Students, staff and faculty gathered in the University of Wyoming Union Ballroom yesterday to discuss racial “microaggressions” on campus.
Dr. Tracey Owens Patton, department chair for African American and Diaspora Studies, facilitated the #ITooAmWyoming (or I, Too, Am Wyoming) public discussion, and presented information to those in attendance. She went on to explain the meaning behind the term “microaggressions.”
“Microaggressions, I would say, are those little instances, the little daily assaults, if you will,” Patton said. “Often times we think of big issues of racism. When we think of racism, we think of the KKK, or a white supremacist group, or a terrorist act. That is not a microaggression. A microaggression is something that most people in society would see as covert. Meaning that it’s not seen or acknowledged by the majority of people.”
Patton went on to describe the effect microaggressions have on their victims.
“You can have these little small instances, but eventually you get exhausted,” Patton said. “It’s like if you take a piece of paper and you tape it to a wall and you’re told to tear off a piece of the paper and then you’re told to put back that piece of paper. To make the paper look whole again. There really is no way to do that.”
Attendees of the #ITooAmWyoming event discussed microaggressions in terms of where they exist on campus and how they can be stopped. To help fuel the conversation, clips were shown from “Black West,” a University of Wyoming student-created documentary on modern black lives in Western America.
Natawsha Mitchell, co-creator of “Black West,” ASUW director of diversity and #ITooAmWyoming workshop organizer explained the purpose behind the event.
“I think the intent is to make our campus better,” Mitchell said. “Particularly with microaggressions, I feel that most people work really hard to make sure they don’t happen if they know about it. So this is just an opportunity to let people know about one of the most common forms of racism and help them understand that it’s really easy to combat if they chose to.”
While Mitchell gave numerous examples of microaggressions against her both in person and in the “Black West” documentary, she still has faith in her aggressors.
“I think that, knowing that this is an issue is one of the most important things,” Mitchell said. “I genuinely believe that people are good–that when they make mistakes, they are mistakes. So hopefully today people got a little bit of a taste of what they’re saying and how it affects other people. Hopefully, it inspired them to learn more about these issues.”
As the challenging of racial microaggressions on campus was a primary goal of the dialogue, students, faculty members and staff members were given unique lists of progressive actions they could undertake to do so.
“I think the number one thing is to recognize that there’s a big difference between intent and impact,” Mitchell said. “Don’t assume that just because you think something is funny that somebody else is going to take it that way as well.”
Ahmed Balogun, ASUW president and attendee of #ITooAmWyoming, gave his view on the importance of such an event on campus.
“A lot of people aren’t aware,” he said. “A lot of people’s perspectives is that things like this don’t happen. So this is to, first of all, acknowledge that this happens, that it’s a reality, so we can come together and figure out what the next steps should be.”
Balogun also evaluated the role #ITooAmWyoming played as a part of the Martin Luther King Jr. Days of Dialogue.
“It ties in very well with the theme and activities of the week,” Balogun said. “A lot of the activities are interactive or strive to be interactive to get that participation, get that discussion, get that dialogue, all of which ultimately plays into the goals of the Days of Dialogue. To see if we can talk about the issues and talk about the next steps, talk about how we can resolve them.”
The ASUW president also gave his point of view on the meaning behind the name “#ITooAmWyoming.”
“A lot of the perspectives we saw in the videos of people who have been affected by this microaggression and just end up absorbing it, taking it in,” Balogun said. “They’re not necessarily living comfortably in a place that they would call home. But this really is like saying ‘I too am Wyoming,’ ‘I too am here,’ and ‘I too deserve to be heard and to get the basic things everybody else gets to enjoy.’”
