Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

            The topic of microaggressive awareness this week has opened my eyes to the everyday accounts of bias which present itself in unconscious ways. By learning about microaggressions this week and learning more about how to identify them within society, I was shocked at how quickly I witnessed a racial microaggressive behavior within my workplace. At my charter school, we have a black male who has recently decided to leave his current position as our after-school program facilitator. Many families were upset to see him go and to venture out to a new career opportunity. When asked where he would be going for his new job by a female parent, he stated he was going to go on vacation to Africa for a week, then begin his new career out of state. After stating he was going to Africa, the woman instantly began telling him how happy she thought he would be to return back to African to visit relatives and to go back to his ‘roots.’ She continued on with the conversation telling him she bet he went back often and enjoys reuniting with some authentic African foods which he cannot get in America since they “clearly would not be as good as what you receive back in Africa. Perhaps your family will cook you a home-cooked meal.” The whole time my former coworker just stared at the woman as she was talking with him, unable to get a word in on the conversation. When she was finally done he stated, “Actually, I am just going on vacation. I am from the Twin Cities originally, and so is my family. I do not know anyone in Africa. My friends and I decided to go there for a spring break trip.” The parent who initiated the conversation turned beat red and apologized for assuming he was going to see his family and ‘return home.’ While the woman did not intend to insult my fellow coworker, her unconscious perception about all black individuals being from Africa caused her to display a racial microaggressive behavior. In her mind she clearly had not considered the possibility of America being a country diverse enough to have native-born individuals whom did not have the same race as her, leading to my former coworker being the target of this racial, microaggressive behavior (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011).

            As a friend and former colleague, observing this situation was heartbreaking to me. As soon as the woman had left I walked up to my former coworker and he knew I was coming up to him due to the conversation I had just overheard. Without me even having time to comment, my coworker promptly stated, “Yep, I know what you are going to say. Some people are naïve. It isn’t the first time I have heard that, nor will it probably be the last.” After speaking with him a bit more I knew his words had a lot of pain behind them. My coworker takes pride in who he is, yet for someone to be so quick to judge him made me feel very sympathetic for him, yet angry at the amount of growth our society has yet to do when it comes to diversity education. My perception has greatly been sparked by how quickly I identified an instance of stereotyping within the first several hours of my observations. Now that I am more attentive to my everyday interactions with individuals, I have seen much more prejudice, discrimination and stereotyping then what I assumed our society had. While I feel like as a whole our society has come so far in terms of acceptance, we still have so far to go in order to become a more understanding and inclusive society where all individuals feel as if they can truly embrace who they are without hesitation.

Reference

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2011). EDUC 6164 Course Media.

Microaggressions in Everyday Life.  Baltimore, MD. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_4732505_1%26url%3D.