We've heard them everywhere. They were drilled into us as freshmen during orientation week of college. College campuses have been quickly instituting microaggression workshops all across America to prevent the dangerous spread of the use of microaggressions.

Now, asking someone what their country of origin is, saying America is a melting pot, and having college and university buildings that are mostly named after white cisgender males are all examples of microaggressions.

Do you refer to a group of women as "guys" occasionally? Well, you can't say that anymore because that's a microaggression as well.

What is a microaggression? Now bear with me because I know college freshmen already had the definition drilled into them, but let's start with the basics. According to Columbia psychology professor Derald Sue, a microaggression is a "brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color." The term was originally coined by Chester Pierce in the 1970s.

OK, so we've defined it, now let's get into the claims that Derald Sue makes about microaggressions.

Sue claims that microaggressions are harmful because "they have been found to: (a) assail the mental health of recipients, (b) create a hostile and invalidating work or campus climate, (c) perpetuate stereotype threat, (d) create physical health problems, (e) saturate the broader society with cues that signal devaluation of social group identities, (f) lower work productivity and problem-solving abilities, and (g) be partially responsible for creating inequities in education, employment and healthcare."

So he's making a lot of claims here. Apparently, microaggressions can lead to physical and mental health problems and negatively impact a work environment, and he says that his research shows this. But where's his research?

Another researcher at Emory University named Scott Lilienfield found Sue's claims questionable as well and decided to put them to the test. He found through his research that there was a severe lack of evidence for all of Sue's claims, saying that the idea of microaggressions is far too "underdeveloped on the conceptual and methodological fronts to warrant real-world application" and called for a "moratorium on microaggression training programs and publicly distributed microaggression lists."

Furthermore, "The Factual Feminist," or Christina Hoff Sommers, made a video talking about microaggressions and analyzed Lilienfield's report further. Sommers stated that Lilienfield found three big flaws with the microaggression argument:

1. That there was no certain definition of the word — if microaggressions have no coherent definition, can't anything become microaggressive? Where's the limit, the boundaries? Is everything around us racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc?

2. There were no specifics on which group was offended (Hispanics, women, transgender people).

3. There was no evidence to justifySue's claims.

Again, these are all from her video and not from my analysis, and her video is extremely illuminating so please check it out.

Later on, Derald Sue would respond to Lilienfield and basically backtrack on all the "research" he had to back up his claims and state that Lilienfield's report was itself a microaggression.

Great way to shut someone down who has a different opinion than you.

Now, I'm not saying that some of these phrases are not offensive. Saying statements like "what are you" or "but where are you really from" or "you're one of the better ones" is rude and unnecessary. But, do I think there needs to be an app created for reporting microaggressions so the perpetrators can be thrown in jail for hate speech? Hell no.

Just tell the person who made the derogatory statement that it wasn't funny and that it was rude, they'll hopefully apologize (and if they don't who cares? Just someone to avoid on campus next time), and then you can move on with your life.

Does it hurt when people make these comments? Sure. But should you move on and grow a thicker skin and learn to not care about what people think or say about you, or should you focus on that one "microaggression" and report the person to the office?

I don't understand the methodology of social justice warriors today. I understand that they want to stop hate speech, we all do! But the way to go about doing this is not censoring everything and restraining normal human interactions.

College campuses are supposed to be known as hallmarks for intellectual discussion and conversation, not places where I'm afraid to say something or make a joke because it'll be named a microaggression and I'll be reported. You can ban words and phrases, but you can't ban thoughts or ideas.

There will always be hate in this world, but accusing people of petty microaggressive crimes doesn't stop this hate, it just alienates people who are trying to help your cause and takes attention away from the true racists (KKK, white supremacists, etc.)

And even more mind-boggling is the fact that college campuses all across the country are trying to enforce microaggression training workshops and lessons for us when there's no evidence that these microaggressions negatively impact people in the first place! Are we really trying to inculcate the next generation of kids with an idea that has no basis in science and has little to no evidence to support its claims?

In fact, new research is coming out that microaggression training workshops are actually harmful to people rather than helpful because it raises a generation of people that are scared to say statements that might be labeled as a microaggression and stifles and limits conversation.

It also raises people to think that everything is inherently offensive and that they should be offended at any kind of statement that could be misconstrued. This enforces the "Oppression Olympics" which I talked about in my other article.

Boy, that was a lot to take in. Oh, was that previous statement microaggressive because of the use of the word "boy?" Well, you can't please them all.

I've linked some really important resources throughout this article so if you doubt the research and science behind what I've said, please check them out. Also check out Christina Hoff Sommer's video on the matter because as I said before, it is excellent.

To people who are still offended: I don't discredit the idea of microaggressions and their impact entirely, but I need actual evidence to back up Sue's claims. And I don't think we should have training for microaggressions because as I said before, there's no evidence and it proves more harmful than beneficial. With that, I rest my case.