Practicing Awareness of Microagression

I believe I see many forms of microaggreessions on a daily basis, they mostly are racial and sexual microaggression.  I have many friends that are homosexual and hey face many different challenges including rude comments like "wow, you're gay and you and your fiance are in the health field with good beneefits" umm, what does being gay have to do with education.  People find ways to place their ignorance on people. The female couple that are my friends are also african american, which also led me to believe that there some racial micragression.  All of us out in public together often get called valley girls because of how well we speak and enunciate.  I want to tell people that not all black people take pride in using broken english and ebonics. I happen to take pride in speaking clearly because I hate to repeat myself.   Most of the stereotypes people think represent the majority of a certain group of people. However, that does not make EVERY person among that group the same.  

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

For this week's assignment, we had to reach out to people that we know and see how they define culture, as well as their own culture. Many of the friends I talked to both different the same race or ethnicity, answered the question needing a little more clarification as to what exactly I meant.

One of my people are asian descent and from the country of Laos.  I asked her what does culture mean to you? Said, "what do you mean like where I'm from?" I then, responded in way, but also things that are common among people of your kind and and any values that kind of define who you are and what your family views as typical depending on your age, sex race, ya know things like that. She proceeded to tell me that, Oh yea, well I am from the country of Laos although most of my family is in Florida, I am Asian and a U.S. citizen, I have a bilingual family with three children, I am a stay at home mom, and wife. It is they way that my culture would prefer it be but I refuse to have anyone other than family watch my kids anyways." this is just an excerpt of how the discussion went. From the little that I did post, One can gather information about the my friend and her values, she basically told me what her family beliefs are which something that we look at as a shallow culture. People sometimes tend to just skim the surface. The other two that I had spoken with, said basically the same thing. Culture meant things to them like, holidays, certain foods that I may eat different from you, the things my family and I believe in and race. I'd say this was something mentioned throughout all of the readings that we have had thus far in the class.

Some of the things that were not mentioned were, things like housing arrangement and class, most others were hit except those that describe monetary standards.  They tend to think that a very successful personal they picture as a white businessman with at least two children with a stay at home wife and a six figure salary i.e. the dominant culture. That had no idea that they had brought in the monetary standing as far as culture.

My Family Culture

Finding just three things to take with me in addition to a change of clothes, make it extremely difficult. Most importantly there are many small items that we cherish. However, I would like to take, my great aunt's blanket that was hand knitted, a family photo album, and a bible. I have chosen these three things because it best represents the values and culture. I chose the blanket because in my family, knitting is view as a marketable skill and ways that a woman contributes to the household, and the warmth that it provides, displays the love and caring from a mother. next, is a family photo album because it will show many different aspects of how we dressed, what family events were like, our idea of fun and value of family. Finally, my bible will provide the value behind believing in a higher being, God. Some may frown upon this notion, but it will still remain my way to cope and survive. However, if I was told that I could only take one thing with me, it would be my bible. I need this in order to keep myself grounded and calm. I believe in God and the strengths he provides me.