Navigating social systems as an Ethnic Minority

Being an ethnic minority in a dominant white western society, comes with its own sets of challenges. From navigating micro-agressions about my original place of origin, constantly being asked “where I am from”, being looked at differently becuase of my skin colour, and having significantly more hurdles to climb than a white person in the western country, it takes a lot of strength and resilience to navigate life as an ethnic minority in a white dominated society.

These agressions translate towards being “othered” by the dominant society and finding ways to navigate daily living in a way that is politically correct and offends the white people as less as possible, even though they have no desire to put themselves in the same shoes as a person of ethnic minortiy.

As a global person, I have had the privilege to interact with people of many different ethnicities and have many friends of different ethnicities myself. In these relationship, race is hardly a matter of conversation, rather it is about understanding the different cultures and respecting each other’s boundaries.

But systemic “othering” still exists for ethnic minorities, and it will take a long time for anything to really change, because the dominant group with the most power and resources will always hold the higher ground in this world.

There are a lot of inequalities in this world and talking about being an ethnic minority sounds like a privileged state to speak from rather than from an…