Weight of Micro-aggressions

I believe that the weight of micro-aggressions are real. Before the internship I was unaware what micro-aggressions were. I knew there were many stereo-types thrown out there, but I grouped micro-aggressions with all stereo-types and racism. The name gives off the impression that the comment a person may make is small, but still aggressive. At a young age children are aware of the sayings around them and they won't realize what's being said around them isn't true. They will grow up thinking that "oh african americans are good at basketball because they're tall", or "everyone who's asian always get good grades without trying." We as teenagers have to be careful of what we say and how we say certain things because you never know who's listening and who will take a comment offensively; especially around the kids who we work with. When we are put in a classroom with young children, whether we know it or not, they look up to us. It is our responsibility to watch what we say because we are the role models in the class. Since the comments we may say are "micro", the kids may tell others kids what we say and talk about, "Mei-An mentioned ectectect, so it must be true!" We must be encouraging the students to not judge anybody based of their appearance, and not encourage stereo-types, no matter how small the comment.