Readers React: How to survive microaggression: Grow up.

To the editor: “Microaggressions” matter, and can be hurtful. Their origins are in the dawn of the spoken word, and they are the polar opposite of, and preclude, honest conversations, which also can be hurtful. (“Petty slights and snubs that can leave deep wounds,” Nov. 14)

The solution is growing up, which also can be hurtful but is a key to independence and enlightenment.

The current microaggression controversy will end when that legendary child from “The Emperor’s New Clothes” reappears and utters an updated pronouncement: “Hey, all you crybabies are running around buck naked!”

Tom Nichols, Los Osos

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To the editor: As Sandy Banks says, microaggressions matter. But the problem with microaggression as currently understood is that neither intent nor context matters.

A microaggression is defined not by the speaker but by the listener. Take the expression, “Where are you from?” It could be interpreted as a microaggression suggesting that a person of color is an immigrant or, worse, of illegal status. Or it could simply be that the one asking the question is curious about the ethnic origin of a person.

How can we have an honest conversation if intent and context do not matter? Microaggression creates a minefield that stifles conversation.

I agree with the person quoted in Banks’ column as saying, “I don’t have a clue as to what I am supposed to do about it.”

Paul Laris, Long Beach

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