Microaggression

     Learning about microaggression and its compound effect on targets of it has made me ashamed of myself and the countless times I have been the person unintentionally causing discomfort to people I have been in contact with. I want to really learn to be able to distinguish between proper compliments and how they are worded and comments that constitute microaggression.

     My evening co-teacher is a beautiful black woman. She changes her hair regularly, sometimes wearing wigs, sometimes putting in extensions, sometimes doing her natural hair in creative ways. I found out black hair doesn't get washed too often. I am always telling her I wish I had her hair, which is listed as one of  "nine things everyone needs to stop saying to black women immediately"(Turner, 2014) because my options are: down, or ponytail. I can't skip two days washing, conditioning, and
blow drying, or my head would look like a greasy mess. But I feel I am being honest; I admire the versatility, and the apparent easy-care.

     I have also joked with a gay co-worker about his (assumed) sense of style, but it always seemed encouraged by him. Now I am wondering if my comments were first, or after his poking fun at himself.

 I would like to present a scenario to my colleagues for your opinion:

     I am a white, middle class, 50+ woman. I happen to listen to a lot of rap, among other types of music, probably because my 18 year old fills my playlist for me. While passing a table of co-workers chatting among themselves, all young, single people, the man at the table made a reference to an older song (I don't know the title) about wobble, baby, wobble, baby and I sang the verse and did a little dance. They all were shocked, laughed and made comments about my knowledge of the song words and hurting myself moving like that at my age.

     Should I have been offended? I did feel a little weird and thought maybe I should have kept to myself. Can members of the dominant culture be targets of micro aggression? I shudder at how many remarks I have made to my daughter's boyfriend about his whiteness, all in fun, but I'm sure he's tired of it. He said he was nicknamed sunscreen boy in college.

Reference:

Turner, E. (2014). Nine things everyone needs to stop saying to black women.  http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/10/9-things-stop-saying-black-women/
     

For my class assignment, I needed to ask three people their idea of what culture and diversity were. I asked a 25 year old white, middle class woman with a high school education, a black 23 year old with a college degree in sociology, and a 12 year old mixed race girl from a middle class family.

     The 25 year old white woman responded with the typical short answer regarding racial differences and being accepting of them. It opened up an interesting conversation, because of course I had to relay what I am learning. She said she did not think she had a culture, because to her that meant something which is actually diversity. Being like "most people" to her meant she was not different. She enjoyed discovering that she had some unique qualities, giving her culture!

     The black 23 year old college graduate knew exactly what I was asking and gave me a detailed description of her ethnicity, her heritage, and her culture (including the surface culture and deep culture!). Her definition of diversity was "varying characteristics people in a common interest group possess."

     I asked the older sister of one of my students what she thought of culture and diversity. She said that culture was how a person lives, and diversity was people being together who are different from each other.

     I felt the woman who was like me thought like I did at the beginning of this course--that because we are part of the main stream, and don't have any family traditions, that we did not have culture.
With the exception of my college graduate friend, only race was thought of when describing culture and diversity. Most people, if not properly educated, do not think of housing situations, parenting techniques, health care, work, religion, gender roles, or any of the multitude of deep culture characteristics. All these contribute to a person's identity, and their actions and reactions in social situations.

     I enjoy opening up my eyes to deeper meanings for people I don't know, and also enjoy telling others about it. It will help me to provide better educational opportunities for all the children and families I serve.

    

My blog assignment this week required more thought than any other. I needed to select three items that are important to me that I can take with me if I were to be relocated to a foreign country. I read the assignment on Sunday and the puzzle has been with me everyday, all day, all week. Is it pathetic that I have no such items? Nothing that represents my heritage, my culture, my beliefs? I have no family heirlooms, no recipe books, no special Bible or even photo albums. I do have boxes and boxes of recent family photos and vhs tapes that I treasure, but those would not be practical to take with me.
     I suppose my phone, which holds all my contacts, thousands of pictures, access to internet, maps, language translations, and currency conversions, would be the most valuable as well as practical for me to take. I also have a small Swiss army knife, given to me by my daughter, which means a lot and is also practical.
     My family has many works of art that were created by my grandfather and his brother. These are huge sculptures and paintings that are no smaller than 5'x10'. Most of them are in Italy, but my parents have a few paintings. I have photos of these items--on my phone.
I could not even come up with a third item. So, if I was told upon arrival in my new country that I could only have one thing, it would be my phone. As long as I had my family (which had better include my dog Sasha!) everything else is just stuff.
     From reading about the cultures that do exist in other families, and traditions they have enjoyed, I do feel a bit left out. But, my current family life is so fulfilling that I wouldn't dare complain.

     I do want to talk about my trip to Chicago this weekend. My husband and I had to find our way off the plane to the correct train, figure out how to buy a ticket from the machine, catch a bus going in the right direction, figure out how to pay that fare, determine which stop to get off and which direction to walk to find my daughter's new apartment. With all this discussion and the readings on my mind, I was gaining a slight perspective of what it would be like to find your way around in a completely new place, and you couldn't speak the language to ask for help. I have to give immigrants a lot of credit to be brave enough (or desperate enough) to attempt this.