Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

I believe microagression happens to all of us in everyday life. I think in order for people to combat microagression then they have to be honest with themselves in the role they might have played as the microagressor.

This week I did not experience any incident involving microagression but I remember being the microagressor several years past.  I was working in an elementary school and judge a parent without knowing anything about her.  She had a daughter who was late to school every day and about 5 days absent in each month.  I spoke to the parent about this issue but the parent refuse to engage in conversation. I formulated in my mind that she just did not care enough about her daughter’s education. Therefore, I said to a colleague “I’m so tired of seeing single black women raising children on their own”.  The colleague replied, “How do you know she is a single parent”? I walked away and went to my class room and sat down with  shame because I did not know if she was single parent or not. Moreover, I was raised by a single parent and I just should have not said that.  I later found out she and her family was homeless and they were living in a shelter.

It is without question, I was judgmental  toward this person. I learned a great lesson from this experience. First, never judge a person without knowing their situation. Next, learn as much information I can about a child’s background to insure I do not form biases.

The class reading this week reminded me that I was a microagressor in my life and I should take responsibility for my previous actions and not to repeat them.