Microaggressions in Everyday Life. Derald Wing Sue
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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 microaggressions and macroaggressions. 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.
“Cultural racism” is perhaps the most insidious and damaging form of racism because it serves as an overarching umbrella under which individual and institutional racism thrive. It is defined as the individual and institutional expression of the superiority of one group's cultural heritage (arts/crafts, history, traditions, language, and values) over another group's, and the power to impose those standards on other groups (D. W. Sue, 2004). For example, Native Americans1 have at times been forbidden to practice their religions (“We are a Christian people”) or to speak in their native tongues (“English is superior”), and in contemporary textbooks the histories or contributions of people of color have been neglected or distorted (“European history and civilization are superior”). These are all examples of cultural racism.
To summarize, individual racism is the source of microaggressions; institutional/structural racism is the source of macroaggressions; and cultural racism validates, supports, and enforces the expression of both (D. W. Sue et al., 2019).
As awareness of overt racism has increased, however, people have become more sophisticated in recognizing the overt expressions of individual, institutional, and cultural bigotry and discrimination. Because of our belief in equality and democracy, and because of the Civil Rights movement, we as a nation now strongly condemn racist, sexist, and heterosexist acts because they are antithetical to our stated values of fairness, justice, and nondiscrimination (Dovidio, Gaertner, Kawakami, & Hodson, 2002; Sears, 1988). Unfortunately, this statement may apply only at the conscious level and may be changing as President Donald J. Trump and his allies express widely publicized racist, sexist, and xenophobic sentiments. For example, in the current political climate where those in authority openly express bigotry, researchers found that such displays foster ethnic hostility contagion among adolescents who overheard or witnessed overt acts of prejudice (Bauer, Cahliková, Chytilová, & Želinsky, 2018). The experimenters found that harmful behavior directed toward a disliked minority group is twice as contagious as behaviors that harm members of one's own group. They issued an ominous warning that even in social situations or societies with minimal interethnic hatred, witnessing or publicly overhearing biased behaviors or comments can create a “social contagion” where overt prejudice and discrimination can thrive and spread quickly.
The Invisibility and Nebulous Nature of Everyday Racism
Despite the apparent renewed overt expressions of bias and bigotry among a small group of the populace (explicit bias), the majority of well‐intentioned White Americans continues to stand against open displays of racism, sexism, and heterosexism. Furthermore, in tracking the overt expressions of racism (hate crimes, physical assaults, use of racial epithets, and blatant discriminatory acts) over many decades, social scientists argue that its expression has morphed into a more contemporary and insidious form. Bigotry often hides in our cultural assumptions/beliefs/values, our institutional policies and practices, and the deeper psychological recesses of our individual psyches (DeVos & Banaji, 2005; Dovidio, Gaertner, & Pearson, 2017; Nelson, 2006; D. W. Sue, Capodilupo, Nadal, & Torino, 2008). In other words, race experts believe that racism has become invisible, subtle, and more indirect, operating below the level of conscious awareness and continuing to oppress in unseen ways (implicit bias). This contemporary manifestation has various names: symbolic racism (Sears, 1988; Sears & Henry, 2003); modern racism (McConahay, 1986); implicit racism (Banaji, Hardin, & Rothman, 1993); aversive racism (Dovidio & Gaertner, 1996); and color‐blind racism (Bonilla‐Silva, 2001, 2006; Neville, Awad, Brooks, Flores, & Bluemel, 2013; Neville, Lilly, Duran, Lee, & Browne, 2000).
Aversive racism is closely related to the concept of racial microaggressions (Dovidio, Pearson, & Penner, 2018). Dovidio and Gaertner (1996) contended that most White people experience themselves as good, moral, and decent human beings who would never intentionally discriminate against others on the basis of race. Their studies reveal, however, that it is difficult for anyone born and raised in the United States to be immune from inheriting racial biases. In fact, many White individuals who may be classified as well‐educated liberals appear to be aversive racists. Aversive racists truly believe they are nonprejudiced, espouse egalitarian values, and would never consciously discriminate, but they nevertheless harbor unconscious biased attitudes that may result in discriminatory actions. Dovidio and Gaertner (1991, 1993, 1996, 2000) have produced many studies in support of this conclusion.
Racial microaggressions are similar to aversive racism in that they generally occur below the level of awareness of well‐intentioned people, but microaggressions researchers focus primarily on describing the dynamic interplay between perpetrator and target, classifying everyday manifestations, deconstructing hidden messages, and exploring internal (psychological) and external (disparities in education, employment, and health care) consequences (Dovidio et al., 2019; D. W. Sue & Capodilupo, 2008; D. W. Sue, Capodilupo, & Holder, 2008).
Racial microaggressions also overlap with color‐blind racism. Neville et al. (2013) described color‐blind racial ideology as the distortion, denial, and minimization of race and racism. It comprises a set of beliefs that support the myth of meritocracy (false perception of a level playing field where all people have an equal chance of succeeding) and is the dominant racial ideology in the post–Civil Rights era. Color‐blind racial ideology may involve people saying “I don't see race. I treat all people as individuals.” Or it might deny the existence of racism in contemporary society and blame people of color for their plight. This latter notion was evident especially after Barack Obama was elected as the 44th President of the United States. To some, the election of a Black man as the leader of the free world reflected the idea that racism had ended. Let us return to Example 1.1 to illustrate the dynamic interplay of racial microaggressions between the professor and the Black students.
The Black students in the class suffered a series of racial microaggressions and macroaggressions delivered unconsciously and unintentionally by Professor Richardson. Rather than thinking he was insulting or invalidating students of color, the professor believed he was teaching the “real” history of psychology, teaching students to think and communicate in an objective fashion, and giving praise to a Black student. That might have been his conscious intent, but