Microaggression

“My dog and you have the same name.” Does this sound hurtful? Did I offend you? Yes, you did offend the person and it is called microaggression. Microaggressions are hurtful statements that can inflict insult. Microaggression is an everyday action that people do without knowing it. However, sometimes comments people say do not seem like microaggression and they do not sound offensive, but they may be insulting to the person. How does an individual deal with microaggression? Microaggression is difficult to deal with depending on how you react to the statement/insult. An individual can respond to microaggression in different forms. One can respond by counting backwards from ten or ignore the comment/ insult.

Kottak, Conrad Phillip and Kayhryn Kozaitis 2012 On Being Different, Diversity and Multiculturalism in the North American Mainstream, 4th edition, McGraw Hill Press, New York: Chapter 8. (textbook)

The Author Marable defines “multiculturalism” as “the recognition that our nation’s cultural heritage that does not begin and end with the intellectual and aesthetic products of Western Europe, rather multiculturalism rejects the model of cultural assimilation and social conformity.” However, Multiculturalism is often been misinterpreted, Marable according to him said that, the “melting pot” never existed.

Justin Simien once said, "Unfortunately 'post racism ' is also a myth, like unicorns and black people who survives to the end of horror movies." In other words post racism doesn't exist when white people and those of privilege can sit on the backs of hard working Americans especially of color. Where microaggressions such as micro-insult and microinvalidation still occurs at extreme rates especially in educational settings. Young children of color are exposed to high rates of microinvalidation without seeing any forms of it slowing down or stopping. Whether their teacher doesn't think they are smart enough or kids picking at the child because the color of their skin or accent. Students who have never dealt with the "other" tend to pick up their prejudice behavior from their parents and teachers surrounding them, creating a cycle for each generation. Microaggressions has unfortunately shaped my everyday life through the systemic educational system that reinforces white privilege, as well as, male dominance.

Psychiatrist Chester Pierce, MD in the 1970’s was the first to create the term microaggressions (Sue, 2010). While Dr. Pierce was the first to coin the term, he was not technically the first to start it. In fact, the idea of microaggressions was also introduced in the specific work of Jack Dovidio, PHD (Yale University) and Samuel Gaertner PHD (University of Delaware) when formulating aversive racism (Sue, 2010). Aversive Racism is defined as the following: “Many well-intentioned Whites consciously believe in and profess equality, but unconsciously act in a racist manner, particularly in ambiguous situation” (Sue, 2010). Similarly, microaggressions is defined as:

Derald Wing Sue, a professor of counseling psychology at Colombia University and the leading expert on microaggression, defines microaggression as “the everyday slide snobs… disrespect and insults that people of color are subjective to.” These can range from an individual’s comments (such as “Where are you from? or “I think the most qualified will get the job.”) to who is present on a committee board. Many are calling it the modern version of racism because of its impacts on those in the minority. However, it is important to note that microaggressions do not only deal with race; it can affect any minority, whether the difference is gender, sexuality, or

Soul Searching for Tomorrow Mexicans are like roaches when it comes to renting you see two go in and then you see twelve come out. Black people comes from monkeys I bet that they have a tail also. Chinese’s can’t drive I wish that they would stay off the road. These are some of the racist remarks and common phrases used about people who are different, also when there is failure to except people or their culture.

A microaggression is a behavioral insult being intentional or not, that is focused at people of color, who aren’t white. For example, of settler colonialism this would be saying, “So…you’re Chinese, right?” or “Can you see as much as white

After readings the microaggressions article it brought back some strange, awkward, and offensive memories to mind from my own personal experience. I thought that this article was great because some people use microaggressions without knowing that they are being used. Sometimes what they believe as being friendly or giving a compliment could be offensive. I had received microaggressions before like “ you are not really black” or “you are not really African.” Additionally, people assume that I cannot speak english when I enter stores and seemed shocked when they can understand what I am saying.

A most concrete example I seen was during the noun and verb practice. After the group sentence construction, the teacher did an exercise where the teacher asks the students where certain words were on the board. The first word was “is” the teacher asked the Latino student to look for the word quickly. When the student got up, the teacher said in a passively aggressive tone “or slowly”. Given that this student is of Latin heritage, it is a common stereotype that Latinos are often deemed to be lazy, or work rather slow. He did try to cover the statement by saying “fast or slowly, either one”, which could be a possible way of him trying to accommodate the student for not as moving as fast as Mr. Greg wanted him to. Regardless, these two microaggressions

microaggressions based on gender. In addition, Ornamental was a science major, and noted that she did not feel connected to the predominantly male faculty in her department. Second, it is possible that some majors are more likely to discuss racially charged subject matter. For instance, Kareema (Social Work major) and Palm Tree (Criminal Justice major), shared that they have heard painful comments about Latina/os in their class discussions. Thus, it is possible that some majors are more likely to discuss issues related to race and ethnicity, and it is possible that insensitive or unintentional comments could be made. Another possibility is that some majors are more likely to openly discuss support for racial and ethnic diversity. For instance,

Because of the trends in cross-cultural differences brought about by these two dimensions, Feitosa et al. (2012) presented five propositions that predict how individuals would differ in the structure of their social identities based on their culture’s characteristics as defined by the previous dimensions. These predictions are discussed below individually, with the original propositions examined through how further research has supported or challenged them.

Culture surrounds us every day, it is in our arts, ourselves, our community and our careers. Everybody has multiple cultural elements that help create the personality of that person along with helping us identify similarities within a community that we individually reach out to be a part of. Casey, my interviewee, is a junior at Washington University of Saint Louis undergoing a Neuroscience major along with minors in music, linguistics, and French. She identifies herself as a Democratic, Christian, Caucasian. These are the three most stereotypical culture identities that most people are aware of and refer to themselves as. She also considers herself a multilingual, vegan, and bisexual. These identities too, are looked upon by other people in which they would like to express and follow in their everyday practices.

The traditional or reductionist view of culture is essentially an oversimplified way to categorize people with a shared history. Gutiérrez refers to this use of the world culture as a “blanket term” because it allows people from a particular background to be considered in a homogenous manner. This way of considering culture can ultimately do more harm than good because it leads to stereotyping. Jabari Mahiri explains that “Stereotypes associated with identity contingencies can forcefully and problematically shape people’s identities and development” (33). A primary example of this phenomena,

There are numerous aspects of my life that have influenced my cultural identity and how I perceive/conduct myself. When asked my ethnicity I distinguish as a New Zealander. I feel being a ‘New Zealander’ allows me to incorporate all of my ethnicities under one metaphorical concept, of what being a New Zealander means. Even though, I have several ethnicities I can directly identify with, I consider this too restrictive in association with my cultural identity; not giving my heritage the credit it warrants. This is supported by Baldwin & Linsley’s (1994) theory, stipulating that “we do not advocate a singular definition of culture because any one definition is too restrictive” (p. 86). Because of the wide range of hybridity in New Zealand’s culture, it is difficult to distinguish the true identity of what an exact New Zealander is, and what ideologies connect with its characteristics.