Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

As I listened and watched others in my environment this past week, I was able to pick out forms of microaggressions. One of them happened on Wednesday by a member of my family. A group of students from one of the local high schools left campus for lunch to go and get something to eat. This is exam week and students were allowed to leave campus with permission if they did not have an exam. The students include four Caucasians and one African American. When the father of the African American found out that his son left campus without permission he was very livid. One of the comments he made when he was telling family members about it was…”now if they had stolen something while out there, my son would have been involved or could have been left holding the bag”(Personal Communication, 2012). I considered this to be a microaggression of gender and racial forms. It was immediately assumed that since the people involved were a group of young males they would probably be involved in something illegal or would break the law. Also, the father felt that his son would be left holding the bag because he was African American and the others were Caucasian. From his comment the father has provided verbal and behavior indignities based on what he perceives our culture to believe about young men. The thing that was more alarming to me when I heard the story was that many others felt the same way as he did (Laureate Education, 2010). In the article “Test Yourself for Hidden Bias” ( n.d. ), our willingness to examine our own possible biases is an important step in understanding the roots of stereotypes and prejudices in our society. I think we have to be more vigilant about changing how we perceive others in our society based on what has happened in the past. Reference: Laureate Education, Inc. (2010). Microaggressions in everyday life [video]. Perspectives on Diversity and Equity. Baltimore, MD: Walden University. Teaching Tolerance. (n.d.). Test yourself for hidden bias. Retrieved May 25, 2011, from http://www.tolerance.org/activity/test-yourself-hidden-bias.