this project is a response to “it’s not a big deal” – “it” is a big deal.  ”it” is in the everyday.  ”it” is shoved in your face when you are least expecting it.  ”it” happens when you expect it the most.  ”it” is a reminder of your difference.  ”it” enforces difference.  ”it” can be painful.  ”it” can be laughed off.  ”it” can slide unnoticed by either the speaker, listener or both.  ”it” can silence people.  ”it” reminds us of the ways in which we and people like us continue to be excluded and oppressed.  ”it” matters because these relate to a bigger “it”: a society where social difference has systematic consequences for the “others.”

but “it” can create or force moments of dialogue.

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This blog seeks to provide a visual representation of the everyday of “microaggressions.” Each event, observation and experience posted is not necessarily particularly striking in and of themselves.  Often, they are never meant to hurt – acts done with little conscious awareness of their meanings and effects.  Instead, their slow accumulation during a childhood and over a lifetime is in part what defines a marginalized experience, making explanation and communication with someone who does not share this identity particularly difficult.  Social others are microaggressed hourly, daily, weekly, monthly.

The term “microaggressions” was originally coined to speak particularly to racialized experiences.

“Racial microaggressions are brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color.”  – “Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life”

This blog, however, is a space to extend this concept to different socially constructed identities that embody privilege in different ways – sexuality, class, religion, education level, to name a few – in hopes of making visible the ways in which social difference is produced and policed in everyday lives through comments of people around you.

They probably just had a crush on you.”

-What my white father said when I told him two white students called me the n-word on the bus.

“I would never, ever hire someone with a “black” name on their resume. I wouldn’t even interview them.

-An African American co-worker at a team dinner.

• Customer:: If more black people were like you the world would be a better place.

• Black me:: Have a nice day.
• What I wanted to say:: If fewer people were as ignorant as you, people who look like me would have better lives. I was 18. (He was in his 40s or 50s.) when: spring 1998, working at Barnes & Noble in Louisiana. 

I’m a black woman. My black female friend once told me that a white guy once said to her, “You’re really pretty for a black girl.” And her response was, “I know.”

Made me realize her and my own unrecognized self hate. Made me feel sad and guilty.

You could pass for Dominican; some of them are really dark and have bad hair like you. Luckily, I got the GOOD hair”.”

-Said to me by the black Dominican-American boyfriend of my biracial (black/white) friend visiting us during Spring Break. I am a 20 year old black American woman with naturally kinky-curly hair. Made me feel shocked, ugly, unimportant.

This 1895 charicature is an unkind parody of a woman seeking to smooth out her hair. The comic strip suggests that her hair stood out on end because of a hair-raising novel.

• My black/white biracial friend looks at the Facebook profile of a black man she’s crushing on.
• Her:: Ugh, his [mono-racial and black] girlfriend is so ugly. They’d have kids with huge nasty noses. He needs to get with me and my good mixed nose. *giggles*

I am a black 20 year old American woman. We were studying together at another friend’s apartment. Made me feel insulted, ugly, disfigured, and defective.