On my first day of high school, I was whisked around the hallways by menacing seniors, excited juniors, anxious sophomores, frantic hallway monitors, and other confused freshmen. As I finally arrived at my destination, room 103, I was stopped by a senior. “Hey,” he said, “you know, for a light skin, you’re pretty cute.”

At first, I thought the comment was seemingly innocent, artificially sweetened by the word “cute.” That was a compliment, and I should then be flattered. However, my ever-churning stomach did not reflect the “flattery.” What did he mean “for a light skin?” Growing up, I had always taken pride in my biracial Jamaican-French heritage and that my Decembers were filled with both Hanukkah and Christmas. My parents had raised me to appreciate my heritage, and I was proud of who I was. However, I had unsettlingly grown accustomed to this. At dance, I was regarded as the token racially ambiguous friend which many peers took advantage, stating that I would only be “half offended” at a joke or that I wasn’t “really Jamaican” because I “acted white.” I was not yet familiar with the term “microaggression,” only that this was not my first encounter with it and certainly was not the last.

As Columbia professor Derald Sue defines the term, microaggressions are “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color.” So while the senior may have called me cute, there was racism lying beneath the surface of his comment. My peers at dance were at fault for the prejudice and ignorance within their comments.  A microaggression is a part of a more significant, more sinister group of interactions known as discrimination. 

The biggest issue with microaggressions is that society does not see them as an issue. With an impact more extensive than its prefix indicates, microaggressions plague the lives of minority groups with hostile, derogatory, and negative attitudes on a daily basis. These thinly veiled spawns of hatred can be hard to discover at first glance. In the instance where my race was noted in assessing my cuteness, I was first blinded by the fact that someone had referred to me as cute. Many microaggressive behaviors are disguised as possibly complimentary, daily verbal exchanges and may even be a weak attempt at humor. Microaggressive satire is difficult to intervene due to its form. I was desperate for a way of confronting my dance peers about the underlying racism of their comments, but I was pressed with another issue; addressing the issue of its content may be cut short with the infamous “learn to take a joke” and “chill out, I was just kidding.” As a result, I was forced to pick between a death by a thousand words or a death by none. My choices were limited: say something and possibly change a person or say nothing and condone their behavior. Choosing the latter was the easier decision as a teenager who wanted to fit in, but it wasn't the right one. Microaggressions will only reoccur if they are allowed to recur. 
Microaggressive behavior can also be a result of environmental factors. A child growing up in more conservative households may believe that an offensive comment is quite plainly, a fact of life, unaware of its derogatory and prejudiced nature. In the American antebellum era, derogatory words referring slaves were used in abundance and in casual conversation. The commonality of these derogatory terms began to become simply the go-to word for African Americans, and since everyone was used to it, it was not a problem. In the case of modern times, such child may see an intervention of this behavior as an attack on their upbringing and moral values. And so, we come full circle and condone such microaggressive behavior on account of keeping “peace.” The microaggressor remains the culprit for a crime that can be prevented.

As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.” Most people are capable of understanding how commentary and/or behavior can be hostile or derogatory. The difficulty lies in addressing it. If we wish to call ourselves good people, then it must be understood that by allowing such hateful acts to occur, we are condoning those acts. If we wish to make this world a more loving place for all its inhabitants, then it must be understood that these horrible microaggressions have a large impact. If we wish to eliminate racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and everything in between, we must look at our own daily interactions and ask ourselves, “How does this reflect positively on myself? How does this create a positive impact on the world around me?”