For example, the emergence of “the blogosphere” in the early aughts––something I participated in to some extent–– was rife with examples of conservative, progressive, and libertarian bloggers calling attention to minor slights against their respective ideological groups by mainstream media outlets. In “Fisking” the MSM, the aggrieved seized on these slights, often exaggerating them in the process; tried to garner the support of third parties (an ombudsman, the public at large); cast themselves as victims of unfair treatment; and demonized adversaries.

They did so in hopes of making the case that the small slight that they’d seized upon was actually evidence of a larger, significant injustice to a whole class of people.

In the mid-aughts, when I covered immigration politics and policy, many restrictionists that I interviewed—many of them working class whites in the Inland Empire—would say that they resented “having to dial one for English” on automated phone lines, or having to hear Spanish spoken while in line at the grocery store. They, too, were emphasizing small slights in hopes of casting themselves as victims while appealing to third parties, like politicians they were lobbying.

A little bit farther afield is a Hispanic homeowner I once encountered who lived across the street from a high school. Sometimes she would call the police on black or Hispanic students who were standing on a nearby corner after school, arguing that they were loitering and that their loud conversation and laughter bothered her. If “dignity culture” is characterized by a reticence to involve third parties in minor disputes, an argument could be made that many black and brown people are denied its benefits. In a city like New York during the stop-and-frisk era, minorities were stopped by police because other people in their community, aggrieved by minor quality-of-life issues like loitering or sitting on stoops or squeegee men, successfully appealed to third-parties to intervene by arguing that what may seem like small annoyances were actually burdensome and victimizing when aggregated.