Bibliographer/Analyst’s Note: I’ve tried to give a little context to the analysis in this updated post – original, Aug 15, 2023. You’ll want to scroll down a short ways to Analysis to get to the meat of it.

I’ve opted to repost this analysis because it is my understanding that a significant number of the complaints about “microaggressions” in Canadian universities concern names. A little perspective would not go amiss.

Addendum April 4, 2024: I’ve done some other writing on the name-complaint-microaggression issue that I’ll post soon (I need to concatenate a couple of documents). In it, I point out that as we Canadians become even more integrated, members of different generations, as well as family members by marriage, will mispronounce each others’ names. As they already do, and long have. My grandfather couldn’t say the ‘ah’ in Pam. He called me Puhm. Microaggression? Also, English speakers can’t pronounce each others’ names. Dierdre is often mispronounced, as is Leigh. I get Pat. I answer. Hence the expression, You can call me anything, just don’t call me late for dinner! Anyway. Some people get prickly about their names, others don’t care one whit. We consider a prickly case here.

Moving on:

From Policing Humour In Canadian Universities, 2 of 3:

For context, here is an excerpt from 2 of 3, Policing Humour in Canadian Universities

1.And an example from Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), formerly known as Ryerson University (RU), straddles both implicit biases and microaggressions:

  • Under the subtitle Jokes vs insults: 
"Contextualizing racial microaggressions, Ryerson nursing professor Josephine Wong emphasized that they are not independent events or interactions...“Microaggression is connected to macro-level systemic racism, ongoing colonial power and xenophobia. Unlike blatant acts of racism such as verbal assaults or using racial slurs, microaggressions are harder to identify, they are very subtle. But they’re a form of social domination with negative impact,” Wong said... Often disguised as jokes or compliments, microaggression stems from prejudice and unconscious bias – both of which are established at a young age... “Growing up and right through college, a common joke I heard was ‘two Wongs don’t make a right’ which a lot of people found funny,” Wong recalled. “But these experiences reinforce the idea among kids that some last names are normal and acceptable, but others can be made fun of.'"

My comments (quotes are mostly in preformatted boxes, otherwise in scare quotes): Josephine Wong says,

"microaggression stems from prejudice and unconscious bias – both of which are established at a young age."

Established by whom? Your momma didn’t raise you right? How does Wong know any of these claims? What does Wong mean by ‘normal and acceptable’, and where are both her examples and her counter-examples? On the rhetoric promoted by EDI-related officers and ‘allies’, I’m not to question her. Or if I do, I’m not to press. I’m to accept as true whatever answer she gives.

Proponents of EDI-related discourse hold that someone like me is in no position to tell Wong what constitutes a microaggression. E.g. University of Ottawa president Jacques Frémont claims, 

"members of dominant groups simply have no legitimacy to decide what constitutes a micro-aggression.'"

This claim, as I’ve previously noted, is non-falsifiable. But scholars are being pressured, sometimes mandated, to accede to its truth.

I’ve relegated an analysis of — let’s call it — the Problem of Microaggressions concerning names, and particularly the ‘Two Wongs’ problem, to an Appendix to this series.

Here’s the relegated analysis:

Analysis

Josephine Wong might merely have chosen a poor example of what she takes to be a microaggression with her Two Wongs joke. But I’ll assume her earnestness and proceed with a cursory analysis — as one would expect to occur in a university.

I’ll confine my analysis to the following excerpt: 

 1)“Growing up and right through college, a common joke I heard was ‘two Wongs don’t make a right’ which a lot of people found funny,” Wong recalled. (2)“But these experiences reinforce the idea among kids that (3) some last names are normal and acceptable, but (4) others can be made fun of.”

