Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

No one is born racist. Racism is taught. Through both explicit and implicit messages, society teaches ideas, attitudes and assumptions about race that are not true (Margles & Margles, 2010). As the Margles mention in the article racism is taught. I truly believe it. However, this might not be the case, but this is a little Hispanic child in another Head Start class where I teach that does not like the response to anyone who are white. In his class there are two teachers a white lady and a Hispanic lady. The little boy does not speak English nor Spanish well, be you can tell he is trying to learn both languages because he repeats whatever you. In the mornings we are all on the playground together. Me being sure a nice and caring teacher I try to learn all the kids name and speak to them. Because usually I am the next teacher they will see when entering Pre-K. Well this particular day this kid tried to come into my classroom. When I told him he could not come in. He hold on to my leg and almost started to cry. My center manager was out there and tried to grab him to tell him to go play and that he could not go into the classroom. He refused to let go. So the center manager called the Hispanic teacher over to get him. Once she told him to go play he did. The center manager is white and his lead teacher is white. When I asked her do he response to her in the classroom she said no. She said that she do not know what it is about him. He listen to the other teacher but not me. It could be because he speak both little English and Spanish.

This is the only case I have seen this week of micro aggressions, however, that's probably not the case, it could be language and comprehensive because he does not speak English or Spanish well. From this observation, if this is the case, I feel like the parents have something to do with it. But I do not know the parents and have not really communicated to with them to know.

From this week observation experiences this week affect my perception of the effects of discrimination, prejudice, and/or stereotypes on people by getting to know and understand them more. It might not be that they are prejudice but simply do not understand or comprehend what is been said. On the other hand, the parents or family members could be telling him things that make him dislike the whites.

Reference

 Margles, S., & Margles, R. M. (2010). Inverting racism's distortions. Our Schools/Our Selves, 19(3), 137--149. Retrieved from the Walden Library using the Education Research Complete database: http://ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=51372248&site=ehost-live&scope=site