Hi Joel, thanks so much for your response and for reading! Interesting about your experience. I think I was never conscious about it, but I do remember many incidents when often white people were told they were committing a microaggression, they would say, "Oooh...that's what I was doing," and they were able to accept it whereas if someone said, what your saying is "racist" they would never have been able to accept it. So, I understand its utility, but like you said, sometimes it pushes forward an innocence category that allows people to feel ok about racism.