(See excerpt above) I don’t doubt that Wong has experienced anti-Asian prejudice. And (1) while its possible the Two-Wongs joke was expressed by some with that intent, I doubt many, if not most, iterations of this particular joke were, and are, instances of anti-Asian prejudice. And, (2) which kids are Wong referring to? The kids who are teased, the teasers, both? And what evidence does Wong have for this ‘reinforcement’? Isn’t it true that kids grow out of certain kinds of teasing? Toilet humour is a developmental phenomenon. One way kids outgrow some humour is by testing these limits through play. Hence humour changes as kids grow up. Persistent teasing such as Wong’s pun-type over the years might attest to its benignity, and at the college level its use might indicate flirting. Older men might subsume the Two-Wongs joke as a Dad-joke pun. Puns, word-play, are not culture-specific, nor are they generation-specific. Oyaji Gyagu are Japanese Dad-jokes. One — apparently excluding Wong — might say, puns are the humour of inclusivity. Or, of EDI.

(3) Now Wong is stretching her claim. What does she mean by ‘Normal’? ‘Acceptable’? Are normal names acceptable names? To whom? (4) By normal and acceptable, does Wong mean names that aren’t amenable to being made fun of? Some examples would not go amiss.

I mildly chuckled at ‘two Wongs don’t make a right’. It’s a clever play on words, albeit rather obvious. The similarity of ‘Wong’ to ‘Wrong’ makes it ripe for rhyme-play, and likely quite popular to do so because it is a “clean” joke. As a self-confessed serial punner, I can see the attraction. And I can attest that when the shot is there — puns happen. The joy of punning is how quickly they land on your tongue. While driving through the English countryside, my husband spotted a Manor House. He regrets to this day saying, I wonder what that Manor is called? Of-Speaking, I replied. It’s the Manor Of-Speaking. Five minutes down the road , he pulled over and threatened divorce. Fortunately he stayed with me or he’d have missed the morning I woke up and asked him for the time. Almost seven, he replied. West Virginia, said I.

Sorry, Josephine. You were born with a pun-able name. And pun-loving people will ask, What’s Wong with that?

Even Wongs pun with Wong. Here’s a pun committed by journalist Julia Wong who writes about a Wong Family Convention in Edmonton, hosted by the Wong Benevolent Association:

 "There were so many Wongs, it was right."

Some will say it’s okay for a Wong to make the joke, but not for non-Wong members of the dominant group to do so (I don’t know how blonde European Wongs fare, as my cousin of a similar name). But this judgement is too broad, and too quick. There are always exceptions to be found. Maybe a Wong joke, if made by a cute blue-eyed Sven that either J-Wong wants to flirt with, is deemed not only acceptable but also desirable. And, the so-many-Wongs joke was delivered via Global News media to a very broad audience, most likely mostly-white. Is it acceptable for a British ex-pat to repeat this joke to his coffee buddies at MacDonald’s? Is it acceptable for members of a dominant group to laugh at this joke, to enjoy it? If news audience members don’t find the so-many-Wongs joke funny, is the name Wong thereby unacceptable?

Wong is a familiar name. As is the idiom, Two wrongs don’t make a right. Is ‘familiarity’ a criteria for normality? In Josephine Wong’s Two-Wongs complaint, the joke wouldn’t work unless the name and idiom were both familiar.

Julia Wong (above citation) notes, 

"It’s believed the first Wong came to Canada in the 1800s."

So the Wong family name has been in Canada longer than most Canadian surnames. Is familiarity, cf Josephine Wong (Two-Wongs complaint), a criterion for “normal”? Josephine Wong won’t necessarily be able to use ‘historical longevity’ and ‘historical origin’ as her a criterion for familiarity, because the name might still be obscure. The problem here is that familiarity requires an indexical, familiar to whom? I’m inclined to say ‘familiar’ is not a criterion to determine whether a name is normal or not. Again, normal requires an indexical, normal to whom? And in which contexts? Even if I’d never heard the name Wong before, I could say it sounds like a normal name as compared to bbrrrppppp!!!! just because I have an idea of what a name ought to sound like. Wong sounds like a normal name, bbrrrppppp!!!! doesn’t. The latter could be a name, it just jars my expectations.

Now the frequency of name occurrences could be determinants for the criteria of what makes a name normal. One might say a certain name is considered normal indexed to a certain region. Wongs might have settled in some areas of Canada more than others. But one needs to be careful of equivocating on the word normal, as in the difference between normal as a value judgment and normal as a demographic report. So Wong might draw parameters (a scope) around the area where she wants to evaluate for occurrences of the name Wong, and then find some measure of attitudes toward the name Wong within those boundaries. Wong may be one of the oldest and most common names in the world. Definitely in China. Probably less so in Italy. I wonder if there’s a country with no Wongs? But Josephine Wong seems to be contending with how she feels, which appears parasitic on her belief she is being (mal)treated differently than others in the environments she’s lived.

