From a tender age, people have repeatedly told me that I “speak like a white girl” or that I had a “white music taste” as annoying as those comments were I didn’t think too much of it, since I was pretty much used to hearing comments like that. It’s not until I read about microaggression that I realised that all those little comments were microaggression. microaggression can be defined as subtle racism that’s based on stereotypes or unintended discrimination.
Personally I think microaggressions are dangerous to a persons identity because that person’s knowledge of what they should be in terms or race, gender and even class is based on a stereotype. What makes it even worse is the microaggression that I experienced was mainly from Black people. To take it a little bit deeper, we even experience micr aggression based on our ethnicity. EVERY single time I tell someone I’m Congolese, I can guarantee you, the first question, they’ll ask me, is if I can dance or if I wear pointy leather shoes (ha ha). Most of the time people are joking but it can have you questioning your identity. For a long time I didn’t feel that I fit in with Black people. I felt too “White” for the Black kids and too “Black” for the White kids. This was mainly based on my interests.
My music taste has always been very diverse and when I was younger I didn’t listen to a lot of what was seen as “Black” music which made me feel like an outcast. A lot of people called me a “white girl” or an “Emo” because I listened to a lot of Alternative/Pop music. Phrases like these are very damaging especially when you’re still trying to figure out you’re identity. It makes you feel like you’re a sell out because you don’t listen to or do the things that you as a black person are “supposed” to do.
This is why I place SO much importance on representation because microaggressions are based on stereotypes and these stereotypes are mainly perpetuated by the media. Let’s take the depiction of Africa for example. So many of my non black peers used to ask me questions such as “So is there internet in Africa?” or “Did you have a rough childhood because you grew up in Africa”. The ignorance used to boil my blood but it got to a point where I couldn’t blame them. If you’ve seen the same image of something for the majority of your life, of course you’re going to believe that, that image is true.
So try this for a day: see how many times you experience or see someone else experiencing micro aggressions daily and see how you (or they) react to it…
- 05:06
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