Micro-aggressions have been defined as brief and common daily verbal, behavioural and environmental communications, whether intentional or unintentional, that transmit hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to a target person because they belong to a stigmatised group.
As an immigrant child adopted into a UK family, initially my white peers relentlessly laughed and joked about my accent and my lack of ability to speak proper English. There were constant sly and negative comments about my physical appearance. Comments such as: you are pretty for a black girl or you are a pretty black girl as well as been placed in the bottom groups that didn’t not reflect my true abilities. To be honest I knew something was wrong but I did not really know how to respond or what exactly was wrong.
Eventually, when my confidence grew and I began to improve on what they perceived as proper English, They began to inquired, how come my English is so good for a Jamaican. I began to realise that my abilities were beyond the intellectual expectations of people who look like me. The comment were getting worse you read well for a Jamaican you don’t sound like a Jamaican.
As I got older and have a better understanding of who I am, and how people of my race are seen my others. I realise I needed to find a way to respond and educate them using the correct vocabulary, and most importantly express how their comments made me feel.
The majority of the time these deeply offensive remarks were unintentionally. So I am in no rush to conclude that any of these people are bad, but I sure did educate them and call them out privately, and I gracefully accepted their apologies.
As an immigrant child adopted into a UK family, initially my white peers relentlessly laughed and joked about my accent and my lack of ability to speak proper English. There were constant sly and negative comments about my physical appearance. Comments such as: you are pretty for a black girl or you are a pretty black girl as well as been placed in the bottom groups that didn’t not reflect my true abilities. To be honest I knew something was wrong but I did not really know how to respond or what exactly was wrong.
Eventually, when my confidence grew and I began to improve on what they perceived as proper English, They began to inquired, how come my English is so good for a Jamaican. I began to realise that my abilities were beyond the intellectual expectations of people who look like me. The comment were getting worse you read well for a Jamaican you don’t sound like a Jamaican.
As I got older and have a better understanding of who I am, and how people of my race are seen my others. I realise I needed to find a way to respond and educate them using the correct vocabulary, and most importantly express how their comments made me feel.
The majority of the time these deeply offensive remarks were unintentionally. So I am in no rush to conclude that any of these people are bad, but I sure did educate them and call them out privately, and I gracefully accepted their apologies.
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