I never knew that there was a word for backhanded comments. Thinking back to times where people commented about my race through microaggressions, I am able to think of two moments where people complimented me but also insulted me.
The first moment I remember is when someone told me I didn't have an Asian accent. I don't understand why it mattered though. It was something along the lines of: "Woah... You're English is really good... How long did it take you to get rid of your accent?" Sure, I wasn't born here, but I grew up here for nearly all my life -____-. Of course I won't have an accent and my Chinese/ Burmese isn't even that great.
The second moment I remember is when another person told me that he thought it was rare for an Asian to get below a 90 on a test/ quiz. When he told me that, I was like... "Um. Excuse me?" That day, I had gotten an 89 on one of my math tests and he came up to me and asked me, "What happened? Why couldn't you get that one point?" I wasn't angry at him or anything, but I felt like other people expected too much from me, just because I am Asian. Way to raise the bar.
Personally, I don't take much offense in these comments because I generally do not care about what others see in me. However, I understand that microaggression could be offense to many other people. Society should really just be careful about what they say to others, but we don't and I don't really understand why we don't. The world is just very childish.
