Microaggression and ambiguous experience

Regina Rini argues that ambiguity about whether behaviour instantiates oppression is constitutive of microaggression. I give reasons to doubt this: people can be clear that someone’s behaviour towards them instantiates oppression; ambiguity does not seem to feature centrally in apologies for microaggression; ambiguity can be present when someone is a victim of microaggression due to external causes such as fatigue; ambiguity can be introduced or dispelled by the corroborating input of third parties, some of whom have expertise as oppressed people themselves. These points lend support to a structural account of microaggression where ambiguity is an optional aggravating feature of some microagressive behaviour.