Just One Thing with Monmita Chakrabarti

Monmita Chakrabarti’s essay “Micro” explores the searing microaggressions interwoven through the pressure of popularity and conformity. Here they share just one thing about the piece: 

“It is rare for me to start an essay with an image. Usually, I’m a very ‘big ideas’ focused writer and my pieces begin with what I want them to ultimately say. The details and intricacies of the language come later. However, after R. told me the story about sitting in the trunk of a car for a group of white kids she wanted to impress, this image popped into my head of my old friend N. shutting the hood of a trunk down on herself in this sort of coffin, and a bunch of disparate threads came together. It felt like the perfect allegory for what microaggressions do—literally forcing you into the margins of whatever space you are in. After I wrote down this image, I thought of the conversation I had with N. in seventh grade about who in our friend group was the prettiest, the way we move through the world in vehicles (school bus, backseat, trunk), and ‘micro’ as both ‘microaggression’ and making oneself smaller. That’s why it’s the final image of the piece. I wanted to leave the reader with this powerful scene that ties everything together.”