Week 4 - Microaggressions

The topic of microaggressions was a new one to me.  I have experienced them but I never knew they had a name.  The best way to describe a microaggression is by saying that they are those small comments or acts that are insulting but not on purpose.  For example, imagine a woman discussing her diet with an acquaintance and during the conversation, she tells the acquaintance she is a vegan.  The other woman responds by saying, "Wow, I never would have guessed you were a vegetarian because you seem so well put together."  Now, "well put together" is not an insult but the hidden message in there is that most vegetarians are not well put together.

Please pardon the example, I hold nothing against vegetarians, I am simply trying to give an example of a microaggression.  Many times these statements are made with regards to people's race or sexual preference but personally, I have experienced them in normal everyday situations that I experience as a wife and mother.  Back when I was a stay at home mom, people used to ask me what I did for a living and after telling them I stayed home with my kids, I was often greeted with smiles and "Oh, that must be nice".  Now I remember at the time feeling not important because I couldn't share work stories or anything with my working friends and in this kind of situation, I always felt like the person asking would not be able to understand me at all so why try to explain.  BUT the reality of the situation was that staying home was nice, but it also required a lot of sacrifice.  There was a person kind of being condescending about me not having a job, while my husband and I were going without many things so I could stay with my kids and sow seeds into them as people.

My experiential reality was definitely invalidated during this time and now looking back, I realize why I felt caught and never knew what to say.  I did not want to be insulting back, but I also did not want the person I was talking with to completely misunderstand me.  This week was a very eye-opening week.  It changed my perspective and made me want to try to be very careful about what I say.

Week Three Diversity and Equity

We have been discussing culture and diversity in our third week of class and I asked some of my friends and family member to discuss the definition of both culture and diversity.  The answers surprised me and I felt everyone enjoyed the topic and we had some great conversations about culture as a result.  The three main people I asked were my brother in law who grew up outside the U.S., my friend who grew up in an Italian-American family and my husband who grew up in a French Canadian family mixed with an English family.  I chose these three because I knew their childhood were very different from my own and I respect their thinking and I wanted to see what they said.

Some of the answers I heard while defining culture were words like: race, ethnicity, traditions, food, mind sets, beliefs, geography, religion, social class, spending habits, language, occupation, gender, appearances and values.

Some of the answers given to define the word diversity were: "All of the above."  meaning everyone is included, someone said universality and also someone said, acceptance of the differing types of cultures we just spoke of. we learned, we

As far as what we have learned, I was fascinated to hear what my friends had to say given that they do not have any of the background or resources that I do as a grad student.  I was actually pretty impressed with their answers.  The biggest difference I found was how none of them really discussed the family culture.  No one talked about how your parents or the number of siblings you have can influence your culture.  Besides that, I was thoroughly impressed with their insight and their candor.

Wk 2 Diversity and Equality - Family Culture

     Hmmmm.  Three items to bring with me to my new home in who knows what country...  Only three?  Well, my bible is number one.  I have notes and memories and I do not want to get to a new country and be without a bible especially given the circumstances under which we would be leaving our home, possibly forever.  It also would be important for me to be able to teach my children from it and to ensure they have an understanding of it regardless of where we live.
     Item number two would be a photo album I put together with pictures of our entire family.  It includes four generations of family members and has writing in it describing who everyone is.  This would help my children to know what life was like before the catastrophic event that landed us in this new country and it would help us remember our life before as well.
     Lastly, I would bring a large tarp.  I know it sounds strange but wherever we are going, we could use a tarp if needed for help keeping cool or staying dry or staying warm.  It doesn't necessarily preserve our culture but it would help my family and the practical side of me can't help it.  (My husband wanted to bring three different kinds of weapons.)  Haha!  (My son says that's not funny Mom, that's smart!)
     If we arrived and we were told we could only keep one, I would probably take the tarp.  I have the word of the Lord in my heart and we could pass our family history down with stories and descriptions.  The tarp is the thing that would help my children and I would choose that.  As long as we were able to talk, I think we could convey the truth about our family and our history verbally with the best result.
     This assignment was interesting.  I shared it with my family and we all had very different ideas of what we would bring.  The boys were very concerned with survival tools and not as concerned with sentimental items and even I was concerned with keeping my family safe over bringing items for cultural preservation.  I am looking forward to reading my classmates to see if they are similar or different than mine.