Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

 

Purposeful, unintentional, implied, or blatant microagressionism can be hurtful to the victim of those thoughts and words. Personally I have experienced multiple situations of microagression, however most of them I do feel the insult was unintended and seen as a friendly “joke”.

My Experience

Growing up and even into adulthood I have experienced racial microagression. It started to feel like regardless of where I went, who I was with, no matter how hard I tried to fit in with my peers I got the same burning question asked…” What are you?” I am put aback by this rude question every time I am faced with it. “What are you?” What exactly are they asking me, do they mean who am I, all these feelings run through my mind, yet I end with the same result… just let it go Frances, they don’t mean it in a rude or mean way. Coming from a mixed culture and being a Mixed-American, I was never black enough, white enough, or even Native American enough to truly be accepted by either of the groups. Now, however, I began to realize the questions were paired with comments such as, “your hair is so pretty, your skin tone is beautiful, I wish I looked like you,” but my listening normally stopped right after they asked that dreaded question, “What are you?” I have opened my heart, mind, and ears to understanding the people are asking questions to get to know me better and see if they can relate more to me as a person, they are not asking to hurt my feelings or make me feel like I am a “What” rather than a “who”.

 I being from southern Louisiana and from a predominately white demographic area, I have experienced out right racism, while also experiencing microagression. After learning about microagression I am now able to understand more clearly that some statements or words do not have to be meant or intended to hurt or be rude. I can now relax a little and listen to the rest of the conversation before shutting down and getting offended.