Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

The memory of microaggression that I will share towards myself comes in the form of a microinsult. Growing up and as an adult I have been told several times that I do not “sound black” when I am speak. I take offense to this. Being told that I do not “sound black” implies that black people only hold conversations full of grammatical errors and use slang and vulgarities. I make sure that I let everyone who implies or makes this silly statement towards me that I take offense and that they are insulting me and stereotyping me.

The information that I have obtained this week on microaggression, discrimination, prejudice and stereotypes will help me as I move forward in my career and as I raise my children because I am now more aware and will watch what I say. I recently attended a meeting where another director was telling a story about how her 5 year old daughter was telling her she did not have anyone to play with on the playground at school because she “didn't speak Dora.” The director laughed about it and then ended the story with “but she is not prejudice or anything.”  When people feel they need to tell me that they are "not prejudice" I usually think that they are. Children must be taught at an early age that there are people around them who speak languages other than English and that the language that the children were speaking was Spanish and not Dora. We cannot take these teachable moments for granted and laugh them off we must use these moments to help prevent these children from eventually growing up to use microaggressions and offending people in the future.

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

I completed this assignment while visiting friends for the weekend so I posed these questions to them along with my husband. The cultural differences included gender and age. They collectively came up with the definitions for culture and diversity. Culture was defined as a person knowing where they have come from, their roots, traditions and being able to pass that onto the next generation. Diversity was defined as being exposed to and being able to adjust to your environment including how your react when you are around people who of a different tradition or culture than your own.

Based upon the answers that I received I believe the answers did reflect some of what we have studied in this course. I think that the answers that were given were generalized statements that I believe the majority of people would provide if posed the same question. Unless you have been involved with taking a course on cultural diversity most people do not think deeper or past the obvious. I am guilty of the same but am glad that I have enrolled in this course and am looking forward to the next few weeks and the things that I will learn. As a result of this exercise I think that there should be more discussion or training on this topic beginning at the high school or middle school level in order to raise awareness and possibly prevent some of the events related to lack of cultural awareness that we are hearing of in the news these days. 

My Family Culture

If I had to relocate to a new country due to the scenario in this week’s assignment I would take a photo album/scrapbook, bible and cookbook. The scrapbook would allow me to have photos and memories of my family and friends. The bible will allow me continue to study and practice my religion. My cookbook would allow me to continue to cook and pass down traditional foods to my children and others that I come in contact with in my new country.  

If I found out upon arrival that I had to leave two of the items behind I would leave the cookbook and bible because I can rely on my prior knowledge to get me through cooking and God is always with me and I can practice my religion without having to have the bible on hand.

Insight that I have gained this week is that I hadn't thought about what I would truly do or take if I had to leave my home country and live somewhere new due to a catastrophe. I have seen it many times on the news and have close friends who had to relocate as a result of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana but I don’t think it really sank in as to what they went though until I put myself in that place this week. I will never take not having to do this (sudden relocation) for granted again.