The Man in the Mirror

This course has been hard for several reasons.  First of all, it was a lot more work than any previous courses.  Once I found my rhythm with the workload, I still found it difficult because it required so much self-reflection.  I learned a lot about myself, as well as those around me.  It is my hope that I continue to look at myself and my own viewpoints on the culture and diversity that surrounds me every day in the classroom.  It is my goal to make those with whom I work take a look at themselves as well.  Thank you so much to all of my classmates – it has truly been an engaging and rich experience to go through this class together. 

I was driving to work this morning, and like usual, I had the radio on.  This song came on, and I could not help but think about this course on culture and diversity.  The message of the song is almost word for word the first core proposition for this course.  On the 4^th anniversary of his death, I would like to leave you all with the words of Michael Jackson:

I'm Starting With The Man In The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways
And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place
Take A Look At Yourself, And Then Make A Change

From Brazil to America

Imagine the following:

You are working in an early childhood setting of your choice—a hospital, a child care center, a social service agency. You receive word that the child of a family who has recently emigrated from a country you know nothing about will join your group soon. You want to prepare yourself to welcome the child and her family. Luckily, you are enrolled in a course about diversity and have learned that in order to support families who have immigrated you need to know more than surface facts about their country of origin.

My new family will be coming from Brazil.  In order to prepare for their arrival, I will do research and learning related to Brazilian culture. 

The first thing I would do to prepare would be to research basic facts about Brazil.

The second thing I would do would be centered around language. I would discover that they speak Portuguese.  I would look deeper into the language and learn a few phrases that would be helpful to the new child, like hello, goodbye, eat/hungry, bathroom/diaper, sleep, and what family members are called. 

The next thing I would do would be to print a large map of the country so that the child or his parents could show me where they are from.  This would also give me an idea about their life (rural or urban). 

I would also look into what religions are common in their area so that I might be prepared for things such as holidays.

One last thing I would do would be to research Brazilian music.  I would look into traditional music like lullabies or children’s songs that would be sung in the home.  It would be my goal to procure a few CDs that might have some of these on them to play in the classroom. 

My goals with these preparations would not be to learn every last detail about Brazil, but to familiarize myself with a few things.  This way, when I do engage with the family, I at least have a foundation for some of the things they might talk about.  Transitioning from one country to another cannot be easy, and it would be my goal to open the doors of communication and create fertile ground for the growth of the child, as well as the growth of the family in America. 

Good Cop, Bad Cop

Being that I am white, middle-class, and Christian, I experienced little in the way of bias or prejudice toward me.  The further into this class I get, the more I realize that this has probably had somewhat of an adverse effect on my views of diversity.  I have always been taught to love all people, and have considered myself open-minded.  These are things I still find myself struggling with.

One memory I have of prejudice I remember VERY clearly from my childhood is actually from the TV show Family Matters.  This show was great about breaking stereotypes and talking about tough issues like racism.  In the episode I remember, Theo got a ticket from a white cop for failure to signal.  He told his father (Carl) that he felt discriminated against because the cop made him get out of the car and lie on the ground – not normal protocol for such a tiny infraction - and Carl did not believe him.  Later in the episode, the truth comes out.  Carl, who is also a cop, later finds the “bad cop” and confronts him.  The clip really says more than I can possibly explain.  Please watch it.

 

I first saw this episode when I was less than 10 years old.  I can remember the way it made me feel, even from that long ago.  I felt ashamed of white people that would act like that.  I also remember promising myself that I would never act like that.  The “Bad Cop” diminished Theo’s sense of equity and was really out of line.  He used his position of power to exercise his racism.  Sadly, I know things like this happen every day, even if I don’t see them. 

 

Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

A microaggression is something that is said by a well-intentioned individual that at its core is offensive.  An example from this week’s resources was of an Asian man who got into a cab.  After having a conversation with his cab driver, the driver complimented the man on how good his English was.  The Asian man said, well, I would hope so, I am from Portland, OR.  While the intentions of the cab driver were good, his compliment was actually implying that this man was not from, nor did he belong in the United States.  He judged that because this man was Asian, he should have an accent because he did not grow up here.  This unintentionally alienated the man.   (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011)

I have to say that finding microaggressions has not been the easiest of tasks.  I am not sure if that is because I have not experienced them, or if it is because I am blind to them.  I would hope that it is the former.  If I think back, I remember a family that was in my classroom some time ago.  The mother was an odd individual that acted as if the world owned her something.  She was very money-centered, and frequently talked about how much the things she had cost.  They eventually moved out of town, and in the process she talked about how expensive their new house was ($500K) and that she really didn’t know if they would be able to afford a maid or not.  Now, as early childhood educators, we know that we don’t make a whole lot of money – heck, the whole world knows that we don’t make a lot of money.  At this point in the conversation, I felt confused as to why she was ranting to someone who makes substantially less than her about not being able to have a maid.  She continued on, talking about how she just doesn’t know how people live without having a maid and how sad that must be to have to come home from work and still have to clean.  I wanted to smack her!  But, I did not.  I felt targeted as less of a person.  But the worse part, was that I don’t think she understood what she was saying or how I might feel.  She wasn’t intentionally bragging about her income, but that was the way it came across. 

This same lady would also talk about how important her job was, as a doctor, again, making me feel as if she thought my job was NOT important.  She also asked me one time to help her with something.  She was trying to get her medical students to understand probability, so she read her explanation to me, and asked if I understood it.  I did.  She then said “good, I figured if I read it to you and you understood it, then my medical students would definitely understand it.”  She was implying that she was way smarter than me, as were her students.  This ticked me off because I am a very smart person.  I was a mostly straight A student in high school, graduated with my bachelors while maintaining a 3.55 GPA, and had just begun my Master’s program.  I am also very mathematically minded, and probably understand things like probability better than most of her students. 

I know my experiences with microaggressions were not centered around race, but felt just as real to me.  Delving deeper into microaggressions this week has taught me a lot.  We need to be more mindful of the things we say to people.  It is in these small comments that we make in passing that we do the most damage.  We alienate and hurt other people by making them feel inferior. 

Reference

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Microaggressions in Everyday Life [Video webcast], Interview with Dr. Derald Wing Sue. Retrieved on May 13, 2013 from https://class.waldenu.edu