Microaggressions are everyday slights and indignities some people encounter all the time - while others aren’t even aware they’re committing them.

Pedro_P

▼ To a female CEO: “Can I speak with your boss?”
To a man who’s a nurse: “Wow, you don’t see many male nurses.”
To an LGBTQ intern: “Huh, you don’t sound gay.”
To a non-white colleague – in a mostly white office: “So, where are you from? …No, I mean, where are youreallyfrom?”
To a mixed-raced person: “What are you?"
Welcome to the world of microaggressions: brief queries, comments or actions sprinkled throughout day-to-day life that make others – particularly those in marginalised groups – feel bad about themselves.
A slow accumulation of these microaggressions can lead to low self-esteem, feelings of alienation and eventually even mental health issues, researchers warn. They can also create a toxic work environment.
There are steps you can take to handle these delicate situations – whether you’re on the receiving end, or you’re the one unknowingly doling them out.
Where microaggressions can happen
Unlike hate speech, microaggressions are not intended to be malicious, even though the impact might be.
But they don’t have to be spoken. They can be tiny actions, too – ones that most onlookers might not even notice, let alone describe as offensive.
Not sitting next to someone on a train, for example. Or interrupting someone during a meeting, or assuming someone speaks the same language as you because you’re the same race – or assuming theydon’tbecause they’renotthe same race – or gawking at people who look different as they walk past.
It makes the people experiencing the aggression feel different, weird, someone to be suspicious of, or even feared.
“When a student says to me, ‘Dr Sue, I really liked that presentation – oh and by the way, your English is very good,’ my comment is: ‘thank you, I hope so – I was born here,” says Derald Wing Sue, a professor of psychology and education at Columbia University in New York City. He’s Asian-American and was born in Portland, Oregon.
Why are they damaging? (▪ ▪ ▪)

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soothsayer

Amazing Article. very realistically depicts what people feel especially if hey are at the fringes, how reactions can be different to the same statement and persons express their emotions

Buddha480

Yes, the ego at play with constant efforts to assert superiority over all other beings within range. Endless ego chatter !