Season 1: Episode 8:Unveiling Hidden Biases: A Deep Dive into Microaggressions with Dr. Jacqueline Logins

Ever wondered how subtle comments and actions reflect unconscious biases ingrained by societal norms? Join us for an enlightening conversation with Dr. Jacqueline Loggins, as she guides us through the intricate world of microaggressions. This episode illuminates the nuances of both verbal and non-verbal microaggressions, their potential harm, and how they unknowingly become part of our everyday interactions. Dr. Loggins, a respected figure in social work, trauma therapy, and education, firmly emphasizes the importance of tackling these hidden biases to foster a more equitable society.

The episode takes an unflinching look at serious implications of microaggressions, notably in the context of maternal mortality rates among people of color. We further distinguish between discrimination and microaggressions, highlighting how the latter, often unintentional, can still cause significant distress. As we navigate through these issues, we underscore the importance of acknowledging and addressing microaggressions, and the crucial role this plays in fostering tolerance. Lend us your ears for an episode that promises to shed light on hidden biases, and how we can be more mindful to help create a more accepting society.

Powerful The Podcast Intro

Powerful the podcast  Outro Music

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:25

Welcome to power the podcast. My name is Shalonda Carl out and I'm your host today, and we have an awesome guest that will be discussing micro aggressions. We have Dr Jacqueline logins Her doctorate in social work from two line university in New Orleans, louisiana. She has a master's degree in social work from Georgia State University in Atlanta, georgia, and have a bachelor of social work degree from Jackson State University in Jacksonville, alabama. She is currently the BSW director of field education and clinical assistant professor at Jackson State University, with over 25 years of experience. She is a certified trauma focus cognitive behavior therapist, trained in movement desicitation reprocessing therapy, known as EMDR, and dialectical behavior therapy, also known as DBT. Her therapeutic cycle education services extended families groups, victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, child victims of human sex trafficking and severe trauma history, as well as veterans with suicidal and homicidal ideations. Let's welcome Dr Logins.

Speaker 2: 1:52

Thank you, ms Carl out, for having me on your powerful podcast to discuss a much needed discussion on micro aggressions.

Speaker 1: 2:02

Absolutely. A lot of people don't know what micro aggressions are. Can you tell us what the definition of it is?

Speaker 2: 2:11

Sure, But first, before I start with the definition, i'd like to give you a little bit of background on the word micro aggression. Okay, actually was a term coined by a Harvard psychiatrist, african American. His name was Dr Pierce, and what he did was research and then he noticed that none how non blacks treated African Americans and thereby coined that term, micro aggression. Now this brings me to the definition of micro aggression, and it's normally a statement or action or incident against any minority or marginalized group. It's usually some type of casual comment made casually to a person that reflects an unconscious bias that has already been ingrained in that person through a societal more. So normally you know it's something that you've grown up with, you've seen, and then you just casually made comments to a person about it. And the bad thing about a micro aggression is that most people that state a micro aggression they don't normally know that they're doing it And I kind of like the macro aggressions can be verbal or non verbal And I'd like to give you some examples of a verbal micro aggression.

Speaker 2: 3:44

Someone might say to someone who is African American or personal color you are so articulate and the message and it sounds like a compliment to the person that has given. But the message of micro aggression is that it is for someone of your color to be intelligent or speak so well, and the person that said it says it doesn't mean anything by it, but it normally or usually hurts the person that it said to. Or it could be something that is non verbal, whereas you're in an office building and a person of color is in the elevator And then a person who is not a color doesn't get on that elevator, they wait and write the next elevator for fear. That's a bleminal message that this person may harm, when in actuality that person works in the building and they're just going to work as well as you are. So the non verbal sub clutching a purse when someone is near you of color, not the fear of criminality that something is going to happen.

Speaker 1: 5:08

Is this a micro aggression right now in the Jackson Mississippi community when you say that you're going to Jackson or that you live in Jackson your own social media, somebody in the news always saying I can't go there, all they have is crime. Is that consider a micro aggression when you already affiliate Jackson Mississippi with crime?

Speaker 2: 5:39

It's more so likely in the context that is, state context, that is stated to the person. Okay, so we know that There is a possibility, if we did the research, that there could be High pockets of crime in Jackson in certain areas. So that would be a true to statement to say In this area there's a percentage of crime and you may want to deter yourself from this area. But to say it specifically in the context of saying it to an African American person that neighborhood is black, is ghetto, is they do a lot of fighting, the police always being called that you might not want to go there. It's hurtful. So that person who may not do that as that type of area?

Speaker 1: 6:36

So assuming, because I'm African American, that I don't listen to classical music, would that be considered a micro aggression?

