All of us have multiple social identities which create in us internalized privilege and internalized oppression in our everyday life based on the institutional isms. Whether the form of ism is direct or indirect, explicit or subtle, spelled out or hidden, the outcomes create advantages for some and disadvantages for others.
For this week’s post, I would like to share a scene from a recent Indian movie that depicts the oppression, prejudice and bias against a person because of her identity. True! English is an International language. But not everyone has the opportunity to master it. Here is a middle class Indian woman, a house wife and a mother used to being only at home and serving her family. She has never gone abroad or experienced the world around her. For the first time she gets an opportunity to come to US. In a strange new place she is sensitive, feeling vulnerable, insecure and conscious of the lack of privilege she is susceptible to because of her identity.
For this week’s post, I would like to share a scene from a recent Indian movie that depicts the oppression, prejudice and bias against a person because of her identity. True! English is an International language. But not everyone has the opportunity to master it. Here is a middle class Indian woman, a house wife and a mother used to being only at home and serving her family. She has never gone abroad or experienced the world around her. For the first time she gets an opportunity to come to US. In a strange new place she is sensitive, feeling vulnerable, insecure and conscious of the lack of privilege she is susceptible to because of her identity.
This is not one stand alone incident. All of the non native English people go through these micro aggressions. I remember my father (who is no more) feeling discriminated when he landed on the US soil first. He worked here in Abu Dhabi for 32 years dealing with different nationalities- Arabs, French, English, Indians, Pakistanis, Filipinos, Thai’s and others. They never had a problem in communicating with him and neither did he feel less privileged. Maybe it has also to do with the fact that UAE being a diverse country everyone is more understanding especially in issues with language. But when he migrated to the US he was suddenly feeling prejudiced. He felt hurt when people asked him to repeat what he was saying. It was not that he had bad English only that he did not speak with the American accent. This was 13 years back when my parents migrated to the US. Though after a couple of years things looked more positive, the initial phase was difficult and diminished equity.
Only change in behavior can modify beliefs and attitudes, because, ‘equality matters!’
Deepa,
ReplyDeleteThat movie clip captures the raw emotions created by microagressions and prejudice. I would hope for every rude and uncaring person in the U.S. there are many more respectful and caring people who would be patient and willing to help when someone needed assistance. It was interesting that the man who ended up helping her had an accent, also. Perhaps, he too, at one time experienced the same types of microagressions. Meaningful post, Deepa.
My heart went out to the woman in the video clip, who was being treated so unfairly and rudely. Thankfully, a measure of kindness was shown to her by the man. The clip was a dramatic example of how one person can make a difference, for good or for ill. Thank you for sharing the video clip.
ReplyDeleteFirst Deepa, thanks for sharing the video. There are many times that we can feel the prejudice when we walk in to a place. The video showed me that many people judges a person by the outward appearance and not what we can do or how they can help. I am black and I could have been the one on the other side of the counter. We have to learn to put ourselves in situations and think how it may hurt or how some of the microaggressions create come emotions.
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