so i’m going to write a two part essayish thing that unpacks my class background. i’m starting with what i came from.

Read More

strugglingtobeheard:

White roommate 1: This black girl in my class was just taking up time complaining about how isolated she feels on campus as a black person. Like, she was upset because she says people don’t look at her when they pass by because she’s black!
White roommate 2: What?! I mean, I never look at people when I walk past them anyway! That has nothing to do with racism.
Me (PoC): Actually, a lot of racist behaviour is non-verbal and covert. I feel the same way from certain behaviors, too. As white people, I don’t think you guys are able to really understand it.

Walked out of our campus apartment immediately thereafter.
—


This is the kind of daily microaggression that just wears me down in my soul. Not least because attempts to explain it to white people always fall on deaf ears. Having people look through you is really dehumanizing, and I’m observant enough to know that it doesn’t happen to everyone equally, even living in an urban environment where people often ignore each other. It’s the little things. Like being at a social gathering or educational setting where everyone is clearly colder to you or ignores your presence. Like men being chivalrous to white women but not you. Like being forced off the sidewalk constantly. I decided recently to stop letting people push me off the sidewalk when I am clearly walking on my side of the sidewalk in a straight line. Every single day since making this decision not to bob and weave around people (generally, white people of both genders, and men), I have been knocked into. Every single day. And not a single person has apologized. It wears on me, whether my white friends recognize it or not.

—

this happened today. i was walking to the grocery store with an international student from china and she asked why the white family didn’t move over on the sidewalk for us so we didn’t have to step into the road {because a girl was hit by a car earlier this month and broke her pelvis in three places] and i really couldn’t explain it besides, “some people in the US are just rude.”

‘cause some are rude assholes for a lot more reasons than you can think.

—

This happens to me all the time on campus and I have the same feeling. Even the chivalry thing, though it’s not necessary. But like I’m 5’2” and standing on the bus is tough cause the rails are high up and a high reach on my arms. I notice how the only men that get up and offer their seat offer them to white and asian women, like fuck you stand. And the looking through and walking through and not apologizing if hitting you while walking, it’s all bullshit. It’s a lot of what ends up making me feel tired or angry or annoyed by the end of the day.

one thing that gets to me is also the inverse of this; how white people look at you as if they have the right to stare at you, lay eyes on you as if you were an object or an animal in a zoo, just that kind of dehumanizing blank up and down look, then acting startled when you return the gaze or even intensifying it if you look at them back.

(Source: microaggressions)