That American spirit includes staying true to the unity and diversity that makes us strong — like no other nation in the world. In this age of instant reporting and tweets and blogs, there’s a temptation to latch on to any bit of information, sometimes to jump to conclusions. But when a tragedy like this happens, with public safety at risk and the stakes so high, it’s important that we do this right. That’s why we have investigations. That’s why we relentlessly gather the facts. That’s why we have courts. And that’s why we take care not to rush to judgment — not about the motivations of these individuals; certainly not about entire groups of people.

The thing is: people actually had jumped to conclusions, fueling both suspicion and violence across the country. Multiple social networks and communities on the internet began to conduct their own searches for suspects in photographs. Most of these “suspects” turned out to be brown people with bags. Some people were identified solely by color or by supposed nationality. Some people were identified by name, and their names spread publicly and quickly, without hesitation. Worst of all, real people were attacked. Subtle and open aggression powerfully shaped lives this week.

We know that the creation of unsafe conditions for people of color, immigrants, Muslims – among others – does not appear out of thin air, informed by rationality or reality. They are a product of power and fear. Every geopolitical event of this sort has put whole communities on edge, anxious about the backlash against them. And while hate crimes get documented, the more subtle interactions of fear and hostility can slip through.

All week, from the coming Monday to Friday, we hope to publish submissions of incidents related to the recent attacks experienced by South Asians, Muslims, immigrants, and people of color. For this, we are asking for your help.

If you have experienced an incident of this type, please submit your story to submissions@microaggressions.com. There are no limits on length or format. (Please put “week” into the subject of your email; they’ll be forwarded directly to editors, who will put them up as soon as they can.)

If you have not experienced an incident of this type, we ask that you share this with people you know. Use Twitter, Facebook, and any other social networks to spread the word!

Thanks for everything,
Editors

Please consider participating in or spreading the word about this project!

inberlynn:

I am currently seeking participants to take a survey I’ve created as part of my thesis research on the experiences of queer women of color in public and semi-public spaces in NYC. My hope is to help make the current and ever growing conversation around gender-based violence and street harassment a more representative one through collecting the narratives of queer women of color in NYC and sharing them with dope organizations like Hollaback, Right Rides, etc. Ultimately, I’d like to help existing virtual, emotional and theoretical safe spaces become more inclusive by portraying the stories of women whose identities consist of several marginalized groups and whose stories are often underrepresented. 

Racial categories from a NYTimes article on interracial/interethnic marriages

“This is not an anti-gay movement of any kind. I would just like some equality.”

https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/142526

From the very beginning, we’ve wanted a space where we can educate each other about the subtle ways in which power and privilege are enacted in our lives.  That’s why we’re opening comments for every post.

To make a comment, click the speech bubble at the bottom of every post.

So start talking to one another. We will moderate, and depending on the frequency of trolling, we may change some settings. But for now, it looks like you’re all really nice people.

Love, Microaggressions

I think your layout header thing is blocking the follow button. i had to do a lot of maneuvering to follow you!

… and another,

Hi, I had the same problem trying to find the follow button. It is there on Chrome, but the ‘inspire well’ theme bar sets itself overtop it; I think there’s something up with the coding. I was able to see it in the html on Chrome, but I couldn’t find a way to click it… I had to use internet explorer to do it. For some reason, when I open your page in IE, the theme bar moves to the bottom and then the follow button is easily viewable.

… and last but not least:

The follow button has a tendency to disappear on a lot of people’s pages. You can still use it, it just won’t be visible. If you hover your mouse over the upper right hand corner of the page, you can still click on it so long as your mouse icon indicates you can (and your browser doesn’t tell you the link leads to your dash, of course). It’s what I had to do and yeah it works. Hopefully it’ll be fixed soon (like anything on tumblr?).

Hope this helps! We’re looking to get a domain sometime in the near future and get it right, but until then we hope this issue doesn’t keep you from sharing this site with your folks this holiday season.