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5 posts tagged discussion

some definitions from psychology… discuss!

esprit-follet:

Microassaults: Conscious and intentional actions or slurs, such as using racial epithets, displaying swastikas or deliberately serving a white person before a person of color in a restaurant.

Microinsults: Verbal and nonverbal communications that subtly convey rudeness and insensitivity and demean a person’s racial heritage or identity. An example is an employee who asks a colleague of color how she got her job, implying she may have landed it through an affirmative action or quota system.

Microinvalidations: Communications that subtly exclude, negate or nullify the thoughts, feelings or experiential reality of a person of color. For instance, white people often ask Asian-Americans where they were born, conveying the message that they are perpetual foreigners in their own land.

via racismfreeontario & apa.org

(via fascinasians-blog)

Discussion: (RE)DEFINING MICROAGGRESSIONS

While we’ve defined “microaggressions” in our About and FAQ, it’s sometimes difficult to categorize every submission we receive. We sometimes slip up on our own definitions and work constantly to improve our editing.

We’ve posted a wide range of submissions, about different identities and situations, and are often met with support and critique. We want to open up this discussion thread to hear what you have to say about defining “microaggression”.

What does a “microaggression” mean to you? Does this blog’s definition leave something out? Is it too broad? Is it relevant for those who belong to privileged identities? Can I submit a microaggression if I don’t identify with the identity being addressed? (Also addressed here.)

Discussion | An email we received from a reader:

I feel very confused when I see submissions about a white person having a preference for only another white person when it comes to dating. I’m not sure how or why this is microaggressive.

I saw comments that suggest that white persons should seek out(?) persons of colour in their circle of friends, and that it would expand their dating preferences. But then I think that it would also end up on microaggressions for actively pursuing someone because of their skin colour. I believe then that it gets labeled as “fetishizing” that person…

This seems like a no-win situation. It seems to me like a person, especially a white person, is not supposed to have a preference for skin colour. I don’t agree with this. I think that anyone is allowed to have their preferences when it comes to dating.

Is there something that I’m not seeing here?

Please discuss in the comments!

Discussion topic

A question we received:

Can I (a white, non-Muslim person) submit a microaggression relating to the Islamophobia that is present at my predominantly white, Catholic/Protestant school?

The response off the tops of our heads…

This is a great and really thoughtful question. While we are not any “authority” about microaggressions, for our blog and from what we’ve read, it would not be posted as a microaggression. The idea is that microaggressions are extremely frustrating, violating little walls that people face in their everyday lives due to one or multiple identities they have.  The original idea for the project was to document this visually so that when for example person of color is explaining to a white person who does not share the “oppressed” identity, they could show this website and see a whole conglomeration of these commonplace, daily slights they have to face. While you clearly are conscious and recognize the Islamophobic microaggression, the project is about providing a voice for people who have to experience it. 
That being said, often times our submissions do not include all of the context or clarify the identity of the submitter, so we don’t know - but we’ll usually give it the benefit of the doubt & post it if it resonates with us. lastly, I would love for this to be a wider discussion for the microaggressions community - this is a question we get very often.

What do you think?

Question we received in response to this post:

What suggestions do you guys have for dealing with this ‘ignorance’? It upsets me, bothers me, yet people continually respond with “It’s okay, my best friend is gay.” “It’s okay, my niece is retarded.” “It’s okay, my brother-in-law is black.” “It’s okay, I’ve been to a dim sum restaurant before.”

More so, what’s the best way to deal with the frustration that these people cause? I sometimes lose focus on where the patience comes from and want to lash out. Only stopping to remind myself that’ll often make it worse.

Please feel free to discuss in the comments section of the post!

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