Chapter 12: What are microaggressions?

Oluo has dealt with her share of microaggressions. People have said that her lips are too big for red lipstick and that she probably didn’t have to work as hard as a white student would have to get into college. Both were, of course, untrue, but these slights provide a window into a daily life lived with microaggressions. Microaggressions are “small daily insults and indignities perpetrated against marginalized or oppressed people because of their affiliation with that marginalized or oppressed group.” They are small, so it might seem possible to brush them off at first, but they are also “cumulative,” and the object of microaggressions may begin to suffer from hypervigilance and even depression and anxiety.

Many different people perpetuate microaggressions and do not even realize exactly how much they are hurting the person to whom they are talking. Oluo provides some stark examples:

“Are you an affirmative action hire?”
“Why do black people give their kids such funny names?”
“Wow, you’re so articulate.”
“Do your kids all have the same dad?”
“You don’t sound black.”
“Are you the maid?”

Not all microaggressions are spoken: some are communicated by actions, like clutching a purse more tightly or locking the car doors when a Black person walks by.

Microaggressions normalize racism, so it is important to call them out when possible. Oluo provides some strategies for this. Before anything else, “state what actually happened,” not what the microaggressor believes happened, and then “ask some uncomfortable questions.” If the microaggression is still troubling, “ask some more uncomfortable questions.” A person’s good intentions are not the point; the microaggression still hurts, regardless of the way it was intended.

Oluo challenges readers to take a number of specific steps if they have been called out for microaggressions:

Pause.
Ask yourself: “Do I really know why I said/did that?”
Ask yourself: “Would I have said this to somebody of my race? Is it something I say to people of my race?”
Ask yourself if you were feeling threatened or uncomfortable in the situation, and then ask yourself why.
Don’t force people to acknowledge your good intentions.
Remember: it’s not just this one incident.
Research further on your own time.
Apologize.

This work can be difficult, but Oluo urges readers to keep going.

Chapter 13: Why are our students so angry?

Oluo begins this chapter by telling readers why her eight-year-old son is so angry. He knows his own mind and has decided that he doesn’t want to pledge allegiance to the flag or sing the national anthem: he is an atheist, and he doesn’t think that the United States actually provides “liberty and justice for all.”

Oluo was born in 1980 and raised with great aspirations—but, she says,

The promises of the ’80s did not prevent the crack epidemic or the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which helped militarize our police force, introduced mandatory minimum sentences for crimes more likely to be committed by brown and black offenders, and rapidly expanded prison sizes to accommodate the massive increase of black and brown bodies brought in by a criminal justice system now incentivized to see black and brown people as criminals.

Black and brown students see that the United States has not delivered on its promises, and the world is still a dangerous place for them. Oluo’s son had to learn that at a young age: his father had to tell him that he couldn’t play with a toy gun outside his home, while his white stepbrother could. Ultimately, the world is still unfair for Black and...