Derald Wing Sue - Microaggressions in Everyday Life

It has been helpful for students learning about microaggressions to consider the components of the term to define it. First, in this case, “micro” does not refer to being small or innocuous but rather underscores the interpersonal, microlevel context of the act. Microaggressions denote some sort of interpersonal interaction involving a perpetrator and a target (marginalized group member). Second, we must keep in mind the term “aggression.” Most often, social psychologists have defined aggression as verbal or nonverbal behavior intended to harm. At the same time, some forms of aggression (indirect, social, and relational) may exclude others or harm their reputations, with or without intention to do so (Archer & Coyne, 2005). These latter forms of aggression shape our understanding of micro aggressions that take shape as insults, invalidations, or assaults.

Thus, microaggressions are verbal and nonverbal interpersonal exchanges in which a perpetrator causes harm to a target, whether intended or unintended. These brief and commonplace indignities communicate hostile, derogatory, and/or negative slights to the target (D. W. Sue, Capodilupo, et al., 2007). Importantly, microaggressions theory values the target's perception in identifying harm, as perpetrators often are unaware that they have engaged in an exchange that demeans the target. In Chapter 3, we elaborate on this point by describing four psychological dilemmas and dynamics of microaggressions.

To illustrate the concept of a subtle microaggression not intended to cause harm, the second author (Lisa Spanierman) recounts an experience boarding a flight on a major U.S. airline. An African American NFL Hall of Famer handed his first‐class boarding pass to the gate agent. Without hesitation, the agent scoffed, “We are boarding first class now.” It is unlikely that the gate agent meant to cause harm to this Hall of Fame running back. Rather, she was working from an assumption that African Americans do not belong in the first‐class cabin. During the flight, Professor Spanierman told the football pro that she studies racial microaggressions; he replied that he encounters this experience all too often. Ironically, he was recognizable to many of the passengers who were shaking his hand and taking selfies with him as they boarded the aircraft. Professor Spanierman filed a complaint with the airline and received a generic reply from their customer service department (“Thank you for sharing your concerns … we should have been more responsive”). Notably, in 2017, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) issued a warning to African American passengers about flying American Airlines due to several incidents that suggested a corporate culture of racial insensitivity and bias. Later we discuss the interplay between individual incidents of insensitivity and broader institutional and cultural forms of racism. It is the latter (systemic racism) that allows the former (racial microaggressions) to thrive.

Any one microaggression alone may be minimally impactful, but when they occur continuously throughout a life span, their cumulative nature can have major detrimental consequences (Holmes & Holmes, 1970; Holmes & Rahe, 1967; Jones, Peddie, Gilrane, King, & Gray, 2016; Meyer, 1995, 2003; Utsey, Giesbrecht, Hook, & Stanard, 2008; Utsey & Ponterotto, 1996). Many White individuals, for example, fail to realize that people of color are, from the moment of birth, subjected to multiple racial microaggressions from the media, peers, neighbors, friends, teachers, and even in the educational process and/or curriculum itself. These insults, invalidations, and indignities are so pervasive that they often are unrecognized. In this chapter, we contextualize racial and gender microaggressions in larger systems of oppression and apply the concepts to the two examples provided earlier in the chapter.

Similar to Philomena Essed's (1991) concept of everyday racism, racial microaggressions reflect a complex relationship between microinteractions and macrostructures. In other words, everyday racism and racial microaggressions are manifestations of systemic inequities in the larger society (e.g., income, wealth, education, and health disparities). Racial microaggressions often go unnoticed and unacknowledged because they seem so familiar in everyday settings, such as classrooms, shopping malls, restaurants, hotels, and offices. Next we describe social psychologist James Jones's levels of racism to highlight the dynamic interplay between microacts and macrostructures (Jones, 1997). Racial microaggressions are commonplace and make sense only in a world rife with institutional inequities grounded in the cultural superiority of the dominant group.

“Racism” may be defined as any attitude, action, institutional structure, or social policy that subordinates persons or groups because of their racial group membership (Jones, 1997; Ponterotto, Utsey, & Pedersen, 2006). The subordination of people of color is manifested in inferior housing, education, employment, and health services (D. W. Sue, 2003). The complex manifestation of racism occurs at three different levels: individual, institutional, and cultural (Jones, 1997; Jones & Rolon‐Dow, 2018). All of these manifestations vary in their degree of overtness and conscious intentionality.

“Individual racism” is best known to the American public as overt, conscious, and deliberate individual acts intended to harm, place at a disadvantage, or discriminate against racial minorities. Serving Black patrons last, using racial epithets, preventing a White son or daughter from dating or marrying a person of color, or not showing clients of color housing in affluent White neighborhoods are all examples. At the other end of the spectrum, hate crimes against people of color and other marginalized groups represent extreme forms of overt individual racism. In 2015, during Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, 21‐year‐old White supremacist Dylann Roof pulled out a Glock .45‐caliber pistol and fired 70 rounds at the parishioners, killing nine people and injuring one. In his racist manifesto, he explained that he was fighting for the White race. He was charged with 33 federal hate crimes and convicted on all counts. Also reflecting individual acts of violence, a report in 2017 by the National Coalition of Anti‐Violence Programs documented the highest number ever recorded of homicides of LGBTQ people (approximately one per week). When we think about these extreme forms of individual racism and violence, most people are able to say “That's not me. I'm not racist … I'm not homophobic.” It must also be noted, however, that the majority of individual racism and heterosexism is more subtle, indirect, unintentional, and outside the level of conscious awareness of perpetrators. Often these forms of expression are referred to as everyday racism (Essed, 1991) or implicit bias (Dovidio, Pearson, & Penner, 2019).

“Institutional racism” refers to any policy, practice, procedure, or structure in business, government, courts, places of religious worship, municipalities, schools, and the like by which decisions and actions unfairly subordinate persons of color while allowing White individuals to profit from the outcomes. Examples of this racism include racial profiling, segregated churches and neighborhoods, discriminatory hiring and promotion practices, and educational curricula that ignore and distort the history of minority group members. Institutional bias often is masked in the policies of standard operating procedures that are applied equally to everyone but that have outcomes that disadvantage certain groups while advantaging others (Jones, 1997; D. W. Sue, 2003). Systemic or institutional biases that reside in the philosophy, programs, practices, and structures of communities and organizations are referred to as macroaggressions (D. W. Sue, Alsaidi, et al., 2019). Before proceeding, it is important to distinguish between micro aggressions and macro aggressions. First, microaggressions are manifest in the biased attitudes and behaviors of individuals, whereas macroaggressions reside in the rules, regulations, and sanctioned practices of institutions, communities, or society. Second, microaggressions generally are directed toward a specific individual target, while macroaggressions are group‐focused and affect an entire class of people. Third, combating microaggressions means directing action toward the personal bigotry of the person (biased attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors); confronting and eliminating macroaggressions means altering biased institutional policies and practices.