‘Don’t touch my hair’ may not be baby’s first words, it’s one of the first boundaries we teach our kids. A while back, I watched from a distance what happened when an older lady tried to touch my then pre-teen child’s braids. My daughter had what I can only call a visceral reaction. As I looked on, it felt like I was watching an action movie sequence in slow-motion.
My daughter arched her body backward and contorted herself out of this woman’s reach. All in a fluid movement that would have made Black Panther proud. Mid-bend, in a tone that managed to simultaneously stay composed while it conveyed disgust, she simply and clearly uttered – “Don’t.” If “don’t touch my hair” was a person, that day, it was my daughter.
From my perspective, this was funny as hell.
And yeah, also annoying AF.
I marvelled at how my child is such a wholly different and instinctively empowered person than I was at her age. Or, if I’m honest, a more empowered person than I was even like, 10 years ago.
At that time, in my past career life, I worked in an uber-monochromatic organization. I was often “the only” in the room. As part of the organization’s leadership team, I was often “the only” or one of a very few women.
I was most definitely always the only Black woman.
‘Don’t touch my hair’ is only the tip of the microaggression iceberg.
Looking back, I don’t know how I survived working there for as long as I did. Actually no, that’s a lie, I know exactly how I survived. I did what many of us do – I shrugged off and ignored more nonsense than I should have had to all while going on with my daily life.
I had a nice team, I was paid to do work that I enjoyed and I knew, without a doubt, that since I was the only my experiences were sure to be gaslit even if I did raise them.
It was easier to buy into the hopeful myth that “they didn’t mean anything by it”. This was also safer than risking coming off as the Black person who “made everything about race”. Though part of the global majority, as a visible minority in the workplace, I knew my experiences would be trivialized.
And oh, the experiences.
There was the time were discussing home renovations. As a colleague looked at pictures of my home, they were shocked noting it was nice. Then they “jokingly” asked how I afforded it and asked whether my husband was a drug dealer.
Another time a colleague explained she’d rather work with an “actual nice Black person” than one of those “rude Asians”. Wait, what?
Oh and of course the time when someone else lamented the success of the Black Panther movie. Snidely commenting he could have made millions if he had just taken his last vacation in Africa. Because he too could have filmed a bunch of half-naked Black guys “monkeying it up” in the jungle.
*sigh*
There finally came the day I started budgeting my finances so I could plan to exit from the organization.
As I sat in a large staff meeting, a guest speaker from the local police force casually defended racial profiling. She emphatically stated that one way to keep the local area “safe” was to recognize that “a Black guy in a Mercedes in this area was definitely suspicious and didn’t belong”. She said this raised red flags for police and should be for everyone.
As she spoke, I looked around the room. I watched as each of my colleagues nodded in acknowledgement of what they clearly interpreted as sage wisdom.
It was then that I decided to pack my sh*t and head for the hills. That night, I went home and started crunching numbers to calculate how much I would need to save to simply quit, without a new job. And how soon that could happen.
Microaggressions are never harmless. They told me all I needed to know about the prevailing mindset in my organization. I didn’t want to roll the dice that my husband would pick me up from work in his luxury sedan and end up in a situation he wouldn’t come home from.
I look back at the woman who I was when I survived in that organization and want to hug her.
Between juggling demanding responsibilities at work, parenting and just adulting, she had nothing left. She had no time or desire to unpack the microaggressions, micro-assaults and micro-invalidations that filled her day.
Having worked, lived and gone to school in spaces where I was the only or one of the few – I was well-prepared for this survival mode.
Perhaps most tragic about who I was back then is why I was unwilling to unpack the comments. On one hand, I was unwilling to raise the issues because I expected nothing better and on the other hand because I knew I had nothing to gain. I was in a position of all risk and no gain. I had no energy to waste weighing the risks associated with responding to microaggressions when I knew nothing would change.
I was in survival mode.
Having always worked, lived and gone to school in spaces where I was the only or one of the few – I had been prepared all my life for this survival mode.
At some level, I understood that the expectation was that I could not safely push back. There was little value in evoking the “angry Black woman” trope. I felt obliged to simply suck it up.
Part of my survival meant denying and minimizing my experiences.
I often told myself that my colleague was actually a lovely man I got along with.
Believing he “didn’t mean anything “, was easier than unpacking the automaticity with which he equated Black wealth with criminality.
My workplace experience with microaggressions is not unique to me. And as my kids get older it is painfully apparent that they are not unique to adults.
Microaggressions in school shape many Black student’s everyday experience.
As racial violence in Ontario’s schools demonstrates, microaggressions, assaults and invalidations are part of our children’s daily lives. This is why I was relieved to see my child instinctively and steadfastly hold her boundary when faced with an age-old microaggression.
The digs and remarks that minimize Black folks seek to rob us of our dignity, humanity, identity and uniqueness. Microaggressions constantly ‘other’ us and seek to remind us that we are perceived as different or less. Co-existing with microaggressions can rob us of the safety of feeling comfortable as we are.
All the while, the insidious and sometimes imperceptible nature of microaggressions also make us question ourselves. In spaces where we are one of the only or the few, it can feel safer to overlook these comments.
But ignoring the seventh time we are mistaken for the only other Black person in the organization is taxing. It is hard not to be affected by it over time. When multiple folks confuse you with someone who is six shades lighter and wears a straight bob, while you have Locs, it’s clear people aren’t seeing you at all.
This death by a thousand cuts can start to affect how we show up in certain spaces. Experiencing this on a daily basis can have lasting effects.
Whether those spaces are workplaces or schools.
But watching her in that moment I was thrilled to see that my girl was not having that.
Microaggressions are about so much more than “Don’t touch my hair”.
She held her ground in a way I can only hope translates to her holding space for bolder, bigger boundaries later. Not just at school, but when she’s out in the world as a professional – or when she’s at the bank, or in the laundry mat. Anywhere and everywhere.
My naïve hope is that my kid’s response to this age-old microaggression translates into her never minimizing or dismissing them or changing who she is to accommodate those who “mean well”.
Microaggressions are about so much more than “Don’t touch my hair”.
But it’s a damn good place to start.
