Microaggressions
     Learning about Microaggressions this week has helped me to see that I have been doing this my entire life.  I do get into a cab and wonder where the driver is from, simply because he make look different or talk differently than I do.  I never even consider that the driver's family could possibly have been in the United States longer than my family.  I just automatically assume that the driver is from another country.  Listening to the speaker on the video this week made me realize how frustrating and offensive this would be.  Especially when you have to hear it over and over again from people with white skin and who speak English without any type of accent.  I would hate people looking at me and assuming that I don't belong in this country or that I am from another country, based purely on what they see.
   

 

 

 

 

I also think that I face microaggression, maybe in a reverse form.  I work in a position that is very white collar.  Most of the people that I meet with have come from well to do families and have degrees earned from fancy colleges.  Most of them have never known need.  We serve families that are in extreme poverty and face all of the hardships that are associated with spending generations in the cycle of poverty.  Unlike many of the people that we work with, there are a few of us that grew up in poverty.  We know some of the challenges faced by our families because we have faced them ourselves.  There are a few of us that know what it is like to be hungry and to be sick and in pain and not be able to afford to go to the doctor.  There are a few of us that earned our degrees by working two or three jobs while taking classes.  However, many of the upper management and administrative workers that I work with have never known what these things are like.  Everything that they know about poverty, they have learned in text books.  This causes them to lump everyone in poverty into a single category.  The believe that every one of our families have the same exact life, that is demonstrative of every stereotype associated with those in poverty.  Not only does this cause constant microaggressions at meetings when they refer to "these people", but also when they follow that up with a generalization that is just a stereotype of people in poverty.

While this is offensive and is an example of microaggressions, it is even more offensive that they assume that all of us in these meetings have come from the more affluent type of society that they have.  This is where I say that it is almost a reverse example of microaggressions.  These upper level management and administrator people are always trying to help us understand how "these people" live and how hard "these people" have it.  They assume when they look at me (an intelligent, white, educated woman in a business suit) that I have never experienced poverty.  They lecture about how we need to realize just what "these people" go through.  It is offensive to me that they assume that I don't know.  It is offensive to me that they feel like they can explain something to me that I have experienced since birth and they have never known anything other than having all of their needs met.  I may not be considered as a marginalized group (as a white, middle class, business woman) yet they are looking at me and assuming just by what they see that they know how I feel and what I think and believe.  I feel like this is a microaggression (even if a bit in reverse).

 

     I talked to two co-workers and also a homosexual friend about how they would define culture and diversity.  Although all three are different ethnicities and from different walks of life, they still had very similar answers.
     They defined culture as a person's ethnicity and their traditions, such as the foods they eat, clothes they wear, languages they speak, music they listen to, etc.  They all talked about diversity as all of these different cultures living together and accepting of each other's differences.
     In talking with each of these people, I realize that they are spitting out what they have been hearing in the last few years about culture and diversity.  They were giving the standard textbook, politically correct answers that we have all been taught over the past few years to say in order to be able to claim that we celebrate diversity and are multicultural competent people.  They are aware of the surface aspects only.  I was the same way before starting this course.  I realize that most people think that they show multicultural competence and that they promote diversity, but they are still above the surface.  I think that this course has taught me to examine more than just the culture that we can see with our eyes.  I have learned that there is so much to a person's culture that we would never even know about without getting to know that person.  I now realize that culture is so complex and makes a person who they are.  I think that all of the people that I talked to last week about culture and diversity are still on the surface.  They haven't been challenged to examine their own culture and haven't been enlightened to the fact that culture runs so much deeper than a persons color, language, etc.

My Big Fork and Spoon, My Recipe Binder, and a Memory Card of Pictures
  
     I think that many of us think often about things like this.  For me, it is if my house were to catch fire and burn to the ground.  What would I try to take?  I always tell myself that I would grab every picture off of the wall along my way out of the door and grab every picture album that I could get my hands on.  Even if I couldn't, my mom and others have pictures that I could always make copies of.  So, I have always just decided that I would just want my husband and kids out safe with me.  Everything else could burn to the ground.
     When considering if I were to become a refugee, displaced to a new country, my thoughts were exactly the same... I just wanted my husband and kids.  As long as I had that, then I could care less about any object.  I discussed this scenario with my teenage son, to see what objects he thought we should take that represent our family culture.  He said our tea pan!  It was so funny to me that this was the first thing that came to his mind.  We have an old, battered sauce pan that we use only to cook tea on the stove.  When my husband and I first got married, I didn't want to ruin any of my new pans by cooking tea in them.  My mom gave me her old tea pan, that had also been my grandmother's tea pan.  It is just a cheap, old pan.  It means nothing to me and I would never take it anywhere with me.  Yet it was the first thing that came to his mind.  The next thing that he chose would also be something that I would choose.  He brought up the big fork and spoon.
     The big fork and spoon have hung in my kitchen for many, many years and they have a funny story behind them.  It is a long story, but I will shorten it.  My husband and I loved watching Everybody Loves Raymond.  In one of our most favorite episodes, Frank and Marie had a huge fight over a large wooden fork and spoon that had hung in their kitchen for years.  We LOVED this episode.  Many years later, my husband's grandmother passed away and we had the task of clearing out her house.  We were the first humans up in her attic in 30 years or more.  It was dark, dirty, and scary!  In a corner of this attic, buried under a lifetime of clutter, we found this large, wooden fork and spoon.  It has been in our kitchen ever since.  It is an inside joke for my husband and I.  Most people see it hanging in our kitchen and probably question our sense of style.  It is special to my husband and I, though and will probably be with us until our dying day.
     The other thing that I would take would be a memory card with every single picture that I could fit on it.  I would be sad if I lost all of my pictures and the memories and feelings that looking at old pictures can evoke.  I sometimes forget what my children looked like when they were babies.  I sometimes forget funny ways that they pronounced words.  I forget little funny things that they did.  Looking at old pictures reminds me of these things and brings a special feeling, both sweet and bittersweet.  I would hate to forever loose those memories and feeling.  That is why I would want a memory card with all of my pictures on it. 
     I had a hard time coming up with my last item.  My son's girlfriend joked that I should say food.  We are huge foodies in our house.  We always put out a huge spread and every occasion revolves around food.  I didn't think that food would be a good answer, but still couldn't think of a good third object.  Late last night it occurred to me how to bring our love of food with us.  I have a binder with all of our favorite recipes.  We try new recipes all the time.  If it isn't great, I just throw the recipe away.  If it is wonderful, then we call it a "keeper" and I put the recipe in my binder.  My sons joke that "if" they ever move out, then I will have to make them a copy of my recipe binder to take with them, so that they will know how to make all of their favorites.  Our family culture centers a lot around food, meals shared, and treasured recipes.  This binder makes a perfect third item.  I would probably even take it over the large fork and spoon.
     If I showed up in this country that I had to take refuge in and was told that I could only take one of these items, I would be disappointed.  However, I would gladly give up all three items if it meant that my family could still be together and safe.  I would keep my pictures and give up the large fork and spoon and recipe binder.
     I really realized that in our family, we really treasure memories and making memories.  I often tell my husband that this is our time to be making memories.  We are also big on making and sharing food together.  However, nothing is more important in our family culture than being together.  As long as our family is safe and intact, nothing else matters.  We would all gladly give up any object in order to keep us all safe and together.  That is our family culture.