Microaggressions In College

When women and students of color attend college they aren't always prepared for some of the interactions that take place. We don't take into consideration how these encounters affect students and can, in some cases, impede progress. The interactions I speak of can be referred to as microaggressions.

Microaggressions are very subtle. They're sometimes imperceptible. But they do exists. These negative encounters can be experienced in exchanges between students of color and women with their peers in predominantly white institutions of learning. This can result in an hostile environment creating a climate too uncomfortable to succeed. This shows up in ways such as blanketing whole segments of the population with stereotypes that border on racist as well as sexist.

My experience at Columbia University made evident that not all students understand nor care to integrate with 'others.' This comes in subtle statements as well as misinformation and lack of sensitivity to people not like them.

I'm not exactly a shrinking violet so I met fire with fire. I refused to allow this type of behavior or belief system to interfere with getting the best education possible. Besides, at the point that I attended grad school, I was fully comfortable with who I am and my place in the world.

My masters is in Fundraising Management, a field dominated by white women. I was one of two males in most of my classes. I always felt an underlying discomfort around many of these women. Mind you, all of my life, I've been around many women of different stripes so I know it had nothing to do with gender. I found them dismissive and, at times, rude making assumptions based on stereotypes.This became glaringly evident when we did our final group project, which I will address in another blog.

I noticed that no matter how I applied myself, there was always a discount of a half point on my final grades. I started to find it strange that after leaving an intensive undergrad experience majoring in History with a 4.0 GPA, the best I seemed to be able to accomplish was an -A.

Fortunately, we were required to take classes in the Business School as part of our requirements. Ironically, I managed to pull three A pluses and an A! The work was definitely much more rigorous. I began to realize what was going on and actually jokingly coined it the "Negro Discount." In the field of fundraising I automatically lose a half point based on some unforeseen microaggression...go figure?!

To add insult to injury, when we designed a training for a nonprofit as an assignment, I was met with condescension, and told "nobody will ever agree to that!" I let it stew for a week and when the time permitted, I confronted the professor and told him that by looking at the assignment through the eyes of a white man, you're doing a disservice to people who live and are affected by adversity in communities of color. He told me it was a "point well taken." Needless to say, I got an A!

Harvard University's Voices of Diversity project conducted a study addressing this phenomenon. Here is an article that presents the findings in their report: http://colorlines.com/archives/2015/01/report_for_students_of_color_college_life_filled_with_microaggressions.html.