"The Comments That Sting"

This video is from The New York Times video journalist, who have provided insight on college campuses, with students who have noticed racial microaggressions, but they are not ignoring these comments like most people do, in this video Harvard students are using campaigns such as school plays involving student interview project to make everyone else aware of their racial microaggressions. I used this video because it not only relates to class discussions, not only targets college student audience but it targets our generation. I also relate to this video, because of the comments, coming from a culture that is not the "social norm" is quite different. I am Hawaiian, I run into racial micraggressions all the time when meeting people for the first time, such as, "What are you?" "You gotta be Mexican because you're tan" "So you aren't white at all?" "I bet you're exotic because of your tan skinned". I never knew these comments were called racial microaggressions, iI never knew it was an actual thing/word before taking this class, but i always had this negative gut feeling when being asked those questions. I could not understand why these comments were affecting me in a negative way, I saw in the beginning of the video, one of the Harvard student says "am i crazy or did they just do this.." when a person just made a racial microaggression, which is EXACTLY how I felt before recognizing racial microaggressions. I never called out the microaggressions because of the risks, making the situation worse, being more uncomfortable, but now being "conscious" "aware" of these racial comments, I have begun to call them out, no matter how awkward it is, because Id rather in the end, feel prideful than regretful for not saying anything. In this video it states that critics are viewing these student campaigns over racial microaggressions, as overreactions of unintended offenses. 



My question is, when people are coming together protesting, bringing a huge community in, over a topic that has impacted them in such a negative way, why do people instead of get in line, try to help, or simply ignore it move on with life, but instead most of our people dig the hole deeper or build a barrier for the protesters to prevent them from reaching their goal? We are all human beings, if someones down, we help them up, the type of life philosophy I go by and I know not everyone is like me, blase blase blase, but like the video stated, critics say these student campaigns over racial micraggressions are overreactions of unintended offenses, why do people have to say something already so negative?  Like why do people automatically make an excuse for something they do not simply understand? I know these critics are NOT "colorblind" I know deep down these critics see the real issue, because I know they have to look in the mirror every day.