Saturday, March 30, 2013
Microaggressions
This week I paid attention to my interactions with others, as well as the interactions of the people around me. However, I did not have any situations with microaggressions. So, I had to think of one I had seen in the past.
As a high school volleyball coach I had the opportunity to coach many players with varied family cultures. One player I had was a tall African American girl. One day while practicing a player's dad came over to this young lady and said, you should play basketball, you are bred for it. I didn't hear the whole exchange, but the player later mentioned what was said. Her first question was, what does it mean to be bred to play basketball? Was he saying that because she was tall, or because she was black, or both? He meant it as a compliment, but it had caused her to think twice about what was said. This is a perfect example of a microinsult.
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Hi Amber
ReplyDeleteYour sharing proves that microaggressions happen in everyday life. If we are not sensitive enough, we could do, for example, micro insult to a lot of people, even though no offense is intended, or at least we thought we are complimenting people.
Amber I like this scenario because the young lady was simply puzzled as if the guy was saying something but did not come out and say it! I also believe that his statement was innocent but sometimes we have to watch what comes out of our mouth.
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