Here’s where some proponents of EDI will scream that I am gaslighting Josephine Wong, raising self-doubt about her experience of microaggressions. And even of what constitutes a microaggression. These proponents are stupid. I am doing the latter, i.e. raising self-doubt — if not for Wong, then for those who are weighing her claims. And, by my analysis, I am raising some doubts about what constitutes a microaggression. What of it? If one wants to practice crazy-making, convince others they are being gaslit at every turn.

Some iterations of the Two-Wongs joke that concerns Josephine Wong might have been intentionally mean. Others, boys trying to get her attention. Like pulling pig tails. See Toby Keith’s, How Do You Like Me Now? for an example of this misfire. But I suspect if this taunt upset Wong in front of other kids, it’d be a great game to get a rise out of her. My surname was one of the ones in the paragraph after the next, and I found the best response to teasing was to act bored. Actually, it didn’t take long before boredom wasn’t an act. Others might get good at witty comebacks.

It may frustrate Wong for her complaint not to be taken seriously, but that seriousness and frustration can make the joke funnier. Maybe she’ll laugh at herself if she sees why. People who take themselves too seriously can be ridiculous. Especially when delivering a sermon about the unfunniness of “two Wongs don’t make a right.” True, the Two-Wongs joke isn’t that funny. But now it’s funnier. It’s hard to stop giggling when you start giggling at something you’re trying not to giggle at. Especially when sitting with someone in the same boat. Do you recall Charles and Camilla getting the giggles during a 2017 Inuit throat singing performance?

Which last names according to Wong are ‘normal and acceptable’? And to whom? Her own name doesn’t qualify as such to herself? If she means by normal and acceptable Anglo names, as I suspect she does by the “ongoing colonial power” rhetoric, she might try English names such as: Crack (butt), Cox (is your middle name sucks?), Dyck (similar play), Dyke (dike), or Dingle (dingle berries are little pieces of poop stuck to hairs around the anus). If she just means ‘white’, there’s plenty of German names such as Fuchs. And Anglo first (some times, last) names such as Willie, Peter, Ralph (puke violently), Richard (Dick for short), and John (toilet or a client of a prostitute, and so many other applications). And of course we now have Karens, Beckys, and Chads. Then you get riffs on Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. And how about Johnny Cash’s A Boy Named Sue? I wonder how the name Donald is doing in the era of Trump?

Not well, apparently. 

"The name Donald fell to a record low in 2020 during former President Trump’s final year in office, HuffPost reported."

However, 

"This drop in name popularity is not necessarily due to disapproval of Trump as, "It is not uncommon for the name of a president to drop in popularity during their administration, according to HuffPost."

Speaking of Trump. Something he said made the surname of a Canadian man, Lorne Grabher, unacceptable to someone, and then to a judge. I wonder if, in the following case, Grabher suffered a microaggression or is a victim of unconscious bias?

Recall that Josephine Wong said childhood jokes about her name “reinforce the idea among kids that some last names are normal and acceptable, but others can be made fun of.” Let’s consider “normal and acceptable” names.

The word ‘acceptable’ is a value judgment and requires a to- or for- whom, and in which context.

Here’s a Canadian example. Lorne Grabher is an old white (Nova Scotian) male. In EDI-speak, Grabher is a privileged member of the dominant group. ‘Grabher‘, a name of Austrian/Germanic origin, was on his personalised license plate. The plate, 

"which he had for nearly 30 years, was recalled by the province’s Registrar of Motor Vehicles in December 2016 after it received a complaint that the word promoted hatred toward women."

The plate received A complaint, as in a single, complaint.

The complainant felt that Mr. Grabher’s plate was a play on Trump’s “Grab them [her] by the pussy” comment. And so a court held that his 

"family name could be interpreted as promoting sexualized violence against women and girls."

