Note from Connie: Re this article on microaggressions that appeared in the Times a few days ago, the writer raised the issue — are these comments mostly aggressive or are they mostly micro? The whole subject is provocative, and since you’re the demographic that’s the subject of the article, I’d be very interested in your thoughts. Do you think this is a real issue? A manufactured one? All thoughts appreciated, as always.
I thought this article was so interesting. I had seen the pictures on the Harvard Facebook page of students holding up signs with micro aggressions committed against them, so when I saw the video and article on the NYTimes website I was very interested. I agree with one student’s statement that although many people think we live in a post-racial society just because we have a black president, we obviously do not. All that Obama’s presidency proves is that our generation is just slightly less racist than our parents’. I think we still have a long way to go and although among young people here in New York City racism may be most prevelant in small comments, it is those comments that stop minorities from succeeding.
I have certainly seen a rise in awareness about the subject of microaggression. As an Asian-American, I have also faced a few microaggression comments here and there. Just as the article has mentioned, I have also been asked the question – “What kind of Asian are you?” – probably more times than I can count with my fingers. Rather than being offended, however, I gladly respond that I am Filipino because IT IS a valid question. For me, I believe that the root of microaggression can be traced back to ignorance. The only way to counteract such ignorance is through education. Just as the famous idiom says, we cannot fight fire with fire. We cannot outright say that these offenders are wrong, but rather we should tell them that they have been misinformed. For example, the “What kind of Asian are you?” question could be restated to a less-racist question, such as “What is your ethnicity?” or “What is your country of origin?” Furthermore, people should not hold affirmative actions against black students in elite universities. There are many factors that lead up to a students’ acceptance in a university, such as their GPA, resume, and standardized exam scores. The only thing that offenders do wrong is that they wrongly assume and therefore jump to conclusions that may or may not be true.
The CollegeBoard website contains information on each college about what’s important for admission. The categories for several criteria are: most important, very important, important, and considered. I frequently used this website to decide on which colleges I wish to apply to. Race is either under the “considered” category or is not mentioned at all. “First-Generation student” is more commonly found under “considered.” It is very rare to find it under “important.”
One question is still valid. If a college has one spot left and there are two students who have identical SAT scores, GPA, strength of recommendations and personal statements, and volunteer work; how will the admissions office choose between the two??? Will they draw lots? Or will they select based on race??? This issue has baffled me for a very long time…..
This is a really interesting article (and the blog it refers to is a worthwhile read itself). I feel that the issue that the microaggressions project is identifying is how people of any race background or culture have an underlying tendancy to apply generalized ideas/stereotypes/misguided views and ideas on a subgroup of people as a fact for each individual in that group (for example, thinking that all Asians in America have strong accents). I don’t see the microaggressions themselves as problems more so than the underlying issue of stereotyping and generalizing based on societial, media-based, or other external influences. The microaggressions are merely symptoms of this issue, and I would say, don’t reflect a lack of morals on the part of the person that displays these microaggressions; but it does reflect how social influence can affect someone’s views on a group of people, and how important of an issue it is to identify these popular misconceptions and stop the propagation of these ideas from spreading. (think about those chain emails from the 90’s- early 2000’s that spread some ‘serious’ issue about deadly spiders in toilets or that asparagus is a magical cancer treatment. Once one person believes it, its hard to stop the spread untill someone decides to fact-check it)
As much as I would like for microaggressions to be eliminated, I don’t think that it will be done away with very quickly. I, myself have experienced this type of racism. People have asked me if I speak Indian, if I eat curry everyday, and if I have profound knowledge about the Kama sutra (this has happened more than you would think). As offensive as these statements might seem to me, they are only produced due to ignorance. And here lies the problem because these microaggressions are not intentional. So how do we solve this problem? Well, the most terrifying point to me is that even with globalization, airplanes, the Internet, and exposure of immigrants ignorance is still a major problem.