Using My White, Able-Bodied, Educated, Middle-Aged, Middle-Class, Heterosexual, Cis Power Wisely

I’m embracing my superpower

Photo by Christian Buehner on Unsplash

I’m the sort of woman no one looks at twice, but store managers will always believe. When I’m patient, polite, and persistent, I can solve many dicey interactions even when I’m partially at fault.

Is this a skill, carefully honed and nurtured over five decades of roaming this wide world? Yes, but I started on second base, not standing in the strike zone.

I’m privileged in many ways, but I’ve also lived minority adjacent all my life. Between my kids and my siblings, I’ve witnessed firsthand navigating the majority culture when you are Black, trans, bi, Asian, adopted, autistic, deaf, blind, bipolar, OCD, poor, medically fragile, or some combination of the above.

So the first time I heard a definition of microaggression, it made sense.

a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group (such as a racial minority) — Merriam Webster

As soon as I had a name for the phenomenon, I could see it all around me.

This was back in the good ole days before straight-up racism, sexism, ableism, etc. became…