Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

      Before digging deep into the subject of microaggression I had not at all been so alert. Now, I feel like I notice it all the time. When watching television, or when I hear people communicate with myself of with others. This week I observed two forms of microaggression within the classroom. Both of which involved people assuming a child was of a certain ethnic group because of their name.

Situation #1: A little boy has been going home and telling  his parents about his friend Muhammed. When the little boys father came into the classroom, I noticed that he kept pointing to one particular child and saying "LOOK, there's your friend Muhammed". The father then started to speak to the child and say "Good Morning Muhammed", the child looked at him puzzled and would not speak. I politely said to the parent, "that is not Muhammed that's James", and directed him to where Muhammed was sitting.  The little boy (James) that the father thought was Muhammed is half African American, half Caucasian; therefore he has a very tanned skin complexion and very dark hair. I believe that the father assumed that he looked middle eastern being that Muhammed seems to be  a common middle eastern/Muslim name, especially within the city. However, Muhammed is a black boy. His parents are from Senegal(Africa) and are Muslim so they named their son after their profit. I could see the embarrassment in the fathers face, but I did feel it was wrong to assume that the tanned skin boy was Muhammed.



Situation #2:  There is a little boy in one of the classrooms named Wolfgang. When speaking to one of my coworkers about how adorable I thought he was she said "WOLFGANG? Is he Native American?" Wolfgang is Caucasian, his parents are of German descent. When I said No, where do you get native American from? She laughed and said "well you know Native Americans have names and nicknames like wolf, bear, hawk." Now from my experience I have never met someone that was Native American with a name or nickname like that. But throughout the media, movies, books, stores, toys, I have seen/heard names like that being attached to Native American culture. I thought WOW, she came up with that conclusion SO FAST, but maybe had the shoe been on the other foot, I may have thought the same, or similar. I know for sure I would not have thought German.