Practicing
Awareness of Microagression
There is a popular African proverb that says “If one finger
brought oil, it soiled the others”, that is the case of Nigerians in Malaysia.
It is a known fact in Malaysia and most Asian countries that Nigerians are
mostly involved in drugs smuggling and fraudulent deals via the internet, so as
such we are all treated as people that are “no good”.
I think going through the readings this week has made me so
sensitive that I can easily detect microaggression in every discussion that I
am involved in. Unlike most countries, Nigerians need visas to visit other
countries except our fellow West African countries, so this week I travelled
all the way from Brunei to Malaysia with my family to get a sheng hen visa that
will enable us get to some European countries.
I was not expecting a special treatment, but I was hoping
that we will be treated like every other human being coming to the office of a consulate;
it was difficult for the Malaysian police at the reception to give us a
listening ear because to him we are “no good people”. He kept asking irrelevant questions even
though we told him we had a prior appointment, we had to wait there for more
than one hour and kept making calls fortunately we got through to the officer in
charge of the visa section and we were granted entry into the office of the
consulate.
I felt rubbed of my right as a human being, the right of
speaking without being labeled as a person from a particular race or country
that is tagged a “no good people”, because I believe that there are criminals
in every country and one bad apple shouldn’t spoil the whole bunch, and because
My country men are involved in such crimes does not make everybody a part of
it.
My observation and experiences this week gave me a new
perception of the effects of discrimination, prejudice, and stereotypes on
people, that in as much as a particular group of people are labeled/ stereotype,
it will be difficult to erase that notion from peoples mind, the only medicine
we need as individuals to cure prejudices, discrimination and stereotype on
people is making out time to understand one another and accepting each other as
equals.
I'm so sorry that you were treated like that. As a fellow human no one has the right to automatically profiled. There are good and bad people every where, but that can not be identified from the country that we belong to or because we were born on a certain soil. It does make us ultra sensitive though to the microaggressions that exist, as you have clearly outlined here.
ReplyDeletePatience,
ReplyDeleteI am sorry for the way you were treated this week while trying to obtain a visa. Some people are very unfeeling and callous. You are very right in your opinion that if we are going to end stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination we must take time out of our everyday lives to get to know others and their way of living.
I understand your frustration. One bad apple does not spoil it for everyone else. I believe that everyone should be treated like a human being. People can not judge us by the color of our skin. Just one person does it, that does not mean that everyone does the same thing.
ReplyDeletePatience,
ReplyDeleteThank You for sharing about your experience of trying to get your visa this week. I am sorry that you were treated that way. I did think that it was interesting that there is prejudice and discrimination between people of the same color that are from different areas of the same country. I always understood that discrimination, in America at least, was either directed at ethnicity, poverty, or other factors and not people of color from the same country or area. I did not know that all Nigerians were being blamed for drug smuggling and for defrauding people on the internet when really these actions are handled by a few. I also think that there are criminals in every country and they are not necessarily people of the color or race. Criminals can be White, Black, Hispanic, Asian or any other ethnicity. I am glad that the consulate officer granted you the visa. Congratulations!