A time I specifically remember seeing microaggression is when I was out with my friends son, who is African American, and my kids, who are all white, at the grocery store. I had a clerk ask if ‘all of these’ were my kids, I only had 3 kids total with me all of whom are ‘normal’ age spaces apart. I laughed and said yes. She said ‘Oh I bet that is an interesting story’. I replied, ‘Oh what story?’ and kind of laughed. She said ‘Well since they have different dads and different races’. It was a grocery store clerk! I was SHOCKED that she brought up how they looked different and if they were all mine would have had different dads and even brought up race! What was crazy was you could really tell she thought she was just making conversation by the tone and way she was just chatting and people were walking around. I was truly shocked. I honestly didn’t know how to think or feel at the time. That had never happened to me before, so I was in a stunned silence. I didn’t feel anything at the time. Then, when I got home I was mad, really mad. I actually called the store once I calmed down to discuss what happened and how they may want their cashiers to go through some diversity training of some sort. I explained I could tell she didn’t mean it in a mean way, but needed to be taught that wasn’t okay.
That was the first time I had really seen an noticed microaggression in my life. I had heard my friend talk about it before because she is white and her kids are African American, but I have never actually seen it until then. It just really brought to the forefront that prejudice and stereotypes still run rampant. In fact, so rampant people don’t even realize what they are doing is not right. It was really a HUGE eye opener for me in the challenges people face every single day!
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