affirm their racial identity
If the target is comfortable with sharing their experience with a family member or friend, then they can give them support and encouragement. An example from my personal life would be like from my example in my previous paragraph but after I called my mom and she assured me and offered encouragement. This gave me the motivation I needed to go back to class and sit with a new group of people and make new friends.
What is your current understanding of the term microaggression?
A microaggression is when someone makes remark or action against another of a marginalized group such as a race or ethnic minority. I've experienced a situation like this where I was the only one of my race and someone of a different race blocked me off from talking with the rest of the group of the same race as them. We were at a long straight table and I was at the end trying to lean over to hear what people were saying. This makes me question why people do this and what do they get from doing it? If I were a bystander, I would do my best to include this person. I would try to invite them to sit next to me or ask for their input in a conversation to make them feel included.
onnections to your own lived experiences, thoughts, and emotions?
In my life I have experienced microaggression. At times I had no idea it was considered a microaggression until I was told later. An example of an experience I have gone through is when my aunt took my cousin and I into a predominantly white area just to have us look at a store she wanted to take us to. As we were going down each isle my aunt told us of an employee who would follow us down each isle as well. When we exited the store, she explained to us what the situation was really about. This leads me to the question of, do people know that they are being micro aggressive and if so, do they know how much they are affecting the people that this action is being directed towards?
due to the real or perceived sense that “micro” states or implies that these interactions are small or minor in impact.
Like this piece of text says micro mean small. I find that although micro means small the word microaggression is quite deceiving. The action may seem minor, but the outcome of this action can have a big impact on someone or a group of people.
You should always say, ma’am and sir. You should never say, ma’am and sir.
Growing up I was always told to say yes ma'am or no ma'am as a form of respect, because of that I assumed every child was taught that. I assumed that if you were talking to someone older even if by a few years you were to say ma'am or sir. Now that I am older, I understand that what I thought was common sense might be different to someone else. For someone else just because someone is a mere four or five years older than them doesn't mean they'll say ma'am or sir. Everyone has grown up in different households with a wide range of parenting styles. Respect might look different from one person to the next. This can bring up the question of, how can we insure that we are inclusive knowing that our way of thinking might be different to someone else's?
to trust the intuition of oppressed people over and against one’s own gut and experience,
Although it states that it is proven to lead you astray from a vantage point, I believe we all have different experiences. Although we ourselves have not experienced the oppression of what others are facing we can still see with our eyes and have empathy for those around us. Our moral principals can see wrong and trust those who are being wronged.