Dilemma One: The Invisibility Of Unintentional Expression

Tiffany is a 25-year-old Haitian American bisexual female who self-identifies as Black. Tiffany’s parents emigrated from Haiti when they were children. Tiffany attended a prestigious university to obtain her grad¬uate degree and currently teaches French at a private secondary school. Tiffany has been feeling hopeless about various aspects of her life, including her career and future. Tiffany decided to see a therapist.

In her first session she explains to the therapist Kate her experiences inter¬viewing for teaching positions, she started off having high moments that turned into low moments. She had been thrilled at the response her resume had generated, she received an interview at nearly every school. Once the interviews started this is when things took a turn for the worse. Tiffany felt that she was begin judge by the interviewers. She described her experiences as when she was greeted by interviewers. She described “a look of shock or surprise on their faces” when they met her in the waiting room, and on more than one occasion, interviewers even repeated her first and last name to make sure
Dilemma One: Clash of Racial Realities, Tiffany, one major question was, “were interviewers reacting to her race, or did she misinterpret their verbal and nonverbal behavior. Dilemma Two: The Invisibility of Unintentional Expressions of Bias, Tiffany did not ask her fellow teachers in the student lounge the meaning behind their comments about her hair, one can imagine that they might feel stunned and surprised to learn that Tiffany felt offended. Dilemma Three: Perceived Minimal Harm of Microaggressions, when perpetrators are confronted about microaggressions, they accuse the victim of overreacting or being hypersensitive, or touchy. Dilemma Four: The Catch-22 of Responding to Microaggressions occurs, the recipient is often placed in an unenvi¬able position of having to decide what to