An Updated Definition of MicroAggressions and Discrimination for 2025

Microaggressions evolved

Understanding Microaggressions

Since its inception, the concept of microaggressions has evolved significantly. First coined by a Harvard professor in the 1970s it is critically important to redefine microaggressions and refocus the Three-Fifths communal understanding of subtle yet impactful microaggressive behaviors in preparation for 2025.

Thanks to the emergence of “Karen” videos in the states, YouTube videos of grown adults throwing temper tantrums in public have become a worldwide phenomenon and now microaggressions, or microaggressive behavior, are globally accepted. How can members of the three-fifths community protect themselves?

Arm yourself with knowledge. The knowledge of how to defeat one’s opponent. In 2025, those who use microaggressions, or microaggressive behaviors, can be beaten with identification and social dynamics. The only ones capable of stopping microaggressions, or microaggressive behavior, are the Three-Fifths audience. Those who were once called “communities of color,” the Freedmen descendant class, are the only contemporary heroes capable of facing this challenge.

Historical Context of Race and Microaggressions

To combat microaggressions and systemic racism, one must first dismantle the concept of race itself. Dismantling the concept of race means understanding the historical context of race and the evolution of whiteness. The concept of race is deeply intertwined with the history of colonization and slavery in the United States. The terms “race,” “white,” and “slave” evolved alongside the formation of the United States, with race being initially used to identify groups with kinship or connection. But over time, race became a tool to categorize people based on physical traits and assumed privileges. The physical traits of a person’s race were used to justify reasons for exploiting Native and African nonwhite people.

The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture said the concept of “race” evolved alongside the United States. Borrowed from the Italian word razza which means “kind, breed, lineage” race was first recorded in this form around 1490 or 1500.  Used by the Europeans in the early 1500s, the words “race,” “white,” and “slave” were European inventions brought to North America, by German physicians and anthropologists.

There is little to no evidence to suggest Europeans referred to themselves as “white,” before colonizing the Americas there were no large bodies of populations who referred to themselves as “white.”  But once in the Americas, around the mid-1660s, European colonists used “white” to refer to those who looked like them. Anglo-Saxon persons of visible or assumable European descent. According to research, around the year 1613, the English encountered Natives and compared themselves to their dark or copper-colored skin. As a result, the English, Spanish, and British colonizers began referring to themselves as “white” in the context as we know it today. It was the colonizers from England, Spain, Great Britain, and Germany who created the derogatory system of racial classification and although the U.S. Constitution banned the use of race in state or federal documents race has lasted for centuries.

The Impact of Microaggressions

Microaggressions affect two very different groups in very different ways. For instance, when the Italian designer created a turtleneck resembling a blackface, two groups were affected. The first group is offended. Those are the individuals who understand the derogatory and historical implications of blackface. The second group enjoys blackface. Each year Dutch citizens dress in colonial-style costumes, paint their lips red, wear curly afro wigs, and don Blackface to become the minstrel-like character Black Pete. Black Pete is a cherished beloved holiday theme brought to states by the Dutch. The Dutch used blackface to degrade former US chattel slaves and celebrating Black Pete by wearing blackface is a time-honored pastime of the Dutch and other Europeans who enjoy nonverbal acts of degradation.

Microaggressions Redefined

In 2025, microaggressions are both intentional and unintentional acts of exclusion. Discrimination is the unjust or prejudicial treatment of people or just fancy talk for exclusion. Just like aggression, microaggressions are tools to reinforce systemic racism and colonial supremacy. Spoken, unspoken, and written attacks in a psychological war to destroy the minds, hearts, and families of the former slaves the new definitions are:

Microaggressions (noun): Less obvious statements or actions of exclusion. Intentional and unintentional statements or actions that promote colonization.

Microaggressive (verb): Overtly passive; spurts of aggression; less noticeable promotions of colonization and exclusion.

