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.