Friday, July 22, 2011

Microaggression In Action

The most recent and blatant example of microaggression I have witnessed involves my husband, Ernest. Ernest has a best friend who is Caucasian and from Pennsylvania named Matt. Matt’s parents came to NM to visit him and he introduced them to Ernie. When his dad met Ernie he said “you didn’t tell me he wasn’t white”. When Matt told him that Ernie was Hispanic his dad then asked, “Well, is he at least half white”? When Matt said no, his dad replied “well I like him so in my mind he will be half white”. His dad is older and seems so very nice but that comment was out right racist and rude. It made me upset that he insinuated that Ernie was only worth anything if he had Caucasian blood in his heritage. It also made me understand how racism is still so prevalent and being taught in communities and passed down by generation. It made me sad to see that that people still have such close minded and prejudice views in today’s society. I have been in the military for so long where there is a zero tolerance for prejudice that I forget those not in our environment still believes this way.
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Established Contact with My German Childhood Professional

My contact actually changed from Tonya Schmidt to Thomas Volz. He studied in New York and Turkey. He taught school in Turkey and in Boveria at the Abuture, which they call the place of higher learning durin ghte first years. He also taught Turkish students to speak English for 4 years. He has 3 boys of his own that are 11, 12 and 15 years old. Whe I asked him to tell me about povery in Germany that he might have experienced and how it affects children, this is what he wrote to me:
"In Germany the federal social security system is (still) so comprehensive that you hardly notice any differences between rich and poor students in class. As (still) most of our schools end at 1pm, lunch, nutrition and healthcare is predominantly considered a private matter. People are very touchy about the government interfering in these questions. So it is left to health care providers to inform and teach the public on a voluntary basis. Of Course schools support this, but not as an integral part of the basic curriculum. The stress is on academic subjects".
"However, times are changing. More and more schools exand their lessons into the afternoon and the schools provide lunch. This is generally a cheap alternative to private lunch served at home. Here the schools monitor ingediences and nutrition very closely because many parents are very aware of this topic"
"The gap between rich and poor is, however, quite obvious on a higher academic level. Children that are academically supported at home are more likely to proceed to higher education and achieve better results on the long run. This more a question of how educated the parents/families are. But as education and income are unextricably entwined the link between academic achievement and income is a sad (German) fact"