Speaker 2: 6:44

Sure, if someone states to you I can't believe you're listening to classical music, you don't like rap, you know that's. That's hurtful.

Speaker 1: 6:56

Yes, it is the meaning Yes, yesterday I was at an empower symposium and we were talking about maternal mortality rates with persons of color And we had a great powerful discussion about how We, as African Americans, have been subjected to a lot of Micro aggressions from non person of color providers In history, because they'll say things like oh, they have a high tolerance level for pain, or how we have been treated when we're receiving medical or maternal care in the medical setting. So it's a lot of embedded micro aggressions And you made a great point that sometimes these micro aggressions have been embedded since you were young.

Speaker 2: 7:50

Yes, they are a societal norm.

Speaker 1: 7:53

Okay.

Speaker 2: 7:54

And that's why micro aggressions are so difficult to see that you're actually saying or doing something to determine that what you said was a micro aggression.

Speaker 1: 8:07

So how can we distinguish between discrimination and micro aggression?

Speaker 2: 8:14

Sure. Now discrimination is something that is unjust or prejudicial towards a person of, let's say, your color, your age, your sex, disability, so usually a person that is discriminating against someone. They usually know that they're discriminating against that minority or group of people And microaggressions are just simply slights, their insults, not simply, but put down their validations that people experience And it usually is from a well-intended person who doesn't mean anything. They don't mean you harm, they're just saying it. They don't mean it as a demeaning action. So let's just say an example of discrimination would be she didn't get the job because of how old she was. She's too old, she doesn't know modern technology, she is enough to date on computers, whether you know that or not, but you assume that because of her age.

Speaker 2: 9:28

Microaggression in a comment would be oh, she only got that job because she was handicapped. She only got the job. Or microaggression if you're interviewing a woman that is pregnant And you make the statement after she leaves out of the room she's about to pop. You know we can't hear her. She's about to have that baby. Or it's a single parent and it's a male and he made the comment you know, knowing don't always be late because you got to drop those kids off by daycare. Probably you know he'd be bulge that he was a single parent or something. Those are microaggression comments.

Speaker 1: 10:14

So we kind of touched on it a little bit. But are microaggressions found in all cultures And if so, what ways?

Speaker 2: 10:23

Unfortunately, they are found in every culture. Wow, they are embedded and ingrained throughout history in cultures. So if we look at not on no any other way, but just to give you an example of what it looks across culturally So in the African American culture we're always distinguishing light skin versus dark skin As soon as a child is born. Sometimes I'm not going to say it all the time, but sometimes in African American culture there's this anomaly of people saying oh, if the baby is light skin, they're going to do this and go here and there and make sure it has light skin and good hair.

Speaker 2: 11:16

Those are some very derogatory comments towards our culture. And it says to someone of darker skin well, who am I? What am I? I'm already not accepted because I have darker skin. Or you say to someone who has that darker skin you're pretty to be dark, you know you're pretty to be. And that's for someone that has dark skin to hear that constantly. It's like a barrage of paper clip cuts. This is what micro aggressions are often compared to. One paper clip cut doesn't hurt anyone, but multiple times it doesn't become micro. At that point is macro and it hurts.

Speaker 1: 12:08

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 12:10

And there are there, throughout other cultures, the Hispanic culture of saying, you know, they're exotic looking, of saying that you're not American born or you're, you're a foreigner, you look different. Even in the Asian culture, this is a simulation of the dominant culture, americans being the dominant culture, and that the Asian culture has to speak up. They have to, you know, come out of that quiet box that they're in. So throughout cultures, yes, micro aggressions, unfortunately it is.

Speaker 1: 12:50

I was when you were talking about you know different shades of melanin, you know. You know that goes back to unfortunately it goes back to slavery, where it was embedded that if you were fair skin you worked in the house And if you were darker skin you worked in the field. So, like we were talking, they're so embedded in our history. Sometimes is hard for us to differentiate or kind of be self aware that we are using microaggressions.

Speaker 2: 13:22

Yes, and all of us have experience that microaggressions. It is very demeaning to me for someone to say to me oh, you were a house person, you know, because of my color, and it's just very demeaning. What do you mean by that? You know so yes, I've even heard.

Speaker 1: 13:48

I was working in a job and one of my Caucasian colleagues came to me and said oh, you have a master's degree.

Speaker 2: 13:58

Yeah, I have a master's degree.

Speaker 1: 14:01

She just oh, i didn't mean it hard, why can't I not have a master's degree? You have a master's degree. I don't personally think she meant it as being condescending. I just think she just thought those embedded microaggressions that they have, all cultures have, that we use and we need to be more self aware of it.

Speaker 2: 14:28

I'm saying you're a person of color and you can't be intelligent, you can't be educated, you can't speak well. You know, those are microaggressions from people of non-colonial Right. And sometimes from our own race.

