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Oftentimes undergirding efforts to trivialize and minimize microaggressions theory and research are notions that perpetrators neither want to change nor share their dominant‐group privileges with others. We have seen this among our White colleagues manifested in statements of moral superiority, such as “I could have interpreted your comment as an ageist microaggression toward me, but I didn't. Why are you so hypersensitive?”

When critics argue that everything has become a microaggression, they are not acknowledging the larger sociohistorical context of oppression (Kraus & Park, 2017; Wong‐Padoongpatt & Rider, 2018). Instead, these critics imply that targets are like snowflakes, with weak character, who crumble in the face of the most trivial slights. Some contend that targets use “microaggression complaints” as a form of social control in a culture of victimhood (Campbell & Manning, 2018).

By recentering themselves, such critics ask, “Where do we draw the line?” and “Why am I made to feel like I am walking on eggshells?” They express concern about not being able to say what is on their minds and feel discouraged from even interacting with people from marginalized groups. What they do not ask is “What would it mean if the things I say and do actually have been hurtful to others?” What they do not consider is how interpersonal interactions that insult and invalidate someone's identity are linked to broader social forces—long‐standing hierarchies of dominance and oppression—that have powerful (and negative) effects on targets' well‐being.

The misunderstanding regarding flawed analysis takes shape both in the appraisal of empirical research on microaggressions (“Your research is invalid”) and in evaluations of targets' perceptions of their experiences (“Your accounts are inaccurate”). We find it curious that scholars who have no expertise in studies of racial discrimination feel authorized to step into the racial microaggressions literature, name the overall project, rename the construct, and call for persons who do not acknowledge the influence of racism in society to be involved in generating items for new measures designed to document experiences with microaggressions. If we understand them correctly, these critics are seeking a set of universal operating principles that we could use to identify microaggressions reliably across all persons from a particular marginalized group (see, e.g., Lilienfeld, 2017). We disagree with this idea of homogeneous microaggression experiences, and instead we acknowledge within‐group differences in how people interpret microaggressive statements. With a focus on context, we recommend investigations that seek to understand moderators (e.g., targets' interpretations) of the link between microaggressions and negative outcomes. Since the publication of the first edition of this book in 2010, there have been hundreds of studies conducted on microaggressions. In the chapters that follow, we draw from the research to document the current state of the field and signal directions for future investigation.