I'm jumping on the formspring bandwagon. It's bouncy. →
You don’t even have to ask me a question, just say something! ♥
Cynical and preachy, it always comes back to me →
A tip, from a novice: If you feel strongly about someone or something, stop. Think. Use words that describe how you feel. Don’t take overused, cutesy, and nonsensical phrases and apply them to situations you feel are rare, authentic, and near-perfect. If you are experiencing overused, cutesy, and nonsensical situations often enough to need to steal a sentence to describe them, you’re doing something wrong.
Diana says it in all the ways that I can’t.
Myf Warhurst: "Eponymous cravat is noose to me" →
Matt [Preston] had named his cravat ”Myf” because it’s “short and slightly wide”. So I’m the Fat Cravat. […] “I can be the stylish cravat! Just like Mia Freedman,” I plead to no one. “I could even be the devilish one like Sonia Kruger!” But no, I’m the slightly wide one. The practical one that’s good to wear around the house or for catching spots of food during a long lunch. I am the tracksuit pants of cravats.
I’m not making excuses for my weight, but I am the height of Kylie Minogue (five foot nothing) and, quite frankly, in order not to look fat on screen, Kylie must eat like a bird and work out harder than Olivia Newton-John in her Let’s Get Physical clip. Being short, there’s just nowhere for it to go. Except sideways. And I can’t eat like a bird. I like to eat bird! Roasted, with gravy.
Myf, you are a goddess. Short, wide, whatever. I’d take you over Kylie any day. Call me, and we can eat roasted bird with gravy and be short and wide together.
Racial Microagressions →
Firstly, I think it perfectly obvious that someone yelling something like “Go back to China!” holds a negative connotation, and I can very easily identify this as an insult. But I don’t believe it’s a so-called “racial microagression”, it’s just verbal assault, plain and simple. I absolutely cannot believe some of the ridiculous “microagressions” that have been described (see “Table of Microagressions” word document linked in the article) and the implications that researches have been able to pull from them. Examples:
Themes: Ascription of intelligence, Assigning intelligence to a person of color on the basis of their race.
Microagression: Asking an Asian person to help with a math or science problem.
Implication: All Asians are intelligent and good in math/sciences.
What’s wrong with people implying that you’re good at maths or science? As far as I can tell, nobody ever asks me to help them with their homework as an insult. I would never take it as one either — I don’t even know how I could interpret a request for help as a “microagression”.
But that’s not all. I think that it becomes extremely ridculous:
Themes: Environmental microaggressions.
Microagression: A waiting room office has pictures of American presidents.
Implication: You don’t belong, Only white people can succeed.
Pictures of American presidents are a microagression? Quite frankly, anyone - regardless of whether they are white, black, yellow, blue or lavender - who feels that they can’t succeed because the majority of American presidents are Caucasian needs to wake up and do something about it, rather than feel all hurt and “microassaulted”. It all comes down to intent. Nobody hangs portraits of presidents up with the intention of making Asians feel bad. Why should we interpret the simple question of “Where were you born?” and “Is your first language English?” as microagressions when there is very obviously no malicious intent evident?
I could say I have been a victim of some sort of reverse microassault - When I was younger, a waitress in Hong Kong made some remark that implied that I was a foreigner because I asked her for a fork. Yes, I cried. I used to say it was because I was young and not very secure in my cultural foundations but you know what I think now? I think I was simpy weak. She didn’t mean to insult me, I know that now when I remember the surprise on her face at my tears. I let myself be confused by what I saw then as a “microagression”. In the end, I turned that woman into an enemy and I can honestly say it got me nowhere in learning to understand myself. It made me hate Hong Kong, it made me hate Chinese people and it made me hate myself. None of that hate helped me in the end.
I find that many of the implications described in the document make one so concerned with being politically correct, after reading it, it feels like everyone should be walking on eggshells around each other and not saying anything to each other at all. To interpret almost all everyday situations as a microassault is to be too sensitive, invite mixed messages and continue to confuse oneself of their own status and identity. It’s a system of thought that overanalyses others’ actions and I don’t find it helpful or productive in easing racial discomfort and tension. If anything, it creates more.
What I’m trying to say is, we’re all struggling one way or another with our cultural identity, but we shouldn’t let anything insignificant interfere with our own self discovery. We shouldn’t take the miniscule actions of insignificant people to heart. When it does become serious, when it does involve someone and/or something important it transcends microagressions — It’s okay to be hurt and hateful and changed over significant events. But microagressions? Finding portraits of American presidents and people asking you to help them with their homework as insulting? Or when some unknowing waitress hands you a fork with the helpful advice that you should learn how to use chopsticks? What a group of ideas that are too sensitive, confusing and hateful. I know that I don’t need this concept of microagression to make me doubt myself and turn strangers and their actions/words into enemies when I know no harm was intended.
