"The phrase describes the subtle indignities and insults directed at minorities during everyday exchanges. Their ambiguity is what makes them so vexing—the recipient doesn't know for certain whether it is a deliberate slight, making it difficult to know how to react."
My daughter, Teri, experienced it tonight. She waited in the loop for forty minutes for a bus to carry her down Martin Luther King Drive to her south side apartment while four busses went by to carry people to the yuppy (young urban professional) northside neighborhood. She was the only white person on the bus traveling south and it was packed with weary African Americans trying to get home. Is it because they are black that fewer busses were serving their needs? Hmmm. Don't really know, but when that happens over and over again you experience "racial microaggression".
Thanks to Jenn Billingsley who is participating in our River City BUILD group for this link to an article in today's RedEye entitled, The Racist In All Of Us.
2 comments:
Arloa,
Where does Teri live?
My family is now near 79th & King, in Chatham.
We definitely see a lack of resources & quality down here...not in every instance (in fact, some bright shining points as well), but enough to confirm the problem.
She's at 35th and King so would probably take the same bus.
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