Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

 

Although I did not recognize any microaggressions this week, but I do have a personal experience with microaggression that I shared in my diversity profile that I would like to share with all of you. This was when I first moved to Georgia, and I experienced racism by a neighbor. This neighbor was not settle in any way displaying his dislike toward me and my family. One day he purposely blocked the door way to us entering our front door with a group of his friends and pretending not to see us as we drove up, and got out of our car. When we walked up I had to ask them to excuse us so we could get by. When we got in my son and I look at each other as to say did that actually just happen. However, in dealing with this situation I chose to leave it along understanding that sometimes when you leave things along they have a way of correcting themselves. In doing so, and continually showing respect for my neighbor things really begin to turn around. Although he did not come right out an apologize for his pass behavior, he showed his apologies through doing things for us, such as coming out one day when we had a flat tire, he told me and my son he would fix it because I was a woman and did not need to be fixing a tire. Then on another occasion he and a group of his friends were blocking my entrance to my front door. However, this time when he seen us driving up we could see him directing his friends to move from in front of our door.

 

In looking back on my observational experiences this week I learned that people can be unaware of the things they do and say to others. On the other hand, I believe some people just want to show they are more superior, and have more power by belittling others. I also learned that discriminating, and stereotyping can be shown through a person race, their gender, their size, their abilities or disabilities, just to name a few. Therefore after learning what I learned this week about the different microaggressions, I now realize I have to be more alert, and mindful of the things I say and do around people in order not to offend anyone.

 

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

Ask three people to share their definition of culture

First of all I really enjoyed asking my son, brother-in-law, and my neighbor this question so much that I continued asking other people this same question. However, when asking my son his definition of culture he said, it’s who I am, his race, his background, his principles, and morals. Then I asked my brother-in-law who is from India. He said culture to him is all about morals, beliefs, and respect for yourself and others in his culture. And also holding on to traditions, and family customs. The last person I asked this question for this assignment was my neighbor who is from Germany. She said culture is who you are. It can be a lot of people within your culture group but at the same time separate groups within your culture that do not have the same beliefs as you may have.

 Ask three people to share their definition of diversity

Then I asked, what is diversity? My son said it’s the difference between people’s culture, and people themselves. It could be old or young or tall or short, it’s about being different. My brother-in-law said to keep it simple the definition of diversity is me (brother-in-law), and you (me). I laughed when he said this because it was true. He said for instance our gender or some of our beliefs are different so things like that shows diversity. When asking my neighbor this question she said she thought diversity was just like culture, showing that you are different than someone else.

 Which aspects of culture and diversity that I have studied in this course are included in the answers I received—and what are some examples?

In looking back at their answers to my questions, all their answers to culture and diversity were included in what I am learning in this course. For example, my son said culture is who he is. My brother-in-law said diversity can be gender or having different beliefs than someone else which shows different characteristics of a person. And last my neighbor said she thought culture was diversity, which in a way made some sense to me.

Which aspects have been omitted and what are some examples of such omission?

I believe some of their characteristics where omitted such as; their language, and only my son mention his race. Although two out of the three mentioned beliefs, no one said anything specific about their religion.

In what ways has thinking about other people’s definitions of culture and diversity influenced my own thinking about these topics?

In thinking back on their answers to the definitions of culture, and diversity, it made me think that people in general define culture and diversity as being tied into one category. As a result they do not see pass a person’s ethnic background when thinking about culture or diversity. However I have to say that before this course my way of thinking was somewhat the same.    

 

 

 

My Family Culture

A description of the three items you would choose

If this were to happen I would take our family Bible, picture of my parents, and my little black bag.

 How you would explain to others what each of these items means to you?

First of all I know I would take our family Bible because it represents where I come from and, it has some names, and dates of older family members in it. The picture of my mom and dad means a lot because down the line when other new family members are born into our family, and telling them stories about our childhood they would have a visual picture of their grandparents or great- grandparents to look at or in a way getting to know them without them being there. My final choice would be the little black bag. This bag is import because it has all our birth certificates and other important information just in case something like this should occur.

Your feelings if, upon arrival, you were told that you could only keep one personal item and haveto give up the other two items you brought with you.

This would be very hard to deal with. On the other hand, in thinking which one would benefit my family most I would have to keep our identity information. My choice for letting go of the other two items would be that I know God’s word will always be in my heart, and the picture of my parents will always be in my mind. Therefore considering this important decision I would keep the little black bag because it would be more beneficial to us because it would alleviate the stress of proving who we are.    

Any insights you gained about yourself, your family culture, diversity, and/or cultural difference in general, as a result of this exercise,

What I learned from this exercise is that if something bad were to happen, and we lost everything, I realized that I could always continue my family culture ways without a lot of pictures, and paper information. Therefore, I learned through me, and my family continuing to carry on our family beliefs it will reserve our heritage, and our family values.