I had the opportunity this week to be the recipient of microaggressions! In a conversation with a casual friend, I was telling her of the opportunity that I have been given to return to my old kindergarten classroom after taking two years off to stay home with my children. Her comment was, "You'll really miss sleeping in and having all that down time at home." I was quite shocked by her comment, knowing what it implied, finished checking out my groceries, and left the store with a quick goodbye. I was offended by her comment which suggests that the last two years that I have been a stay-at-home mom have been characterized by sleeping in and having all kind of time to myself. I believe that too often that is the stereotype of a stay-at-home mom, when in fact it is usually a very different lifestyle. I am up earlier now then when I worked, and have roughly a half hour of "down-time" between the going down and waking up of children when I can down my lunch and go to the bathroom without having someone accompany me!
This experience has given me a better understanding of microaggressions and their impact on the person who is the target. I am sure that the comment was not made to be malicious, as mircoaggressions usually are unintentional, but it sure felt like an attack on my character and my job. Having experienced this has helped me to be more careful about the assumptions I hold regarding culture and lifestyles, which will make me more sensitive to the words that I say.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Perspectives on Diversity and Culture: Week 3
I talked with three of my friends about their definitions of culture and diversity. These are their explanations:
1. Culture is everything that makes us the same and different from those around us. Diversity is understanding the differences as acceptable.
2. Culture- religion, dress, food, laws, and social norms that a group of people share in common. Diversity- bringing different groups together to one place.
3. Diversity is what makes things (living and not) or people different. Culture is the way humans express their diversity.
What I realized through these three different but similar responses is the understanding that my friends have of true culture and diversity. I expected the standard responses, stating race and ethnicity, but saw the depth of their answers as reflecting the true ideas behind culture and diversity. I believe that their definitions, particularly when combined together, state all the ideas that we have expressed throughout this course without eliminating any important aspects! Talking with them about diversity has allowed me to see the importance of understanding, particularly in the way that I now know diversity and culture express themselves.
1. Culture is everything that makes us the same and different from those around us. Diversity is understanding the differences as acceptable.
2. Culture- religion, dress, food, laws, and social norms that a group of people share in common. Diversity- bringing different groups together to one place.
3. Diversity is what makes things (living and not) or people different. Culture is the way humans express their diversity.
What I realized through these three different but similar responses is the understanding that my friends have of true culture and diversity. I expected the standard responses, stating race and ethnicity, but saw the depth of their answers as reflecting the true ideas behind culture and diversity. I believe that their definitions, particularly when combined together, state all the ideas that we have expressed throughout this course without eliminating any important aspects! Talking with them about diversity has allowed me to see the importance of understanding, particularly in the way that I now know diversity and culture express themselves.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
My Family Culture: Week 2
Blog: My Family Culture
Imagine the following:
A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.
The three items that I would choose would be our children's birth certificates, our family bible, and the family scrapbook. I would choose our children's birth certificates because that would be all they would have of their origin, complete with their names, birth dates, our names, and our town where they were born. It would be a lasting piece of their identity. I would take our family Bible, as it is the basis of our religion for our family. The words in the Bible can bring comfort, identity, belonging, and peace, all things that our family would be missing during this chaos. For our family, our Bible is the only book that we would need to find all the answers that we would be asking. Finally, the last item I would take would be a scrapbook that I made for my firstborn, in the weeks prior to her birth while we were waiting for her arrival. This scrapbook contains pictures of my husbands and my grandparents, parents, and our sisters/brothers and their families. It also contains birth dates for everyone, a small description of each person, and some words of wisdom from them about life in general. I created this in order for my daughter to know the important people in her life and would take it with us as a remembrance of our extended family that we probably would have lost contact with.
If upon arrival in our new country we were told we could only keep one thing, I would keep our family Bible. I would be able to write the important dates of their births and birthplaces in the pages, along with the names and information that is found in the scrapbook. The Bible would then contain all three items in one, and would remain the backbone of our family's faith. Although I would be sad to lose the other two, in the end it is my children's eternal life that I am concerned more about then if they know where they were born. The Bible would give them the most opportunity to share in our family's faith.
This exercise was one that I had to look at on Tuesday (when I usually get all my work done for the week) and I put it aside until today as I was almost sick to my stomach to think of this scenario. I am one who doesn't watch the news because it fills me with uncertainty to think of the future difficulties that my children will face, so to think of a catastrophe such as this was one that I did not want to address right away. It was also a little more difficult to think of what I would take with us based on culture, rather than immediate need as I was first thinking that I would take my children's comfort items (their bears & blankets that they sleep with every night) for their own security rather than the things that would give them cultural background. Their immediate comfort, which would come from their security items, seemed more important to me at the time!
Imagine the following:
A major catastrophe has almost completely devastated the infrastructure of your country. The emergency government has decided that the surviving citizens will be best served if they are evacuated to other countries willing to take refugees. You and your immediate family are among the survivors of this catastrophic event. However, you have absolutely no input into the final destination or in any other evacuation details. You are told that your host country’s culture is completely different from your own, and that you might have to stay there permanently. You are further told that, in addition to one change of clothes, you can only take 3 small items with you. You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.
The three items that I would choose would be our children's birth certificates, our family bible, and the family scrapbook. I would choose our children's birth certificates because that would be all they would have of their origin, complete with their names, birth dates, our names, and our town where they were born. It would be a lasting piece of their identity. I would take our family Bible, as it is the basis of our religion for our family. The words in the Bible can bring comfort, identity, belonging, and peace, all things that our family would be missing during this chaos. For our family, our Bible is the only book that we would need to find all the answers that we would be asking. Finally, the last item I would take would be a scrapbook that I made for my firstborn, in the weeks prior to her birth while we were waiting for her arrival. This scrapbook contains pictures of my husbands and my grandparents, parents, and our sisters/brothers and their families. It also contains birth dates for everyone, a small description of each person, and some words of wisdom from them about life in general. I created this in order for my daughter to know the important people in her life and would take it with us as a remembrance of our extended family that we probably would have lost contact with.
If upon arrival in our new country we were told we could only keep one thing, I would keep our family Bible. I would be able to write the important dates of their births and birthplaces in the pages, along with the names and information that is found in the scrapbook. The Bible would then contain all three items in one, and would remain the backbone of our family's faith. Although I would be sad to lose the other two, in the end it is my children's eternal life that I am concerned more about then if they know where they were born. The Bible would give them the most opportunity to share in our family's faith.
This exercise was one that I had to look at on Tuesday (when I usually get all my work done for the week) and I put it aside until today as I was almost sick to my stomach to think of this scenario. I am one who doesn't watch the news because it fills me with uncertainty to think of the future difficulties that my children will face, so to think of a catastrophe such as this was one that I did not want to address right away. It was also a little more difficult to think of what I would take with us based on culture, rather than immediate need as I was first thinking that I would take my children's comfort items (their bears & blankets that they sleep with every night) for their own security rather than the things that would give them cultural background. Their immediate comfort, which would come from their security items, seemed more important to me at the time!
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