Practicing the Awarness of Microaggression

This week I had a conversation with a friend who was selling her house.  She began to tell me how she understood that she could not have complete control over who buys her house, but she wanted a “normal family” to buy her house.  When I asked her what she meant by “normal family”, she responded by saying “a two-parent home with maybe a dog…you know a typical American family.”  She continued to say “I’m not racist or anything but, I’ve only had families who are Arab look at my house.  They have multiple families living in one house and they are taking over the neighborhood”.  My first respond to her was usually when someone has to start a statement with “I’m not a racist, but…” it means they are about to say something that is offensive.  I continued by telling her that there are numerous definitions of a family.  The subject was quickly changed.

I thought about this conversation for a couple of days.  There were so many hidden messages!  My friend, who is a white woman, gave me the message that the definition of a “normal family” is a white American, two-parent home.  She also sent the message that a home is made up of immediate family only and those who have extended family does not belong in the neighborhood.  It felt like there was a sense of entitlement, a sense that she wanted to protect her neighborhood from anything or anyone outside of what she considered to be normal.

Perspecives on Diversity and Culture

It's really interesting to hear people to give the definition of culture and diversity.  Over the course of this last week I was able to ask three different people their definition of culture and diversity.  What made my conversations interesting is while responding to the question, it appeared that each person was careful in their definition. As I spoke to a colleague about her hesitation, she responded by telling me she wanted to make sure her definition of culture wasn't offensive.  However, her definitions didn't seem to differ from the other two.  Culture was defined as a shared set beliefs and experiences, food, clothing, and child rearing.  Diversity was defined as respecting the differences of others.

The definitions provided are supported by what I have studied in this class thus far.  Janet Gonzales-Mena reported that "culture is learned from the people around you".  A culture can be created from a shared experience and how a group of people respond to the experience.  For example, how the birth of a child is celebrated.