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