Racial Microaggressions

• Pages: 231-244
• Author: Khiara M. Bridges

231

Chapter 10

RACIAL MICROAGGRESSIONS

A black male college student recounts an incident that occurred

on the campus of his elite university:

I was [in the department building] and I was walking down

the hallway . . . [and] one of the teacher’s doors was

open. . . . She’s like, “Oh, I should have locked the door. My

purse is in there.” I was just [thinking to myself], wow . . .

maybe [she] should have kept that to [herself] or something,

like, oh, I reminded you that you should lock your door!

1

This student describes what researchers have come to call a

racial microaggression, a “brief and commonplace daily verbal,

behavioral and environmental indignit[y], whether intentional or

unintentional, that communicate[s] hostile, derogatory, or negative

racial slights and insults to the target person or group[.]”

2

In this

particular incident, the teacher’s remark informs the student that,

because of his race, people will associate him with criminality despite

his privileged status as a student at one of the nation’s most

prestigious institutions of higher learning.

I. Understanding Racial Microaggressions

Chester Pierce, a black psychologist, is credited with birthing

the concept of the racial microaggression. Pierce, who wrote more

than 180 books and articles over the course of a career that spanned

four decades, focused much of his scholarship on the study of racism

in its contemporary iterations, endeavoring to strategize ways to

preserve the mental and physical health of people of color in an age

where overt and obvious acts of racism had become relatively

uncommon. In a chapter titled “Offensive Mechanisms,” published in

1970, Pierce introduced the term “microaggression,” writing:

Most offensive actions are not gross and crippling. They are

subtle and stunning. The enormity of the complications

they cause can be appreciated only when one considers that

1

Daniel Solórzano et al., Critical Race Theory, Racial Microaggressions, and

Campus Racial Climate: The Experiences of Af rican American College Students, 69 J.

NEGRO EDUC. 60, 68 (2000).

While this chapter focuses on microaggressions that are race-based, scholars have

also identified and theorized sex-based and sexuality -based microaggressions that

impact women and sexual minorities, respectively.

2

Derald W ing Sue et al., Racial Microaggressi ons Against Black Americans:

Implications for Counseling, 86 J. COUNSELING & DEV. 330, 330 (2008).