Examples of microaggressions: Celebrating Juneteenth without the Juneteenth flag or colors

Systemic Racism and Colonial Supremacy

Systemic racism is an invention designed to perpetuate the idea that white people are inherently superior to nonwhite people. For centuries, the false notion that those who identify as white are inherently smarter, run faster, or are more capable than nonwhite humans is an idea that has been widely accepted worldwide. This notion was widely accepted and ingrained in other societies all over the world. Now in 2024, almost anyone can be white. Asians, Latin Americans, and even people from third-world African nations can now identify as white. A European invented hierarchy of wealth and power that justifies exploiting former slaves, nearly all eight billion people on earth have bought into the false hierarchy of race. Nearly everyone loves race and racism, foreigners move to the States to experience it because everyone loves race and racism. Everyone except the Freedmen descendants class.

The Role of Freedmen

Freedmen is the name of the former slaves and readers of the Three-Fifths magazine. Persons who were counted as three-fifths of a person in the Constitution are the descendants of America’s enslaved class. The Freedmen’s Bureau and Freedmen’s Bank, the Freedmen were former US chattel slaves who volunteered to fight for the Union in the Civil War. The Supreme Court called freedmen a race-neutral category that does not apply to blacks writ large. Because “not all blacks in the United States were former slaves,” ‘freedman’ was an under-inclusive proxy for race. M. Rappaport, Originalism and the Colorblind Constitution, 89 Notre Dame L. Rev. 71, 98 (2013) (Rappaport).

A unique group with a distinct legal and social status, Freedmen were promised land, wealth, and peace of mind in exchange for their service during the Civil War. Loyal countrymen and war veterans who were never compensated for their work now in 2024 Freedmen qualify for free college, are exempt from unfriendly laws, and are owed preferential hiring in the workplace. But how does one access those benefits? The blessings are in the name of Freedmen. In the same way, there is healing in the name of Jesus, there are protections and blessings in the name of Freedmen.  The same as we name our savior, it is time to identify ourselves by our ancestral class.  

The Path Forward

To bend the arc of justice and create a moral universe it is up to the Three-fifths community to “pull back the hood” of whiteness and identify their attacker.  There is no country from where a “white bloodline” comes from. The Klan isn’t made up of “white” members, but it is full of Irish, Polish, Israeli, Jewish, German, Italian, and Spanish members. Even today the Klan is made up of colonizing fourth, third, second, and first-generation immigrants and it is run by the the great-grandchildren of former slave owners. 

As 2025 approaches the Freedmen descendant class should prepare for aggressions and microaggressions from persons who desperately want to identify as white. Persons from foreign nations like India, China, Guatemala, Venezuela, and Ecuador who don’t know America’s history. The less noticeable acts of slightly aggressive colonization will most likely come from people who think they know American history because they read about it in a book. Ph.D. professionals, first to fifth-generation immigrants, who studied the colonizer’s version of history, will most likely be the first to perpetrate the colonizer’s oppression in 2025 and the Three-Fifths audience are the only ones strong enough to call evil by its name.

What about the allies, advocates, and communities? How can allies contribute to bending the arc of justice in the moral universe?  Let go of race. Let go of the identifiers of black and white and address microaggressions in a multifaceted approach that includes:

1. Education: Raising awareness about the historical and systemic roots of race.
2. Advocacy: Supporting policies and initiatives that promote Freedmen first.
3. Self-Defense: Empower Freedmen to challenge the microaggressions in their daily lives.

What can we do about microaggressions in 2025? 

This updated definition of microaggressions understands the historical context of oppression and takes meaningful steps toward creating an equitable society free from colonization. This definition actively dismantles the system that perpetuates microaggressive behaviors.

This definition recognizes the subtle and overt forms of exclusion and in doing so, we honor the resilience and survival tactics of the formerly enslaved ancestors. This revised definition ensures Freedmen will live in a future where their work and historical contributions are valued and it overcomes generations of psychological warfare.

Microaggressions are tools that normalize the exclusion in colonization. Think of Microaggressions as the screwdriver used to maintain the invention of race and racism. One cannot defeat tools or inventions, but people can stop using them. The Three-Fifths communities and their allies can stop using race and racism by calling out their attackers who are hiding behind the veil of “whiteness.” They ain’t white no more in 2024.