Speaker 1: 14:44

Absolutely, absolutely. I remember when I was younger and some of the schools I went to in elementary it was mostly African Americans, and then when I got to middle and high school, it was a melting pot And my mom never talked to me about race, you know. So when I got to sixth grade I can remember I, i know them to this day I didn't know it was a difference between black and white or discrimination or any of that, i just knew they were nice. You know, we were nice, we were friends, we met, and it was not because of their color, it was just they were nice. And so you know, i don't remember my mama embedding those microaggressions.

Speaker 1: 15:32

Now, as I got older, at that particular middle school and like I said, it was a melting pot When I tried out for the cheerleader team, i didn't make the cheerleader team, but at that time most of the cheerleading team was nonpartisan of color And they had one African American and she was very fair skinned. This was in the early 90s. So you know, sometimes, you know, as the world is changing now, go back to that middle school. It's a different thing now, but I do remember back then and I wasn't aware, as I am now that it was some microaggressions. It was some microaggressions and some other layers of things that I experienced and just wasn't aware of.

Speaker 2: 16:20

Yes, and there are so many microaggressions said to the right thing to say Yes, Yes.

Speaker 1: 16:30

So what can we do to be more aware of the issues of microaggressions?

Speaker 2: 16:36

Sure, Now this is going to be difficult. It's difficult because people say well, if I don't know what I'm saying that, or I don't know what I'm doing that, then how can I stop?

Speaker 1: 16:48

what.

Speaker 2: 16:48

I'm doing. You know, or they'll say you can't say anything. these days You say one wrong thing and it's against somebody's race, their ethnicity or their culture or their you know what they subscribe to, So I just keep my mouth shut because you can't say anything. So you get that from people when you try to educate them about microaggression.

Speaker 2: 17:13

They become defensive, yes, and we have a responsibility to ourselves to educate ourselves on what a microaggression is. And then are we actually a saying microgressions or doing acts of microaggression? We need to be a conscious, we need to be aware, we need to look at history and say this has been done over and over and it has to stop here with me, so we need to definitely hold ourselves accountable to what we're saying.

Speaker 2: 17:58

Absolutely, and how we're saying And then if we notice we're saying something or doing something, to actually apologize to that person. You know, I'm sorry that I said that to you. I could see how that could be misconstrued or I could see how that hurt you. And some of us keep saying the same things to the same person over and over again. It's just different people and that comment is just embedded in us. So we have to look really look at what we're saying to people and how that might hurt people. The apology is necessary And then we need to support the people who we are using a microaggression.

Speaker 2: 18:47

Some of us live in homes and we have taught our children that we're saying that to significant others, we're doing things to significant others for our children that are microaggressions which has daily vowed and take that to school or to work, not even thinking that it is some microaggression. And so we need to learn to support the people around us And I think that we could change. I myself have become more aware of comments and statements that I make to other people, so I try to halt myself. You know, be more aware. Did I just say something I shouldn't have said? Because sometimes that other person would give you a cue That strange look on their face of saying, does she just say that to me?

Speaker 2: 19:43

And then being able to approach that person and say, hey, what I'm going back in your mind and thinking of what you said and saying you know that might didn't go across like I meant it to go across and going to that person and then apologizing and saying, hey, i may have said something that that wasn't right And let me apologize for that. And that open discussion actually makes you aware of the dialogue. It actually you start to say something back and forth and start to learn the actual person so that you don't do that again, absolutely That person as humanistic. Not that you didn't before because you didn't need to say anything harmful, but now you see how that may have been harmful to that person.

Speaker 1: 20:36

Absolutely, and you said one thing that I think is very important we need to know our history, and I know in schools a lot of parents and different legislators are fighting critical race theory, but it's important to know our history so that we won't repeat it. It's important to know what we did differently, that we can do better now. History is so important. Like you said, being more aware and apologizing, you know, those are very key things to combating microaggressions. We need to be more aware, we need to be educated, and I think that's the key to just building better relationships with cultures.

Speaker 2: 21:26

Yes, it is. I think microaggressions is. I think we're on a good subject matter now. I think it is more prevalent and people are more aware and watching what they say to other people and watching some of their actions, of what they do, and I think that is our first step towards combating microaggressions.

Speaker 1: 21:51

Absolutely Well. Dr Lacaz, i want to thank you for being on the show today. I know that this information will be powerful for our audience And I know I learned a lot today. And thank you for being on the show And I want you to have a good day and stay blessed. You are so welcome Ms Carlisle.

Speaker 2: 22:14

Thank you for inviting me And it's been fun talking about microaggressions. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 22:20

My pleasure and happy social work. My Thank you, you too. All right, Bye-bye.