How microaggressions sneak in

No, You’re Not Imagining It: 3 Ways Racial Microaggressions Sneak into Our Lives

By Anni LiuOver time, being on the receiving end of these everyday (yet often unrecognizable) attacks can lead to depression, social isolation, and lowered confidence. Because we’ve been conditioned to question ourselves and not the perpetrators or the situations, we begin to wonder if our own feelings and experiences are legitimate.

Sometimes, without understanding what we’re doing, we even internalize those aggressions and use them to police both our loved ones and ourselves.

As a kid, I often corrected my mother’s pronunciation of English words. Though she did have a Chinese accent, she didn’t need me to tell her how to speak English–she’d taught English as a second language for more than a decade.

I didn’t realize that by doing that, I was communicating that her foreign accent not only made her English different, it made it wrong. And like so many others, I had no idea I was regurgitating racist ideology (practicing internalized racism).And:Dismissing the racialized experiences of POC is oppressive and continues to give credence only to the White experience. Along with that, colorblind thinking dismisses the reality of white privilege and white supremacy, and allows them to keep doing what they do.

An example of this is asking a person of color, “Where are you from?” or “How do you say ____ in your language?”

This question is often directed at Asian and Latinx Americans–whether immigrants skilled in other languages or not–out of simple curiosity. But the message is that even if they consider America their home, they will never truly belong.

Another example is “I’m not racist–I have a ____ friend!”Comment:  For more on the subject, see Microaggressions Go Mainstream and Pocahotties Show Depth of Microaggressions.