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A Singaporean woman, Atikah Amalina, who goes by the handle @thetudungtraveller, has spoken up about her experience of having a stereotype foisted on her.
She shared her experience in a Facebook post on April 5:
Google employee
Atikah is a Google employee and a known mental health advocate who has written about the topic publicly.
Therefore, what was most galling about her recent experience was the immediate assumption that she must be a canteen staff when she boarded a private hire car.
She revealed that the conversation took place with the driver of the private hire car the moment she hopped on.
She wrote about how the conversation transpired:
“Oh you work in the canteen ah in Google?”
I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. “Canteen?”
“Yeah, the food court upstairs.”
Took me a moment to process what he said and the implications.
“No, I work in Google.”
“Oh.”
Feeling hurt, the conversation thankfully ended immediately.
Presumptuous
Atikah revealed her feelings at that moment:
My immediate feelings were a confusion of humiliation, anger and indignation. Just because I’m a Malay woman in hijab, it was immediately assumed that I work in the canteen when he picked me up at the office – because surely, someone like me cannot be working in Google, right? Wrong. I was very obviously upset, and the driver didn’t say anything after that.
She was also quick to clarify that there is “nothing wrong with working in a canteen”, as she was pointing out that the faux pas committed by the driver is considered part of “racial microagressions” that occur frequently enough.
Atikah wrote:
There’s nothing wrong about working in a canteen, let’s be clear about that, but racial microagressions like this is draining, unfair and points towards stereotypes and judgements made by virtue of your perceived race/group. For some one of us, this is a daily occurrence, and it. is. tiring.
Consciousness raising
Atikah spent the rest of her post offering her take on how to raise the consciousness of those who are not too clued-in.
But for those who are aware, they can play their part by calling out such behaviour — even if it means making the perpetrator feel uncomfortable — as well as being mindful enough not to be part of it.
Atikah wrote:
The key here is the unawareness of the communicator, and how it may be seen as trivial and one-off. But here’s the thing: microaggressions are active manifestations or a reflection of our worldviews of inclusion/exclusion, superiority/inferiority, and desirability/undesirability. Much of this is outside the level of conscious awareness, thus we engage in actions that unintentionally oppress and discriminate against others.
It has to be noted that at no point in her post did she refer to such microaggressions as being racist.
https://mothership.sg/2019/04/woman-singapore-mistaken-google-employee-canteen-staff/
She shared her experience in a Facebook post on April 5:
Google employee
Atikah is a Google employee and a known mental health advocate who has written about the topic publicly.
Therefore, what was most galling about her recent experience was the immediate assumption that she must be a canteen staff when she boarded a private hire car.
She revealed that the conversation took place with the driver of the private hire car the moment she hopped on.
She wrote about how the conversation transpired:
“Oh you work in the canteen ah in Google?”
I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. “Canteen?”
“Yeah, the food court upstairs.”
Took me a moment to process what he said and the implications.
“No, I work in Google.”
“Oh.”
Feeling hurt, the conversation thankfully ended immediately.
Presumptuous
Atikah revealed her feelings at that moment:
My immediate feelings were a confusion of humiliation, anger and indignation. Just because I’m a Malay woman in hijab, it was immediately assumed that I work in the canteen when he picked me up at the office – because surely, someone like me cannot be working in Google, right? Wrong. I was very obviously upset, and the driver didn’t say anything after that.
She was also quick to clarify that there is “nothing wrong with working in a canteen”, as she was pointing out that the faux pas committed by the driver is considered part of “racial microagressions” that occur frequently enough.
Atikah wrote:
There’s nothing wrong about working in a canteen, let’s be clear about that, but racial microagressions like this is draining, unfair and points towards stereotypes and judgements made by virtue of your perceived race/group. For some one of us, this is a daily occurrence, and it. is. tiring.
Consciousness raising
Atikah spent the rest of her post offering her take on how to raise the consciousness of those who are not too clued-in.
But for those who are aware, they can play their part by calling out such behaviour — even if it means making the perpetrator feel uncomfortable — as well as being mindful enough not to be part of it.
Atikah wrote:
The key here is the unawareness of the communicator, and how it may be seen as trivial and one-off. But here’s the thing: microaggressions are active manifestations or a reflection of our worldviews of inclusion/exclusion, superiority/inferiority, and desirability/undesirability. Much of this is outside the level of conscious awareness, thus we engage in actions that unintentionally oppress and discriminate against others.
It has to be noted that at no point in her post did she refer to such microaggressions as being racist.
https://mothership.sg/2019/04/woman-singapore-mistaken-google-employee-canteen-staff/
