Discussion

 

Identifying Microaggressions in Your Local Area

A member of the racial, ethnic, or cultural population group you selected in Unit 4 discussion is relocating to your local community. Consider the experiences of your selected racial, ethnic, or cultural identity population with living in your community:

• Explore the community and find all of the everyday resources needed for this racial, ethnic, or cultural population group to make a life in your community. (For example, grocery store, doctor, place of worship, gym, library, barber, hair stylist, shopping mall, school, social club, and a newspaper that reflects the racial, ethnic, or cultural group‘s point of view and interests.)
• Describe the demographics of your community. Include information on the selected racial, ethnic, or cultural group’s percentage within the community.
• Visit your local grocery store, pharmacy, and shopping mall. Are there products, goods, and services that readily address your racial, ethnic, or cultural group’s sensibilities?
• Is this racial, ethnic, or cultural group represented in the pictorial images found in stores, billboards, and local publications? If so, do the images represent intragroup diversity (age, gender, socioeconomic status, et cetera)?
• Is this racial, ethnic, or cultural group represented in the local professional community (doctor, dentist, lawyer, judge, accountant, teacher, et cetera)?
• Is this racial, ethnic, or cultural group represented in the local business community as business owners?
• Is this racial, ethnic, or cultural group represented in the local government (city council, mayor, et cetera)? If so, does the percentage of government representation match the percentage of the population?
• If your racial, ethnic, or cultural group visited the public library, would they find a robust collection of titles dedicated to the interests of the racial, ethnic, or cultural group or written by members of this racial, ethnic, or cultural group?

Discuss your findings for your community observation. Compare and contrast your findings for your community observation with the discussions in the Sue text (2010), Chapters 7, 8, and 9.