Practising Awareness of Microaggressions

Awareness of microaggressions

         Microaggressions are a new terminology to me. From my understanding of the course readings and listening to Dr Sue, who appears to be the expert on everyday life microaggressions, I see that this expression cuts across all social identities including race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, socio‐economic class, and other important social dimensions. Many people including myself use words and expressions that represent aggressions without being aware of it and its effect on the recipients’ of such microaggression.

    I can recall many examples of my relationship with people that I call names based on their ethnicity. To me it is a joke, and before this time, I was not thinking that they took it seriously, but now, I am of the opinion that they must have been struggling with the name calling. I really feel they must be hurting emotionally.

This week, a parent had an issue with the language her son uses at home and she came into school to complain and asked to see the head teacher. She was obviously angry and not satisfied with the behavior of her son and so was saying a lot of things. She finally looked at the teacher and asked her to investigate among the staff because she has been told that the form teacher is from a particular race that uses foul language.

I really felt bad. The hidden message in what she was saying was that the son might have picked the bad language from the teacher whose ethnic background is not good.

I am excited about this course because for me it is a great eye opener. I have learnt the effect that having biases, stereotypes and prejudice may have on people and their behavior and how they respond to particular groups of people. Biases cover the ability to be objective and view issues from the right perspective. I have learnt that individuals don’t always reflect the group characteristic or behavior that we think we know, so it is better not to prejudge people. We should deal with individuals and not group. We must exercise caution as we meet people and deal with situations; we never know who we are hurting.

Perspectives of Diversity and Culture

PERSPECTIVES OF DIVERSITY AND CULTURE.

I was able to talk with three different people:-

1.      My neighbor who is from another ethnic group. He said culture is the belief and ways of life of a particular set of people. It is their active lifestyle, whether they are aware of it or not, but it is their response to issues like marriage, burials, parenting styles etc and it shows in their food, housing, education and general look at life.

2.         I spoke to a senior friend who belongs to a dominant culture. 

She expressed culture to mean the way different people do their things, like where they live, the food they eat, their attitudes to children, old people and how they generally conduct their lives. She feels diversity is being different from one another. She gave example of the world being diverse in the sense that there are different peoples all over the world like the black, the white, the British, the French and the Black Americans.

3.      A family in the school program. He expressed that culture is the deep beliefs of people which shows up in their behaviour and responses to everything else around them. Culture is established through many years of relationship and practice that you grow up with. They looked at diversity as the difference that makes the world sweet. Imagine the world with only Josephs, and no Josephines. It will be a boring world.

I find that many people know little about culture until they are asked to say something about it. Culture is still being looked at from the surface level. The deep things like language, emotional issues, community relations and genealogy are rarely seen as part of culture.

In reviewing what we have learned so far in this course one of the main things that others mentioned in their definitions that was similar to what I have learnt is the fact that culture is a set of beliefs and a lifestyle of people and that culture can be defined through a set of acceptable behaviors within a group. 

For diversity, the similarity is in the fact that diversity is seen as a variety of different groups of people.

I think some of the things that we have learned that were omitted and possibly not considered were things such as the ways in which these acceptable behaviors allow us to perceive the world and others as unique individual, who can contribute positively to the world. 

Culture is how we behave; based on the experiences we have grown up with and can be transferred. My own definitions of culture and diversity were expanded because as I engaged with people for this discussion and my understanding from this course, I saw how deep culture is and how shallow many people think about what culture is. It is important to know that we all view culture differently and must be prepared to respect the views and opinions of others.

My Family Culture..

My Family Diversity and Culture.

Imagine the following:

"A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture."

      This is a very serious matter. It took me days to think about and imagined what those important things would be. I even tried to ask my husband and I can tell you, we discovered that there are many things we cherished about our culture and unfortunately, many of those things cannot be transported with us.

 In all, I think there are some things that I cherish, and will like to keep the memories forever or for as long as I can.

1.          1.   I will keep the family pictures, both immediate and extended families with some notes. The family pictures explain my lineage and my family tree. These are my loved ones that I cannot forget no matter the pressures of life.

2.           2. I will take along some C.D tapes, both audio and video that contains songs and folktales of our origins. My culture has so many songs in traditional languages that tell the story of our fore fathers which will serve as good reminder of my origin and native land.

3.            3. Some spices and food seasonings that is native to my traditional cooking and taste.

If I have to give out two items and keep one, then I have to keep my family pictures. They are my life and a connection to my origin. They represent my identity. Other items are replaceable. By this, I mean, I can acquire taste of food in my new location, so I can release the seasonings.

I can give away the songs and other materials also because it will benefit and educate my host in the new country and give them the benefit of enjoying other peoples’ culture in its original form.

I found this exercise to be very helpful, even though not easy. It afforded me the opportunity to think, understand and value my culture well in terms of what I know and have kept in my heart. Culture is important, it distinguishes one person from another. Actually, it is the entire life, beliefs and ways of doing things that has been established  over time.It is growing and needs to be kept it in good perspective.