無處不在的微歧視讓人難以察覺(上)
The country in which I live has lawsforbidding discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity, religion, sexuality orsex. We've come a long way since the days when the reverse was true – whenhomosexuality was illegal, for instance, or when women were barred from this doesn't mean that prejudice is over, of course. Nowadays we need to beas concerned about subtler strains of prejudice as the kind of loud-mouthedracism and sexism that makes us ashamed of the past.
在我所居住的國家中，法律明令禁止基於種族、宗教、性取向或性別的歧視行爲。而跨越歷史的長河，回望那些久遠的時代，情況卻正好相反：當時的法律禁止同性戀行爲，禁止婦女投票，凡此種種，不一而足。但毫無疑問，回到今天來看，法律的保障並不意味着歧視就此終結消失。曾經，種族主義和男性至上主義甚囂塵上，爲我們留下了一段羞愧難當的過往；現在，我們不僅要重視這種招搖猖獗的歧視，也同樣要警惕那些更加不易察覺的偏見。
Subtle prejudice is the domain ofunjustified assumptions, dog-whistles, and plain failure to make the effort toinclude people who are different from ourselves, or who don't fit ourexpectations. One word for the expressions of subtle prejudice is ‘microaggressions’. These arethings such as repeating a thoughtless stereotype, or too readily dismissingsomeone’s viewpoint –actions that may seem unworthy of comment, but can neverthelessmarginalise an individual.
在細微到幾乎難以察覺的歧視中，充斥着毫無根據的臆斷、雙關語式的隱晦表達以及對異己者或不合心意者不加區別地盲目排擠。我們可以用“microaggression”（微歧視）這個單詞來統稱這些細微的歧視行爲。不假思索地重複陳規舊習是微歧視，過於輕描淡寫地駁回別人的觀點是微歧視，這些看似不值一提、卻能令單個個體遭受排擠的行爲都是微歧視。
The people perpetrating thesemicroaggressions may be completely unaware that they hold a prejudiced hologists distinguish between our explicit attitudes – which are thebeliefs and feelings we'll admit to – and our implicit attitudes – which areour beliefs and feelings which are revealed by our actions. So, for example,you might say that you are not a sexist, you might even say that you areanti-sexist, but if you interrupt women more than men in meetings you would bedisplaying a sexist implicit attitude –one which is verydifferent from that non-sexist explicit attitude you profess.
那些做出微歧視行爲的人，可能全然沒有意識到自身觀點中帶有歧視的成分。心理學家將人的態度分爲外顯式和內隱式兩種：同樣是信念與感受，但人們會對前者供認不諱，對後者行而不言。因此，舉例來說，你可能口口聲聲地說自己沒有大男子主義傾向，甚至還聲稱自己反對大男子主義；但是，如果在會談中，你打斷女性發言者的次數多於打斷男性發言者的次數，那麼你就在表現一種性別歧視的內隱式態度——這種態度與無性別歧視傾向這個你所自詡的外顯式態度相去甚遠。
‘Culture of victimhood’
“受害者文化”
The thing about subtle prejudice is that itis by definition subtle – lots of small differences in how people are treated,small asides, little jibes, ambiguous differences in how we treat one personcompared to another. This makes it hard to measure, and hard to address, and –for somepeople –hard to take seriously.
顧名思義，微歧視的特別之處在於它細微到幾乎難以察覺：它存在於輕聲細語的悄悄話中，存在於小小的嘲弄中；不同的人所獲得的待遇有諸多細枝末節的差別，這算是微歧視；對於不同的人，我們的對待方式有着含糊不清的區別，這也算微歧視。由此而來，微歧視難以衡量，而且難以解決，進而難以引起某些人的重視。
This is the skeptical line of thought: whenpeople complain about being treated differently in small ways they are beingoverly sensitive, trying to lay claim to a culture of victimhood. Smalldifferences are just that – small. They don't have large influences on lifeoutcomes and aren't where we should focus our attention.
我們經常會碰到這樣一種懷疑論的觀點：如果有人抱怨自己在細枝末節之處受到區別對待，那他們必定是心理過於敏感脆弱，並且試圖要營造一種對自身有利的受害者氛圍。畢竟，細節的差別只不過是瑣碎而微不足道的，不會對人生境遇產生重大的影響，並且我們也不應該在這上面浪費大部分的注意力。
Now you will have your own intuitions aboutthat view, but my interest is in how you could test the idea that a thousandsmall cuts do add up. A classic experiment on the way race affects ourinteractions shows not only the myriad ways in which race can affect how wetreat people, but shows in a clever way that even the most privileged of uswould suffer if we were all subjected to subtle discrimination.
此刻，你應該對這種觀點有了自己的直覺判斷。而我感興趣的是，大量微歧視的累加會對你產生什麼樣的影響。對此，有一項經典的實驗，就種族如何影響人際互動這一問題展開研究。這個實驗不僅指出種族問題會在各種不同的方面影響我們的待人方式，而且還以一種聰明巧妙的方式證明，假如我們全都遭受微歧視，即便是那些最有特權的人，也會備受折磨。
