Being an anomaly in white, mainstream culture means that you’ve probably heard and been asked some messed up shit. “You’re not, like, a regular black person!” Translation: “You’re far removed enough from my negative image of black people for me to find you acceptable.” Yay. What joy. Microaggressions tend to tumble out of (white, hetero, cis, able, etc.) people’s mouths rather carelessly. Their subconscious biases revealing themselves in the form of what they think you’d also think was a compliment. Instead of accepting the ‘other’ identities you may possess for what they are, they separate you from them to make an exception.

Artist Steffany Brown’s ‘Brown in Kansas’ series poignantly addresses microaggressions and the ridiculous nature of people who say them. Check out the series down below!

By Erin White, AFROPUNK contributor

http://www.microaggressions.com/