The level of stupidity is staggering here when you consider that this story and hence Grabher’s name has been broadcast in its entirety at least across Canada and the UK. Broadcast to WWAAAAYYY more women than would ever encounter his name than by driving down a Nova Scotia street. One wonders, if Grabher’s name is so dangerous, why not report it as G—–r? But then one would have to refer to Trump’s notorious comment in its entirety to understand the dashes.

Apparently Mr. Grabher isn’t alone in his offensive-name plight in as far as “

[Nova Scotia] currently bans about 3,100 names."

So, over 3,000 names are not acceptable to the government of Nova Scotia. Whether these unacceptable names are also “normal”, as concerns Josephine Wong, I don’t know.

Some countries mandate normal and acceptable names. Denmark has among the strictest naming laws in the world. If the name ‘Wong’ is established to be the butt of jokes there, a Danish-born Josephine Wong may have been given a different surname. In Denmark, it’s not officially acceptable to tease another about her name. And Danish baby-names are normalised by state control.

"In Denmark, you must give your child a gender-specific name (there are unisex names as well) that will not adversely affect them in the future, using only the letters from the Danish alphabet."
"There are currently about 22,000 approved girls’ names, 18,000 approved boys’ names, and 1,000 approved unisex names...If you want to use a name that has not been approved, you can apply to get special permission from the Family Court (since January 2019 it no longer falls under the jurisdiction of the Ankestyrelsen/Board of Appeals)."

The name Peter is on the approved list for Danish boys. But maybe the Danish government has no interest in its future citizens who’ll live abroad. Names given under naming laws don’t travel well. When my youngest son, Jay, was little, he pronounced our friend Jørgen’s name as Urine. Jørgen’s wife peed herself laughing each time Jay earnestly attempted to pronounce it and missed. Jørgen laughed, too. But with mock despair. Vowels can be very difficult to hear and/or replicate for non-native speakers of a language.

Peter (slang for penis) might be banned in Canada if we were to adopt Danish-style law, except that we have many Catholics to whom the name is sacred. I wonder how Muslim immigrants are faring with the naming laws in Denmark? Ought a global compact be made to name all babies from an approved list of universal names? Who would write it? How and who would enforce it? Would name-teasing be controlled by means such as stricter globally-unified education? Would there be no backyard sleepovers? After all, so many childhood transgressions occur in tents.

Denmark is not the only country with naming laws. Iceland and Japan are among them. Naming laws seem most common in fairly homogeneous populations. Probably because they’d fail miserably in multi-cultural countries. From a BBC article: 

"In America, "parents can pretty much name their child anything, says Michael Sherrod, co-author of Bad Baby Names: The Worst True Names Parents Saddled Their Kids With...Getting on to more risque territory, Ima and Wanna are also popular, especially with surnames like Mann, Hoare or Pigg, he says. More offensive names have also been allowed...But why would parents do that to their children? "A lot of parents say they want their kids to be unique. They think it's fun and differentiates their child from everyone else, and gives them a personality," says Sherrod... [parents think] if they don't like it they can change it when they're older.'..Children with unusual names tend to get a lot of abuse at school but then embrace it when they're older, he says."

On Wong’s view, are these parents microaggressing their babies? How about nicknames and pet names for kids? Stinky? As well as friends, family, and co-workers? Peg-Leg Louie (guess why) was a legend in northern BC sawmill camps (as was Deafy Dayton). And Peg-Leg might still be affectionately attached to an amputee athlete who prefers an old-school prosthetic and overcomes that challenge to win marathons. But would this handle stick to a similarly disabled EDI-director? My cousin earned the name Pig Pen (Charlie Brown) from her college flatmates. Today they might embrace her Dirt Positivity. Remember Four-Eyes for kids with glasses? I so wanted to be a Four-Eyes. I thought glasses would make me special. Maybe now I’d want to be whatever is trending on TikTok.

Last Thoughts:

If one gets teased about her name, and the rest of the group teases each other in the same manner — isn’t she being included?

I grant that some name-calling isn’t funny to the target, and some of this behaviour may be actionable. But is there some principled way to determine that criteria? Most often, probably not.