Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

Unfortunately, when you are the only minority at your place of employment where the majority are white American, it seems as though you are constantly faced with daily microaggression attitudes.  The “catch-22” when on the receiving end of such comments, you either voice your dislike of certain comments, and risks retaliation for speaking out, or you could be silent, while internally these everyday microaggression behaviors take a toll on you mentally, emotional as well as physically. 

In order to eliminate biases, a person must first understand biases in order to overcome it,  Bias and prejudice in my opinion is a learned behavior/attitude, often something someone has said or a person may have heard and although may have not been always the person’s original opinion but has adopted the biases/prejudice. 

 

Culture and Diversity

The following three people I spoke with give their definition of culture and diversity:

I spoke with Mrs. Gadsden a 56 year old African female, she is originally from Ghana and teaches Special Education at a local high school.  Mrs. Gadsden is co-worker of my sisters who I met while visiting with my sister.  I asked Mrs. Gadsden if she would help me with my class assignment for this week and she agreed. She define culture as the way a person lives, the environment they live in, it’s embedded in everything we do.  She stated that “in my country we take education very seriously and our teachers are held in high regard, we have a lot of respect for them, which is very different here in the United States”.  She defines diversity as ones, physical make such as race, male or female, religious beliefs, linguistics and nationality.

Mr. Mendez is a 48 year old Hispanic male who owns his own lawn care business and who is a friend of my husband.  When I approached him and asked him if he would answer a few questions for my class assignment he agreed.  Mr. Mendez defined culture as the way we live our lives, what we want for our families, what we believe in and how we raise our children, the way we celebrate who we are, and the food we cook and eat.  Mr. Mendez stated “the Hispanic family is very close, we love to get together and celebrate special occasions such a new birth or family birthday not just with my family but with the whole family, bother, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews, and nieces.  We are proud people and have a sense of honor and dignity.  Our religion is very important in our everyday life”.

The third person I spoke with is Mrs. Hawes who is a 32 year old female, who is an Officer in the United States Air Force.  She culture is not just about race, its customs and traditions. An example of culture is arrange marriages in some countries. It could be the different languages spoken by different ethnic groups.  “When I hear the word diversity, I now also include guys, lesbians, bi-sexual, and transgender aka (LGBT).  These people also make us a diverse workforce”.

 The aspect of culture and diversity that I have studied in this course are included in all three of the people that I spoke with.  Each of the participants spoke about culture and diversity as being a way of life, a reflection of who we are, where we live, our beliefs and values, family, the environment we live in and different languages spoken by different ethnic groups and how one’s religious beliefs and traditions describes who and what we believe.

Major Catastrophe

Major Catastrophe…………………

Wow, in case of a major catastrophe that totally wiped out the country’s infrastructure, the three items that I would take would be my family’s photo album, my family bible, and a diamond pendant cross.  The family photo album contains photos of my children birth, baptisms, graduations, wedding, family vacations, school pictures, family reunions, family road trips, photos of grandparents, grandmothers with their holding their first grandchild, this is my family’s culture; these are photos that I hope will keep memories of my family alive forever.  My Bible is a symbol of my belief that has been passed down from generation to generation.  The diamond pendant cross, was given to me by my three children on Mother’s Day in 2000, with the words “We love you” on the back and I hold it very dear to my heart.  To be told once I arrived that I would only be allowed to keep one of these items, would break my heart.  The one item that I would have to keep would be the photo album, which contains a lifetime of memories, the only thing that I would have left to pass on to the next generation.