Derald Wing Sue - Microaggressions in Everyday Life

Figure 2.1 Categories of and Associations among Microaggressions. Reproduced with permission of Sue, D. W. et al. (2007).

Verbal microassaults include the use of racial epithets: referring to African Americans as “n*****s,” Chinese Americans as “chinks,” Japanese Americans as “Japs,” Native Americans as “savages,” women as “bitches” or “cunts,” and gay men as “fags.” Again, the intent is to assail people’s racial, social‐group identity and to communicate to recipients that they are lesser human beings. Telling ethnic, racial, gender, or sexual‐orientation jokes and laughing at them also might fall into this category. With respect to behavior, forbidding a son or daughter from marrying outside of one's race, ignoring a group of women who are requesting a table at a restaurant, and promoting a less‐qualified heterosexual employee over a gay one are additional examples of intent to harm or exclude. Again, such actions communicate to recipients that they are unworthy to be served and/or that they are not the right kind of people and do not belong.

Microassaults are most similar to what has been called old‐fashioned racism, sexism, or heterosexism perpetrated on an individual level. They are likely to be conscious and deliberate acts. However, because of strong public condemnation of such behaviors, microassaults are most likely to be expressed under three conditions that afford the perpetrator some form of protection (D. W. Sue & Capodilupo, 2008).

First, when perpetrators feel some degree of anonymity and are assured that their roles or actions can be concealed, they may feel freer to engage in microassaults (scrawling anti‐Semitic graffiti in public restrooms, posting anonymous epithets against Muslims on the web, or hanging a noose surreptitiously on the door of a Black colleague).

Second, consistent with research by Bursztyn et al. (2017), perpetrators may engage in a microassault when they feel relatively safe, such as being in the presence of people who share their beliefs and attitudes or knowing that they can get away with their offensive words and deeds. Safety often relies on the inaction of others in the face of biased actions. In fact, studies reveal that people often overpredict whether they would take action against a biased action (hearing a racist comment). While they may condemn and say they would take appropriate action, when faced with the real situation they remain silent or inactive (Kawakami, Dunn, Karmali, & Dovidio, 2009). Example 2.5is representative of this condition.

Third, many people who privately hold notions of minority inferiority will display their biased attitudes only when they lose control. The opening examples in this chapter, especially that of Rosanne Barr, demonstrate this third condition of losing control. According to Barr, she was taking a sedative, Ambien, which resulted in her being an “idiot.” It is also possible that she was less controlled on this sedative and thus she was unable to censor her racist assumptions.

Microassaults are most similar to “old‐fashioned” racism: They are the type the public generally associates with “true racism”: direct, deliberate, obvious, and explicit. The key to understanding microassaults is that there is no guesswork involved in their intent, which is to harm, humiliate, or degrade people of color, women, and LGBTQ individuals.

At a fraternity sports party, a group of White fraternity brothers were sitting around their living room during a late Sunday afternoon, chugging down beer after beer tapped from a keg. They had just finished watching the first half of a football game and were obviously quite inebriated. Excitedly talking about the last play from scrimmage that resulted in an incomplete pass, one of the guys exclaimed, “Them n*****s can't play quarterback!” This brought out a howl of laughter, and another member said, “That's because they're just jungle bunnies!” More laughter erupted in the room and others produced a flurry of racial slurs: “monkey,” “coon,” “burr head,” “oreo,” and “Uncle Tom!” Each slur brought on laughter and renewed attempts to outdo one another in finding the most degrading reference to Blacks. As they exhausted their list, the game became a form of free association with blackness. “Black pussy, black sheep, criminal, rapist, castration, welfare family, cattle prod,” and so on, they shouted. It was clear that some of those in the group were quite uncomfortable with the game, but said nothing and chuckled at the responses anyway.

(D. W. Sue, 2003, p. 88)

In many respects, members of marginalized groups find it easier to deal with microassaults or blatant racism because the intent is clear and the recipients of such abuse do not have to expend psychological energy on ambiguity. In fact, there are indications that people of color are better prepared to deal with overt microassaults (Salvatore & Shelton, 2007) than unintentional biased behavior that resides outside the level of awareness of perpetrators—microinsults and microinvalidations. Empirical research has supported this assertion, showing that Black and Latinx participants experienced greater cognitive depletion from a confederate's subtle racism compared to overt racism (Murphy, Richeson, Shelton, Rheinschmidt, & Bergsieker, 2012). Thus, subtle, invisible, and unintentional forms of microaggressions are the main subject of this book. Table 2.1provides examples of common microaggression themes with examples and their hidden demeaning messages directed toward people of color, women, and LGBTQ persons.

Table 2.1 Examples of Racial, Gender, and Sexual‐Orientation Microaggressions

Source: Adapted from D. W. Sue and Capodilupo (2008, pp. 114–117).

Many microaggressions are common across various marginalized groups, but there are differences in types, hidden messages, and impact. Manifestation of microaggressions is contingent upon context and conventional stereotypes that are supported in those contexts. For instance, women may experience a unique microaggression such as “sexual objectification” that is not present for heterosexual men, regardless of racial‐group membership. And there are distinctions within categories. In other words, racial microaggressions are not experienced in the same way by individuals across racial groups. In the United States, for example, Asian Americans and Latinx individuals are more likely to experience “alien in one's own land” messages than are African Americans, who are more likely to be seen as “criminals.” Please note that we elaborate on similarities and differences in microaggressive manifestations across group and context in Chapter 7, where we also address cutting‐edge research on the intersectional nature of microaggressions (within‐group differences).