‘Responding to Every Clutched Purse Would Wear Me Thin’

Microaggressions chip away at our daily lives, but we still make room to live out loud — Black and proud

The acts are small but harmful. Insidious. They compound over time. Whichever way we describe microaggressions as a collective, or as it relates to our personal lived experiences, we know that it is a form of racism that can really do a number on us. Microaggressions chip away at us and live with us rent-free.

This is the case for Tracey Ford, who recently wrote about a microaggression she experienced during her formative years as she headed to a department store with her mother. It’s an unshakable moment that has stuck with Ford since.

“We stopped on Lexington Avenue not too far from 59th and my mom paused, looked at a woman walking toward us on the sidewalk, and said ‘Miss, do you know which way is north?’ Before she could get out the first bit of her question the woman jumped back into people walking by,” Ford recalls. “My mom, normally calm, seemed shaken. She blurted out, ‘Are you serious?!’ We walked away and found our way to the department store without that lady’s help. I spent the whole day wondering why she was so scared of my mother. Eventually, I’d have a White woman respond to me in the same manner. I’d come to realize that there are people who fear me, similar to the way that woman feared all 5 feet of my mom.”