“Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (Jn 1:43-51)
Dear Family,
Biases are a part of us. Our mind develops mental shortcuts that can be used positively to navigate the world around us or have negative consequences that can lead to discrimination, baseless assumptions, or worse. They are the little prejudices in favor or against a thing, a person, or a group. Left unchecked, negative biases can manifest themselves in indirect, subtle, or unintentional discriminatory actions, which can be described as microaggressions. Note that in the above passage from the Gospel of John, even the Nazareans were subject to negative biases.
Microaggressions are comments or actions that target a person or group of people negatively. They can be big or small acts, intentional or accidental, which stem from prejudices and beliefs that are demonstrated consciously or unconsciously through daily interactions with people. These communications may appear harmless to observers, or unintentional perpetrators, but can have damaging and lasting effects on the person on the receiving end.
In our continuing Courageous Conversation forums, our next session will illustrate how microaggressions are experienced in a day in the life of a person of color. Afterward, we will open the floor to discuss how we can recognize and respond to these microaggressions in ourselves and others.
Below is the video of the interactive portion of our event:
Check out all our Courageous Conversations forums on our YouTube channel and other relevant YouTube videos on microaggressions:
Best regards,
Courageous Conversations Core Group