Sunday, June 7, 2020

The Indigenous Perspective on Microaggression - things people say that are actually racist, sexist, or offensive


Business Insider posted an article on 3 June 2020 entitled, What is a microaggression? 14 things people think are fine to say at work - but are actually racist, sexist, or offensive (Ward and Premack, 2020).  This in response to the anger over George Floyd's death and the protests that have resulted.  Their attempt, I think, is to bring some things to light that are not recognized by the dominant society.  

Of course, there was nothing in Business Insider article about what we Indigenous people face every day, but some of their 14 can easily be re-purposed for us as a group.  The plight of Indigenous people is so overlooked.  I WISH the chants, speeches, protest signs, articles, and so forth would instead say "People of Color" and "Colored Lives Matter" instead of focusing strictly on African Americans to the complete exclusion of everyone else who suffers the same racism, abuse, high rates of murder and incarceration, poverty, and such.

As the article states, "Prejudice, bias, and discrimination at work are a lot more common than many business leaders would like to admit....  Some of this plays out in the form of microaggressions, or indirect, often unintentional expressions of racism, sexism, ageism, or ableism.  They come out in seemingly innocuous comments by people who might be well-intentioned.  Because microaggressions are so subtle, it's often hard to know if you're committing one."

I will let you read the article to see their list of 14.  As I read it, I did so from an Indigenous perspective.  I also added some things as they came to mind.  Here is my list.

  • A white colleague tells a colleague of color, "You're so articulate". 
    • I have gotten this a number of times because Indigenous people aren't supposed to be intelligent and we are supposed to speak like the cartoon and movie Injuns in a guttural voice with lots of missing words: "Hm, me not understand".
  • "You're Native American?  Wow, you don't look like it." 
    • This is usually quickly followed by "How much?"  Again, that stereotype of how we are supposed to look as well as the quantum requirement that I can't be Indigenous if I am not 100% pure.  No other group of people EVER gets asked this.  This question immediately implies that I am not who I say I am and/or I am not allowed to be who I am.
    • The blood quantum system was devised by the U.S. Government to define who could "be Indigenous" and ultimately make us go away.  If I was born Lakȟóta and my family and elders know me to be Lakȟóta, you can't say differently.  My blood is all human blood and is not different just because I am Lakȟóta.  We are the only group of people who get asked that.  If someone says s/he is German, you don't say, "You're German? You don't look like it.  How much?"  This concept of blood percentages or characteristics only gets applied to animals.  For example, a dog is a dog, and it doesn't make any difference if the dog is half Labrador Retriever and half Poodle.  It is still a dog and the characteristics are based on breed differences.  Breeds were created by humans.  Why should a human being be any different?  
  • If you are an underrepresented minority and there's another person of your identity in the room, there's a chance that the majority group will confuse your names.  "Oh, sorry, wrong person."
    • We do not all look alike.
  • "Oh, you're Native American?  You should meet my friend Ann.  She's Indian, too."  or, "oh, you're Native American?  Do you know Ann?  She's Indian, too!"
    • Just because Ann and I are lumped together as Indigenous doesn't mean we need to be together or we know each other.  That would be like saying, "Oh, you are Portuguese?  Do you know my friend ----?"  "Oh, you go to CSU?  My friend Gene goes to CSU.  Do you know him?"
  • Calling Indigenous people savages, uncivilized, heathens, "chief" (for men), the places we lived "wilderness" or "empty", etc.....  Assuming we are all wise or jamming us into every other stereotype. 
    • BTW - the famous commercial about an Indian with a tear when he sees pollution from the 70s?  He wasn't Indigenous.  He was Italian.  He dressed up to fit your stereotype.
  • Assuming all Indigenous people hunt bison, live in tipis, wear the same thing, say "How" (actually, that is based on Lakȟóta, "háu").  Referring to all of us as Indians, Native Americans, American Indians, etc. as a single group.   "What should I call you and your people?"
    • There were over 500 different nations on Turtle Island when the European invasion started.  We all had different lifeways, different languages, different clothing, different dwellings, different foods.  Just like Germans, French, English, Swiss, etc., have different lifeways, languages, clothing, dwellings, food, etc.  You don't lump all Europeans into a single stereotype.  Don't do it with us. 
    • remember, "European" refers to all the peoples who live on the subcontinent of Europe.  We all live on Turtle Island.  If you are going to lump us as a single group, I guess you could call us Turtle Islanders.  Otherwise, stick with our nations and drop the racial designation.
    • You get offended when we lump you into a single racial designation as "white".
    • BTW - there is no such thing as a "race" in biological terms.  We are all humans with different characteristics.
    • Another BTW - we live in houses. wear the same clothes you do, and so forth.  The difference is many of us are still exceedingly poor, have poor or no access to fresh water, indoor plumbing, toilets, good food, economic opportunity.
      • Many Indigenous people have adopted various terms, "Native American", "American Indian", or "Indian".  Many have adopted the names given to us by Europeans, like "Sioux", "Chippewa", "Navajo".  Here is the basic rule of thumb.  Refer to us by our nationality using our name for our nation.  You are from America, and so you are an American.  She is from Spain, so she is Spanish.  I am from the Lakȟóta Nation, so call me Lakȟóta.  Don't lump us all together into one big group unless it is going to be Turtle Islanders. I use Indigenous because most outside of the First Nations people have no idea what "Turtle Island" is.
        • Of course, that term doesn't apply to our southern neighbors.  The dominant culture lumps them together as Hispanics or Latinos.  You might want to note that "Latino" refers to a male, so even that term has gender issues, but I will let my Latinx friends address that issue....  "Hispanic" refers Latinx from Spanish-speaking Latin American countries.  How about you use the same approach:  refer to each of them by their nationality.
  • "Black Lives Matter"
    • This completely overlooks and ignores Latinos, Asians, Indigenous, and anyone not on the black-white racial binary in the United States.
    • It needs to be changed to "People of Color Lives Matter".  Too long?  Deal with it.
  • "The way you've overcome your disability is so inspiring."  or "You don't look disabled." or "Everyone has those problems."  or "You just need to..." or "Hang in there, it will get better."
    • Okay, this is not about being Indigenous, but since I am disabled, it applies to me.  This immediately implies that I do not have a problem and/or belittles or dismisses their severity and the impact they have on my life.  Yes, you may have memory problems, or you may have trouble finding words, or you may have trouble understanding what someone says, but yours is normal aging in a healthy brain and has come on gradually.  Mine started in an instant and is much more severe than yours.  Unless you also have a brain injury, you do NOT know what I struggle with or how I am feeling. 
    • If you see someone in a wheelchair, you don't say, "I have problems with my legs, too." 
    • Don't try to tell me how to solve or address my problem.  I have worked with professional occupational therapists and physical therapists for years.  If they haven't come up with an accommodation or strategy specific to my disability, you certainly won't, and what works for your undamaged brain doesn't for mine.
    • Mine is not a temporary disability - it is permanent according to all my medical doctors.  It has gotten as good as it is going to get.  Do not dismiss my reality.
    • I have come to hate the word, "just".  It is used to make something sound simple, easy, straightforward.  Nothing is "just" for me anymore.
  • "That's a cool name."  or "You don't hear that name every day."  or "Is that your real name?"
    • My last name has significance on a number of levels including spiritual and ties me to the reasons my ancestors have the name and the accomplishments in their lives that led to them having it.  Your comment makes it sound like I chose it just because of how it sounds.  Calling it out as "special" or noteworthy is also a comment on my heritage.  It also carries with it the judgment that I am not actually Indigenous.
    • Actually, I DO hear my name every day.
    • Why the heck would I tell you a name that is not my name?
  • "I think you're in the wrong room."  Spoken to someone who enters the room when the people in it think that the topic of discussion couldn't possibly be of interest to the person entering (e.g., an Indigenous person entering a math lecture at a company).
    • We are engineers, scientists, astronauts, military members, professors, school teachers, physicists, chemists, environmental professionals, service providers, and such, just like white people.
  • Interrupting someone with, "Well, actually I think...." 
    • Men interrupt women three times more frequently than they do other men. 
    • Also, if a woman or person of color shares her/his idea, everyone ignores it, then a man or white person in the room says it and everyone thinks it is the greatest idea.  White people interrupt people of color more frequently than they interrupt other white people, and white men interrupt people of color more frequently than almost any other group interrupts us.
  • "Why do you wear that?" asked of someone who wears garb tied specifically to their heritage or beliefs.
    • I wear what I wear as my personal expression of myself and my beliefs.  Making comments or asking questions about it singles me out for my heritage and beliefs.
  • "How do you celebrate Christmas/Easter/etc.?"
    • Not everyone follows a Judeo-Christian belief system.  Some of us do, and others of us follow our traditional beliefs.  There are many Indigenous people who have been Christianized.  Don't assume that just because some of us celebrate a Judeo-Christian holiday, everyone does.
    • Some holidays have history attached to them that is very painful.  Thanksgiving is one of them.  What is printed in history books is NOT what the ancestors of the Indigenous people involved experienced.
  • "Your oral history is wrong.  Scientists say Indians came over the Bering Land Bridge."
    • Science is evolving.  This is a hypothesis (not theory), and is being challenged by increasing scientific data. 
  • "Anthropologists say that <fill in "fact">."
    • Who should know about us better, anthropologists with their own biases or us?
  • "All of that is in the past.  Just get over it."  

