Microaggressions
refer to the brief everyday indignities which are verbal, behavioral or
environmental communicated intentionally or unintentionally, and contain an
insulting message that causes severe psychological distress and harm.
Microaggressions reflect views of inferiority/superiority and
inclusions/exclusions and happen outside the level of awareness of
well-intentioned individuals. Microaggressions happen in the form of
microassault, microinsult, and microinvalidation. Microassault is an overt,
deliberate, hostile act intended to hurt the person on a conscious level,
purposely discriminating against the individual. Microinsult demeans a person's
racial heritage by suggesting they are intellectually inferior in one way or
another. Microinvalidation is the most insidious form of a microaggression
because it invalidates person's experiential reality (Laureate Education,
2011).Microaggressions
happen in every day. I have experienced and witnessed a lot of microaggressions.
An engineer just graduated from his master degree and got a job as engineer rented a room in my home. He and I went to shop at a Wal-Mart store together one day. At the check out of the store, I went the first. He was after me. The cashier asked him shown his ID. He asked me after we walked out of the store: “why did she not requested you ID, do I look like a criminal.” I understood him because he spent less tan $20 on some food and mine was more than his. I answered him “might your credit card company needs that your id approving”. He said “Never at the other store, and show me his credit card. The credit was from Bank of America. I had not more word. This is the example of microinvalidation. How people can look at the person’s appearance and race to assume that person should not own that credit card? He is a very handsome man with whom I have been meeting in our regular fellowship Bible study more than two years. He helps me my English and checks my grammar. Last Eve of Christmas, I invited him to have a lunch for helping me solve an issue that I let a people to use my credit card by over trust in a restaurant as well as a thanks for his helping. We were sitting at a table and waited a long time to get our food on the table. This restaurant were arranged the table by reservation. We had been waiting for a while for our turn to get in our table. That means we should be served when we were arriving to our table. My English is not good enough for me to order my dish and he helped me during the ordering with a waiter. After I had seen that he put his fork on the plate which implied he finished, I started looking around for a waiter. There were not waiters paying attention to us. I put my fork done and waited for a while; still did not see a waiter coming by. Then I started feeling uncomfortable until I saw a waiter was walking close to our table. I immediately called that waiter for the bill. The message I got from that unheeded lunch in a restaurant was that should I eat with people whose race is not same as mine? Is there anything wrong with culture that two persons with different races should not eat together? I do not think this event related to the microaggressions because there were not indignity words from the waiters. However, I did feel uncomfortable with unheeded waiters who were demeaning my race and my identity.
Reference
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Microaggressions in Everyday Life in Perspectives on Diversity and Equity. [DVD].Baltimore , MD
An engineer just graduated from his master degree and got a job as engineer rented a room in my home. He and I went to shop at a Wal-Mart store together one day. At the check out of the store, I went the first. He was after me. The cashier asked him shown his ID. He asked me after we walked out of the store: “why did she not requested you ID, do I look like a criminal.” I understood him because he spent less tan $20 on some food and mine was more than his. I answered him “might your credit card company needs that your id approving”. He said “Never at the other store, and show me his credit card. The credit was from Bank of America. I had not more word. This is the example of microinvalidation. How people can look at the person’s appearance and race to assume that person should not own that credit card? He is a very handsome man with whom I have been meeting in our regular fellowship Bible study more than two years. He helps me my English and checks my grammar. Last Eve of Christmas, I invited him to have a lunch for helping me solve an issue that I let a people to use my credit card by over trust in a restaurant as well as a thanks for his helping. We were sitting at a table and waited a long time to get our food on the table. This restaurant were arranged the table by reservation. We had been waiting for a while for our turn to get in our table. That means we should be served when we were arriving to our table. My English is not good enough for me to order my dish and he helped me during the ordering with a waiter. After I had seen that he put his fork on the plate which implied he finished, I started looking around for a waiter. There were not waiters paying attention to us. I put my fork done and waited for a while; still did not see a waiter coming by. Then I started feeling uncomfortable until I saw a waiter was walking close to our table. I immediately called that waiter for the bill. The message I got from that unheeded lunch in a restaurant was that should I eat with people whose race is not same as mine? Is there anything wrong with culture that two persons with different races should not eat together? I do not think this event related to the microaggressions because there were not indignity words from the waiters. However, I did feel uncomfortable with unheeded waiters who were demeaning my race and my identity.
Reference
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Microaggressions in Everyday Life in Perspectives on Diversity and Equity. [DVD].
Sara,
ReplyDeleteAs I was reading your Blog my heart was breaking because I could feel the pain you must have felt through your writing. My husband is from Venezuela so we are of different ethnic backgrounds and sometimes people give us those types of looks. I think the looks that people give are often more about microinvalidation. Microinvalidation, what I consider to be the most insidious form of a microaggression because it invalidates your experiential reality (Laureate, 2011). The idea that you do not exist is just extremely sad and hurtful. I am so sorry that you have had these types of issues in your daily life.
Jill
Reference
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Microaggressions in Everyday Life in Perspectives on Diversity and Equity. [DVD]. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Thank you for your understanding of microaggression and the event of your day to day live. So many times I am at a store and the cashier will ask for ID just because you are black, because many credit cards are used falsely and this it hard for company to get this money back. I enjoyed reading your blog thank you Katty
ReplyDeleteYour post tugged at my heart. Your experiences are very similar to many I have had as an african american attending college in the mountains near West Virginia. Many times I was completely ignored or was refused service just because I was black. Its hurtful to be at a restaurant and the waitress or waiter wont hand your money to you but, put it down in front of you like they will catch something from touching your hand. Or, similar to you will not come back to check on you during your meal. All I can say is that the more we education and expose others the more people will learn and hopefully be willing to change. Thanks for your post!
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