on them, whether they like it or not, and sometimes they are invisible.
During the past few weeks, Mitt Romney made headlines because of his alleged bullying behavior in high school. While attending prep school in Michigan, he was a prankster, and played jokes at other people’s expense. And his classmates described how Mr. Romney, on one occasion, allegedly helped hold down a student who was “different” and cut his hair. Romney does not recall this microaggression.
A few years ago, President Obama was on “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno. Leno asked him about putting a bowling alley in the White House and Obama scoffed at that idea, responding with a big smile that “his average bowling score of 129 was like the Special Olympics or something.” The White House later apologized for this microaggression, on behalf of the President.
Next week: Part Two (Responding to their Microagressions: Obama and Romney)