Microaggressions & Implicit Bias Discussion

Before reading the article “Can We Overcome Racial Bias? 'Biased' Author Says To Start By Acknowledging It” by NPR and Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine I always assumed implicit bias and microaggressions were similar if not the same as discrimination. Now that I have read more examples of what each one is, I know the difference and how each is implemented into everyday life. Implicit bias is when people already have an opinion about who you are, based on your skin tone or possibly even based on your features. Microaggressions are little and big actions that are directed toward a minority group. Both of these affect the lives of people of color because implicit bias and microaggressions aren’t limited to strangers, but include friends and even family, which can mentally take a toll on a person. One thing that stood out to me in “Can We Overcome Racial Bias? 'Biased' Author Says To Start By Acknowledging It” by NPR was how “Racial conditioning in our brains starts young” (NPR). I found this to be fascinating because most parents aren’t teaching their children about racial bias, issues, or stereotypes, yet children start absorbing the world around them at such a young age. This article connects to our learning last week because of how people perceive race and use it as a tool. For example, in the case of Amy Cooper, she knew how to use her whiteness in order to hurt the man's blackness. She knew that because of implicit bias if she were to call 911 and specifically say a “black man” was threatening her, the odds would be in her favor because she is white. Ultimately, the real reason the odds would be in her favor is because the word black carries stigma and stereotypes and many officers wouldn’t think twice about who was wrong or right. Implicit bias and microaggressions tie into the novel Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine because the novel is mostly filled with collections of real stories of people who have faced implicit bias and microaggressions within their everyday lives. “He tells you his dean is making him hire a person of color when there are so many great writers out there” (Rankine 10). Microaggressions can present themselves as snarky comments not clearly directed, but most definitely directed to the person told. With this example, the person claims that they “have to” hire a person of color when there are other great writers, meaning more white people. This is a microaggression because the person is bothered and makes it known that they are bothered by the fact that they have to include a person of color and go out of their way to hire a person of color when they just want another white person