Last Monday, I attended the Intergroup Dialogue’s session on microaggressions. It began with a skit in which a white person repeatedly asked a person of color where they were from and congratulated them on being able to speak English well. It was a pretty familiar scene for me as I think it is for most Americans who are either immigrants themselves or come from immigrant families. This past summer, both of my jobs required a lot of public interaction so I was dealing with a lot of people every day. At least a few times a day someone this awkward scenario would occur and it always followed the same dialogue.

White Person: So where you from?

Me: Oh, I’m from Seattle.

White Person: Oh….but where are you really from? Like where did your parents come from?

Me: Well my family is Somali—

White Person: Oh yeah, I thought you might have been Ethiopian or something.

And this is usually where the conversation ends because said person wasn’t interested in anything about me besides figuring out my ethnicity. Most already had an idea of where I was from and were too afraid to actually ask, but they had the idea and basically wanted to confirm it. A few brave souls would ask outright if I was Ethiopian, which I’m not. While I don’t really mind the interaction that much, it’s still an annoying, repetitive occurrence and I wonder if it will ever stop.

The leaders of the dialogue dubbed this process as “Other-ing”. Once I confirm my ethnicity, the person I am speaking with immediately sees me as foreign despite the fact that I was born and raised in the United States. While this is a pretty harmless interaction, asking where I’m “really” from does insinuate that I am not truly American as if there are other qualifications for being American besides being born and raised here (i.e. whiteness).

Although sometimes, these interactions can become more harmful as they reveal fixations on “exotic” backgrounds and even the fetishizing other cultures. I remember one instance in particular that occurred this summer in which an older white man followed me in his car to ask where I was from and proceeded to tell me about how he collected his previous wives from “all over the world”.

One topic that came up in our discussion was whether we considered microaggressions to be on the same level as overt racism. I personally believe that overt racism is worse just because I think there is a difference between lynching, for example, and someone asking where I’m “really” from. However, microaggressions reveal persistent damaging prejudiced attitudes that are not socially acceptable to fully display anymore. So it’s important to have these conversations because these instances that may not seem like that big of a deal often reflect prejudiced ideas and it’s important to create spaces where people of color can safely raise such concerns.

This week, I went to the Intergroup Dialogue on microaggressions. It was very relevant considering recent events such as the blatant racism going on at Mizzou and other historically rooted forms of racism such as police brutality. The group opened the dialogue by displaying an example of what a typical conversion containing microaggressions may include. They highlighted assumptions of an other group. This leads to complications because although America is praised for being a melting pot of diverse people, minorities are placed into an other category, which essentially classifies them as un-American. The definition of a microaggression is considered to be something unintentional and not built in like institutional and structural racism. Nonetheless, I believe microaggressions come from societal stereotypes that have become ingrained into our subconscious. And because they are so ingrained from the dominant group, it is almost like there is no reason to learn about minority groups such as racial minorities. As a result, we end up being the spokesperson for our socially constructed race, instead of being seen as an actual human being with similarities and differences.

The Intergroup Dialogue Project at Cornell prepares students to live and work in a diverse world, and educates them in making choices that advance equity and justice. At this meeting I was in a room with students of different backgrounds, interpretations, and experiences which made the topic, racism and microaggression, a very interesting eyeopening discussion.

In the beginning of the discussion, there was a skit that was acted out, that contained a micro aggression and we discussed thoughts and feelings about what we just witnessed. It was demonstrated that sometimes we don’t know how we should respond to such incidents because they are more subtle and not overtly racist.  But sometimes people engage in covert racism, which can involve statements, and behaviors that are more subtle or aversive, where the person engaging in the behavior is not aware that the behavior is racist or discriminatory and would feel offended if you labeled it as such.

These more subtle forms of racism are called microaggressions, and the dangerous thing about microaggressions is while they may be small intentional or unintentional offenses, they can accumulate and become burdensome over time for those who experience them.  One of the most insidious features of microaggressions is that sometimes it is hard to confront because it is so subtle.  Because they tend to involve small incidences or indirect insults, it is easy for the perpetrators to dismiss or negate your perception that the behavior or comment was racist.  After a while, you may begin to question whether you are being overly sensitive or imagining things yourself.

This is just one extreme problem that the Intergroup Dialogue Project is trying to combat, by increasing understanding of social identities, exploring the effect of social inequality at personal, interpersonal, and structural levels, to develop students’ skills to work effectively across difference, and to strengthen individual and collective capacities to address social justice issues.