Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

I was watching the Dave Chappelle's show on DVD and one of the cast started a conversation about Asian people. He said something to the effect of when he may ask an Asian where he/she is from, and his/her reply is "the united states", then his response would be "you know what I mean". Although he was joking, he expressed a racial micoaggression because he was implying that all Asian people are born in Asia somewhere and those who are in the United States came over after they were born. We all know that is not true. However, that reminded me of Dr. Sue (who is Asian) when he told the story about the woman asking him where he was from and where he was born. At first he said that he was from Portland, Oregon then later told her that he was born in the United States. My observations from this week has increased my awareness of how there are so many stereotypes for different ethnic groups. I believe comedians such as Dave Chappelle bring stereotypes to the light but in a joking way in order to keep us from getting upset about them. It makes me sit back and ask myself "who came of with all of these anyway?" Words are powerful and so is unity. You get enough people involved, you can create a mighty force, whether it be good or bad. But I am a firm believer that good things last forever and bad things pass away eventually. I am praying that these stereotypes will disappear one day soon, or at least be identifiable to the point where people will know what they are and not give in to them. 

"Microaggressions in Everyday Life" (approximate length: 27 minutes)

In this program, Dr. Derald Wing Sue presents a lecture about the concept of microaggression in everyday life.

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

I interviewed aunt (age 64), my best friend (age 31) and my cousin (age 16). I asked them all what their definitions of culture and diversity were and their responses are as follows:

Aunt:

Culture is how we live, think, how we dress, what music we listen to etc.

Diversity is the breakdown of the differences in all of us.

Best Friend:

Culture is our way of life, what we believe and customs we follow.

Diversity is what makes us all different however it also allows us to dwell together in unity.

Cousin:

Culture depends on the person and how they were raised.

Diversity consists of different people of races and who have different beliefs.

I believe all of these answers include what I have learned in this course thus far, as well as what I knew about culture/diversity beforehand. None of them mentioned anything about language but I can see how that was overlooked because we speak English. Their thoughts on culture/diversity has influenced me to want to dig deeper in this topic. This class has allowed me to do that a great deal thus far and I am looking forward to learning more.

My Family Culture

If a catastrophe took place in my country and we had to evacuate, three things I would take would be a Bible, a radio and a cell phone. I was raised Christian and I still practice Christianity as an adult. My grandmother (Bigma) taught us many values and lessons from the Bible and they have helped us all during rough times. I would consider a catastrophe to be a rough time...

I'm a musician, my mom is a musician, and my entire family loves music. So I would have to have radio around so that we can listen to some good tunes. It's only right...

I know that cell phones have not always been around but we looooooooooooove our phones...can't live without them lol. This is how we keep in touch with each other though. My family is scattered across the city of Detroit and the United States. So we need them...

I would be sad if I could only keep one thing but if I had to choose, it would definitely be the Bible. Everything else I can live without, but only for a short while. However, I cannot live without the Word of God.

My insights have been strengthened about my culture and my family culture as a results of this exercise because I did not realize just how strong these items effected our culture until now. I realize that they are important but I do not think I really made the connection to these things and my culture until now.