Reconnek is helping immigrants cope with microaggressions!

What is a microaggression? Originally coined in the 1970s by Chester M. Pierce, a Harvard psychiatrist, today’s definition of a microaggression can be credited to Derald Wing Sue, a professor of counseling psychology at Columbia University. Since 2007, he has written several books on microaggressions, including “Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation.” In it, Dr. Sue writes that microaggressions are the everyday slights, indignities, put-downs and insults that members of marginalized groups experience in their day-to-day interactions with individuals who are often unaware that they have engaged in an offensive or demeaning way. Microaggressions are often discussed in a racial context, but anyone in a marginalized group — be it as a result of their gender, sexual orientation, disability or religion — can experience one.

Microaggressions can be as overt as watching a person of color in a store for possible theft and as subtle as discriminatory comments disguised as compliments. It’s tempting to ignore microaggressions, considering blatant, obvious discrimination is still a real problem, but the buildup of these “everyday slights” has consequences on a victim’s mental and physical health that cannot be overlooked. The normalization of microaggressions is antithetical to a well-rounded society with equal opportunities for marginalized individuals. For many of us, microaggressions are so commonplace that it seems impossible to tackle them one at a time. Psychologists often compare them to death by a thousand cuts.

Coping with this phenomenon happens to be a very difficult thing for immigrants especially as most of them are members of marginalized groups. In order to find ways to dealing with microaggressions, these immigrants are meeting with each other on Reconnek. Already being able to discuss the concept with a fellow person who finds it relatable, provides them with a language to describe the experiences and the realization that they’re not living the problem alone, that they’re not crazy. Discrimination — no matter how subtle — has consequences.

It can negatively influence everything from a target person’s eating habits to his or her trust in their physician, and even trigger symptoms of trauma or suicidal thoughts. Reconnek has become for immigrants that therapy that helps them tackle microaggressions.