According to my buddy Merriam-Webster, a microaggression is: “a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group (such as a racial minority)”
I’m 32 years old and I’d like to think that my patience has grown with my age. This is particularly true when dealing with bad drivers, senior citizens without a filter, and waiting in slow-moving lines at the grocery store. I like learning about social justice, culture, and inclusion and I enjoy discussing these topics at length with friends and colleagues. Marriage, kids, work experience, and friends have helped me grow more patient over time. My patience has also grown when it comes to microaggressions.
Recently, I had a few microaggression incidents happen in the same week and this allowed me to reflect on older experiences. Below are events in weekday order to give readers an idea of what microaggressions can do when bunched together in a particular week:
- Monday – I meet a stranger and say, “hello” She immediately compliments me by saying, “I really like your accent.” I smile and ignore the comment (I’ve been speaking English for 25 years). I guess I have an accent? I later make a joke to a colleague about having to work on “my accent”
- Tuesday- I’m working in the east side of Michigan and I walk into a high school to meet with students. A lady greets me at the main office, shakes my hand, and looks me up and down several times. She makes it painfully obvious that she’s staring me up and down. I respond by looking her up and down in an exaggerated manner. I do this mainly sarcastically to let her know how she’s making me feel.She gives me a blank look and proceeds to point me in the right direction. In case your curious, I wear business/professional attire when making my school visits – no different than some teachers and most administrative school professionals.
- Wednesday – I’m still traveling for work and I meet a secretary at a high school. I say hello and take a seat as I wait to be directed to my presentation room. The secretary comments on my name (Salvador) and proceeds to ask the, “where are you from?” question. I tell her I’m from California and that I’ve lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan for 17 years. She follows up her question with “but where are you from?” Her interrogation would most likely end if I say that I’m Mexican but I refuse to do so (just because). I insist that I’m from California. She appears puzzled but nods, and continues about her business.
- Thursday – I go to the grocery store and buy a six pack of beer in Wayland, MI, a small town about 20 minutes away from Grand Rapids, the city where I live. The small grocery store is called Harding’s Friendly Market. The clerk in my lane is a white, older woman that looks to be pushing sixty. She asks for my identification and proceeds to look at my driver’s license very carefully. After a few moments, she says, “you’re quite a ways from home, aren’t ya?” I’m literally twenty minutes away from home. I give her a slight smile and say, “I thought this was a friendly market. You’re not very friendly.” She gives me a blank stare and proceeds to complete my transaction.
- Friday – I stop at a local gas station in Wyoming, Michigan near my home. I put the pump in the tank and go inside my vehicle to scroll through Twitter on my phone. After a couple of minutes, I hear a woman yell, “gas is spilling!” I frantically get out of my car and see gas all over the side of my car. A larger white man about my age with a shaved head is standing almost directly next to my vehicle. He has a smirk on his face and is staring at the puddle of gas by my vehicle. It appears that he had seen the gas spilling from the start. I make direct eye contact with him and in a snarky and grammatically incorrect way HE SAYS, “no fumar today amigo” or “don’t smoke today friend” I give him a dirty look and sarcastically thank him for the advice. He stares at me with a blank look on his face and doesn’t break eye contact with me as he gets into his car.
It’s hard to be patient and it only takes a bad day to lose it. It could be a long or bad day at work. Perhaps one of my daughters is sick and I’m running on three hours of sleep. Or it could be that I’ve been fighting a migraine, I’m behind on work deadlines, and I haven’t had time to go grocery shopping. You add any of these situations to a microaggression after a microaggression after a microaggression and you have an angry brown man.
My point is that the next time you run into a black or brown person, someone with a disability or from an underrepresented group and they get upset over a potential insensitive remark or action, please know that this is not the first time this person has experienced a negative comment, a bad joke, a curious question, or a snarky sarcastic comment. This happens more often than you think. So, be patient.
Modos 