Being a Black Woman & the microaggreasions I deal with on a daily

Being a Black woman is one of the beautiful gifts I get to walk in everyday. As magical as it is to be a Black woman, I experience being marginalized quite frequently. Microaggressions are the casual degradation of marginalized individuals. Chester M. Pierce coined the term and describes microaggressions as "insults and dismissals he regularly witnessed non-Black Americans inflict on African Americans.  Some of the experiences I have had involving microaggressions have become more apparent now that I am a Mother. Though I have experienced them as a single woman as well. I remember going into a Panera Bread in Riverside and beginning to order my lunch. As I was ordering I asked the employee, " do you have any other sides, like an apple?" The employee then responded, " we dont have "like" apples, we have apples." I looked at him in calmed mannered disbelief, thought for a few seconds and decided to walk out. I felt very disrespected and knew that the employee probably would not talk to me like that if I was a white woman,man or looked older. I look young so people typically mistake me for younger than usual.  As a Mother I have had people ask me while I was with my newborn and toddler if I had more children. I simply asked about some library programs and she began to tell me that there was an aquarium coming. She said my toddler may be too young, then asked me if I had more kids. She did not follow that question with anything. People are constantly applying stereotypes and their experiences of various groups of people and project these microaggression onto the individual. One more incident of a micoaggression in my life is when I went walking one morning with my girls and stopped at a park. My girls and I were playing and I began talking with another mom. This mom was a white woman. She applauded me for getting out the house since having my newborn. Then she made a comment about them even being clean. I didnt really notice it at first but I later thought about what that statement really meant.

Microaggressions are everywhere in this Black Woman's life. How can we as Women of Color counteract microaggressions? I am practicing to funnel all those microaggressions and use this blog as an outlet and way to connect with other Black women who deal with the same bull**** on a daily. We don't have time to live under some white supremicist lense, that attempts to control us through oppression and  internalized suppression. Black women you are free!