The article quotes Robin Lakoff, Professor Emerita of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkley: "One thing is that they are in a sense ambiguous, so that the recipient is apt to feel vaguely insulted, but since the words look and sound complimentary, on the surface (they are most often positive), she can't rightly feel insulted and doesn't know how to respond."  I might point out that Dr. Lakoff appears to be a white female.

These all seem subtle, and, in fact, the speaker might be unconsciously aware of saying them.  However, people of color are painfully aware and their utterance is definitely consciously registered.  "Well, s/he didn't say anything," the speaker might say in defense. Our silence, however, does not mean we didn't hear the comment, agree to its appropriateness, or feel it was either ambiguous or benign.  It also doesn't mean we weren't hurt,  offended, angry.  We actually feel physical pain, emotional pain, even flashbacks or fear in response  People of color face racism and discrimination of all kinds on a daily basis.  We have also learned that it is safer to not say anything at all to avoid the escalation that results more often than not.   If we try to say something, even as pleasantly as possible, we are accused of being too sensitive.

Microaggression takes a toll.  As (2010) summarized, it can have biological, physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral effects.

  

Have someone punch you in the gut every day and then not be scared if someone reaches a hand towards your gut or mimes punching you.  The response is classic Pavlovian conditioning and nobody is immune.


References Cited
  • Sue, D.W., 2010, Microaggressions in everyday life: race, gender and sexual orientation: Hoboken, New Jersey, John Wiley & Sns, Inc., 352 p.
  • Ward, M., and Premack, R., 2020, What is a microaggression? 14 things people think are fine to say at work — but are actually racist, sexist, or offensive, Business Insider, https://www.businessinsider.com/microaggression-unconscious-bias-at-work-2018-6, accessed 7 June 2020.

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