Micro-aggression: a subtle but offensive comment or action directed at a minority or other non-dominant group that often unintentionaly or unconsciously reinforces a stereotype.
Built out of a class on campus, The Real UW — A Visual Campaign is the product of eight UW-Madison students who share the goal of creating awareness around the issue of micro-aggression on campus.
The campaign focuses on being as inclusive as possible, tackling the micro-aggressions students face, due to their sexual identification, ability, socio-economic status, religion, culture and race.
According to Regina Stieber, the co-founder of the campaign, the photos taken of students for the campaign are not meant to divide people, but to bring awareness to the fact that words have impact no matter if they are intended to be hurtful or not.
Words like “gay,” “ghetto” or “retarded,” are normalized in our culture, according to Stieber. They have become so engrained in our culture that they have become acceptable to say over time. However, what people often don’t understand is that these words are dehumanizing.
“The thing with micro-agressions is, they target identities that are historically marginalized,” said Stieber.
The words you use in everyday conversations can hold a lot of weight for others. For example, saying “Oh, you’re from Milwaukee, that’s so ghetto. Were you scared at your school?” has the connotation of “Oh, there were black people there? Were you scared?”, according to Stieber’s first-hand experience.
In order to stop words like these from normalizing, we need to unlearn our culture, according to Stieber.
A step that students can take to stop normalization is to call out their friends when they use words with covertly derogative meaning, according to Jasmin Sanchez, campaign co-founder.
“[Friends calling each other out is] what we want too — just be sure of what words you are using to describe people,” said Sanchez.
The group hopes to continue this campaign beyond the spring semester. Ultimately, they want to increase, encourage and support diversity by raising awareness and creating cultural sensitivity on campus.
To see other visuals from the campaign, check out the group’s Facebook page, The Real UW — A Visual Campaign.