Week 4 Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

 

              Micro aggression

Objectives for Week 4

·         Describe at least one example of a microaggression which you detected this week or remember from another time. In what context did the microaggression happen? What did you think and feel when you observed the microaggression or when you found yourself as the target of a microaggression?

·         In what ways did your observation experiences this week affect your perception of the effects of discrimination, prejudice, and/or stereotypes on people.

According to Dr. Sue (2011), microaggressions refer to an unconscious statement or action expressed towards a marginalized group, such as a racial or social discriminatory message that uses offensive racial comment. 

I would like to share an email conversation that sparked my observation this week my daughter shared with me as I observed microaggression.  An overview of the situation.  In two weeks, my daughter will be getting married and the venue employees are assuring the wedding planner and the some to be bride everything is working great.  Well, one of the employees had been out of the loop due to a delay of travel within the past two weeks and she comes back into the picture and addressed my daughter in this way. 

"Again, just what do you need." These are the employee's words. 

My daughter's response was: 

"Good Evening,

I waited to send this email to you as I have been trying to not be overly upset about the correspondence that has been going on. I am not one to continue going back and forth through an email thread when verbal conversations could cease all confusion. But I want to say this and move on. I do not appreciate myself and my wedding planner being questioned and talked to today as if we are a burden or an annoyance to an establishment that I'm spending my hard-earned money to pay for our big day. 

I feel that in the beginning everything was running smoothly, but as of recently the communication has not been what helped me seal my final decision of booking the venue. The not replying back to emails, or the snarky toned responses, and confusion of final pricing almost one week before our wedding day, has not made this process seamless or problem free. 

I asked for an updated invoice as the pricing attached to the payment link was still connected to the remaining balance before our final walk through, where price adjustments had taken place. I'm happy everything was worked out in the end. Moving forward, based on me feeling respected and appreciated in our final walk through and the correspondence of today Michael and I are requesting that Deidre is who we work with from this point leading up to and on our wedding day.  Thank You.

As you will observe: The dominant culture thought she could just speak to my daughter any kind of way because of the color of her skin.  

Then:  I said to my daughter, "In real estate money is green and we paid the same green money everyone else paid and should be treated with respect." I asked her for permission to post this and she agreed.  Also, I updated her on microaggression and shared my class postings. 

Reference:

Laureate Education (Producer). (2011). Microaggressions in everyday life [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu