I had a professor say that she could tell english wasn’t my first language from my essay, because my sentences “sounded Spanish”. This was a [humanities] course, and I’ve spoken english since age 2.
Category: submission
Personal Space
My male lab partner constantly invades my personal space, spreading out/scooting his stool over so I have little to no room. One time while I was leaning in to read a measurement, instead of waiting for me to finish, he leaned over too to the point where I could feel his face against the back of my hair. I can’t help but wonder if he would do the same if I weren’t a woman.
Science Lab
During a science class, we had a class about BMI and health and part of the lab included weight yourself and measuring the circumference of different parts of our bodies. As a fat woman who has always been stigmatized for her weight, this “didactic” activity was very triggering and brought up a lot of fatphobia i had experienced in the past
Religious Holidays
I spent my whole life having to ask permission to celebrate my holidays. As a college student, I often felt that I needed to justify how religious I was in order to have the luxury to have the day off on my major holidays (something that no one is expected to do for majority-group holidays, like Christmas or Easter). As faculty, I no longer have to ask permission — I have control over when my class does and doesn’t meet. But in class, my job becomes harder for choosing to partake in my holidays (having to cram material), and because I’m forced to make the choice either to give up class time or have religious observance, I feel I can’t afford to cancel for any other reason, while my peers can cancel for necessary professional events (conferences) or even just personal reasons. Rather than being allowed to simply have a holiday, ultimately I’m forced to accept a variety of professional and personal tradeoffs in order to be a religious minority.
Learn Names and Faces
| Davidson faculty, please learn your colleagues’ names and faces to at least try and show that you know that your colleagues of color are distinct people. Of the nearly 200 faculty members total, only 40 (or so) of your colleagues are people of color. Stop microaggressing against them by mistaking them for each other. You have more than one Asian, Latinx, and Black colleague, in case you had not yet noticed. |
Last Name
getting a voter guide that was only in Spanish because of my Hispanic last name
“Flesh” Colored
I grew up in an era when the Crayola crayon box included a pinkish-peach color that was labeled “flesh.” As a small child, I learned and internalized color names from that box. In class here I referred to a component of a diagram as “flesh” colored and only an instant later realized the implications of something that had been internalized before I had skills and awareness to question it. I should have done a better job of addressing the microaggression at that moment. But will never commit that one again, and it’s made me think about and question other things I might have absorbed previously.
Why won’t you help me now?
It was about 6:00 pm on a Thursday, my busiest teaching day that semester. I had just shut down my computer and was reaching for my bag to head out to a 6:30 class at the gym (the one selfish thing I looked forward to each week). A student in my course appeared in my office with reasonable though not quick or urgent questions regarding the coursework. I informed him that I was on my way out and would be happy to make an appointment to for us to talk the next day. He responded, “Why won’t you help me now? It’s not like you have a husband or kids to go home to.” As a pre-tenure faculty member belonging to a minority group, I simply could not afford the possibility of any negative comments on my course evals. Thus, I stayed even later to work with the student and never mentioning his hurtful assumptions/words regarding my value. I even swallowed my feelings and wrote strong recommendation letters for him after that incident. I love my job and am willing to work hard for my students, but I selfishly admit I wish I could be afforded the benefits of being permitted to cultivate a bit of a personal life in way that seem to be considered acceptable for my colleagues with traditional families.
First in my Family
A faculty member told me I was brave for “admitting” I was the first in my family to go to college. I do not understand why this fact is an admission rather than a statement. Should I be “admitting” other personal circumstances over which I had no control such as my eye color or where I was born? Initially, I was proud of my academic accomplishments, but getting to Davidson taught me it is a stigma. Many exceptionally well-meaning individuals here expect first-gens will fail and struggle more, which is contrary to my demonstrated successes. I now try to hide my status from most faculty members, preventing at least one way for them to think less of me.
Voting for Trump
I remembered during the 2016 Election, everyone was crying and shouting hateful, mean-spirited things at Trump voters. I felt very unsafe on campus that day and throughout the next week.
