My Experience Of Being Discriminated: Microaggression In The Unknown

As I was growing up, I experienced being discriminated by other children when I went to summer camps. Not many latinx children went to summer camps and especially not in San Mateo. I was always left out when it came to group activities or to even eating lunch on my own. That’s a part of my life that really upsets me because I know I’m not the only one that went through that. As I got older, things started to change and I also had the option of going to summer camp or not. Being a latina and going to a diverse high school was the advantage of a lifetime.

I was never discriminated or talked about because of my ethnicity or race. There were all kinds of cultural based clubs such as Black Student Union and Latinos Unidos. Going to a high school like this one makes people get an idea that college is also like this, but not all colleges are the same. When I got to CSU East Bay, I still felt as if I were in high school. They have many cultural groups, talks, and many more events than my high school ever did. This college campus is open to anyone and everyone, but the real world on the other hand isn’t exactly the same. The real world has many racial issues, especially now with the president that we have. Microaggression is now all over social media, in communities, and even in schools. What discrimination awaits us after college?

Being treated differently will really change a person’s thoughts and ideas. Also, not everyone will be the same as in high school, college, or a job. Every single place has different people with different mindsets, so why try to avoid it now when it will eventually come around later? Microaggression on a college campus can be controlled, but once you leave that campus not everyone’s mouth can be controlled. Not everyone in the world cares about what you feel when they use trigger words and will even rub it in your face. An activity was done at a college campus where students used trigger words and warnings, keep in mind it was an activity that lead to this; ”a backlash arose among other Asian American students, who felt that the display itself was a microaggression” (Lukianoff, pg. 1).

It was obvious that these trigger words were hurtful, but it lead to the Asian American club having to apologize for doing this activity. Do these students think that they are going to be forgiven when their boss decides to do the same thing and probably even on purpose? At a college campus, a student can be kicked out of the school for saying things like this because it can show a bad image, but a manager is his own boss and can decide to keep saying those things if he or she feels like it. A boss has nothing to lose.

Being in college it’s hard to not use or show microaggression. Classes like history, psychology, and others show and teach microaggression that has happened in the past and now. If a student signs up for a history class, they should know that many trigger words will be seen and used throughout the content that they will be learning. Teachers should be more informed on microaggression such as they did “during the 2014–15 school year, for instance, the deans and department chairs at the 10 University of California system schools were presented by administrators at faculty leader-training sessions with examples of microaggressions” (Lukianoff, pg. 1).

This could help teachers be clear on their ideas on how to let students know that they will be teaching microaggression, but it should be included in a paper before anyone even enrolls into the class if that’s the issue. If a history teacher needs to warn the class before using microaggression in every single lesson, they might as well do it before anyone signs up for the class, so everyone knows right off the bat that uncomfortable content will be shown or used throughout that day in class. Yes, this can happen in a class, but once over 18 or starting a job, going onto social media, or even going to another country, nobody is going to give you a paper to read saying that microaggression will be used.

Microaggression is not anything new for anyone living in the year 2019. It is all over the newspaper, the blogs, social media, etc. Everyone knows about it and it is talked about everyday on the news, from protests to murders, microaggression usually plays a part every time in this generation. After watching the news in the mornings, microaggressions seems to involve more than just race. “Microaggressions can be based upon any group that is marginalized in this society” (Psychology Today, pgrh. 6). These groups involve not just race, but gender, religion, disability and anything else considered to be a group.

Students in clubs at colleges need to learn about these things that happen on the news, not just clubs, but everyone needs to know about the things that are happening in the real world. Students should not become sensitive to this content because learning about these microaggressions can even save someone’s life. If students don’t talk about these issues or learn about them, they can face them and maybe even get into a horrible situation with the way they react. Students need to act hard and be more informed on microaggressions when it comes to the real world because not everyone or everywhere is going to have a trigger warning on it.

Any school campus can be controlled with staff and faculty when it comes to somebody being offended. Being in another country, anybody can just yell at you and be racist or offensive. People need to learn to live with microaggression and need to figure out their own ways to deal with it. Ignoring it or trying to control it on a college campus will only make someone more vulnerable when it comes to dealing with a situation of trigger words and microaggression. It’s important to know that microaggression will always be around and not everyone can be controlled of what comes out of their mouth. It’s better to learn on how to handle the situation than to avoid it and when the time comes, not know what to do.

Works Cited

“The Coddling of the American Mind” Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, The Atlantic September 2015 issue
“Microaggressions: More than Just Race.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/microaggressions-in-everyday-life/201011/microaggressions-more-just-race