I have had strangers come up to me and attempt to mimic the Chinese language in a derogatory manner. I have been told countless times that I speak 'good' English. I have been asked why someone like me would be interested in watching NFL football. On any given day, if I walk around with a camera, I will be mistaken for a tourist from Asia.
In America, I feel black with all of the rubbish that comes with it.
When I was a teenager, I was the only black girl at a small, private Episcopal school, where my tuition was paid by the family my mother worked for. It was hard being the only one, and I faced a fair amount of racist and classist bullying there.
I have found that the only way to give feedback without triggering white fragility is not to give it at all.
I always think - when I get mad, and people say, 'Don't be the angry black woman' - it's like, well, why not? There's so much to be angry about.
Of course, when people work together, there can be tension and disagreement. But policing informal behavior makes it hard for people to speak freely for fear they will say the wrong thing. Even self-aware individuals can doubt their judgement and start to rely on the diversity trainer to judge if something is offensive.
Trigger warnings are an instantiation of the West's zeitgeist of perpetual offense and victimhood that defines much of public discourse.
When you are in the public eye as a person of color, you are given very little room to mess up.
It's one thing when other African-Americans try to threaten my race card, but when people outside of my ethnicity have the audacity to question how 'down' I am because of the bleak, stereotypical picture pop culture has painted for me as a black woman? Unacceptable.
There's a big difference between being racist and racially insensitive.
White people are very good at acting like they're not racist. They deserve an Academy Award for that.
Good grief, we're getting offended by everything these days! People can't say anything without offending somebody.
In social settings, under the guise of joking, being collegial, flirting, or having a good time, I undoubtedly caused some women to question themselves, retreat, feel alone, and worry they can't be their authentic selves.
It's something that black men still go through to this day, which is women clutching their purses, hitting the lock button on store, or just basic attitudes. And even as a U.S. congressman, as a black man, it is very, very frustrating, and you build up an internal anger about it that you can't act on.
People don't realize it hurts my feelings when someone looks at my hair or my eyes, and says, 'But you're not actually black. You're black, but you're not black black, because your eyes are green.' I'm like, 'What? No, no, I'm definitely black.' Even some of my closest friends have said that. It's been a bit touchy for me.
Everyone's extremely and easily offended now.
I do not want to name any individual names, but I felt like when I was working in Hollywood, there were some fellow colleagues of mine who didn't even look me in the eyes because I was Asian.
I'm not sure that there are days of my life when I'm not confronted with racism. For some, that may seem hyperbolic, but it's true.
Many of us actively working to interrupt racism continually hear complaints about the 'gotcha' culture of white anti-racism. There is a stereotype that we are looking for every incident we can find so we can spring out, point our fingers, and shout, 'You're a racist!'
I think every woman in this country will understand what it means to be mansplained to. It happens in everyday life - you know, if you go into a shop, or you're talking about finance.
Political correctness and so many of the political fashions of the day...could only be perpetrated in adolescent minds: minds, that is, that are trained to search out one thing and one thing only...Only an adolescent would find it worthwhile to devote his or her attention chiefly to the hunting of offenses, the possibility of slights, real and imagined.
Oh, talking about private school, man, I had cornrows, and when I picked 'em out, certain people that didn't look like me always wanted to touch 'em. One time, I just said, 'Yo, hell no.'
I often wonder if my being a fairly small Asian woman with a high-pitched quietish voice plays a role in how often men feel entitled to come up to me and tell me, 'You have this doll act,' or whatever.
I've been called 'Bruce Lee.' I've been called other less offensive, but equally stupid and racist kind of terms.
Most girls spend most of their time at school. If real change comes from hearing our voices, it has to start in school, but school is a place where black girls tend to experience microaggressions. Microaggressions are not always obvious, ugly, or terrible things, but they make you feel as though your voice does not matter.
