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The Compounding Impact of Racial Microaggressions

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African American students often encounter racial microaggressions when attending predominantly white institutions (PWIs). Jessica T. DeCuir-Gunby discusses why racial microaggressions can negatively affect African American students’ feelings of belonging to the campus community.

Image courtesy of interviewee. July 11, 2024

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This video discusses the concept of racial microaggressions, which are subtle, often unintentional forms of racism that express negative messages towards people of color. The discussion stems from an interview study conducted with 15 African American college students at predominantly white institutions (PWIs), using critical race theory (CRT) to investigate how microaggressions affect their feelings of belonging and coping mechanisms.

The study highlights that racial microaggressions are not minor and can have significant emotional and physical impacts on individuals. It emphasizes the historical context of education institutions as predominantly white spaces, resulting in unique struggles for students of color. The findings reveal that participants experienced various forms of microaggressions that led to feelings of isolation and harm.

Students employed various coping strategies in response to these experiences, including avoidance and seeking support through journaling or therapy. This video underscores that racial microaggressions can exacerbate the stress of attending college and that they intersect with broader systemic issues of racism.

The implications call for institutional changes, including the need for more supportive environments, accountability for microaggressions, and serious consideration of systemic racism in policies. Future research is recommended to focus on the victims of microaggressions, explore intersections with other forms of oppression, and enhance understanding of coping strategies for African American students. Overall, addressing racial microaggressions is imperative for fostering a sense of belonging and ensuring the wellbeing of students of color in educational contexts.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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Racial microaggressions are a form

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of systemic or everyday racism.

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And these intentional

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or unintentional assaults can come in a form of snubs looks,

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words, gestures, or tones.

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And they're intended to communicate negative

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or derogatory messages towards people of color.

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And so, the name not microaggressions is a bit mis

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misleading or if not a misnomer.

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So the harm caused by microaggression is far from micro it.

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They can be very substantial.

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And so in this study, it was an interview study

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and with my colleagues, Whitney McCoy, Steven Gibson, I,

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and we focused on 15 African American college students

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and their experiences with racial microaggressions in

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predominantly white institutions or PWIs.

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Um, and we use critical race theory

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or CRT, which you may have heard of.

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Um, and we examine how experiencing racial microaggressions

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influence their feelings of belonging

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and how they cope with those experiences.

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Higher education contexts that are you usually 50%

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or more, white contexts,

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or sometimes we call 'em historically white institutions

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that, you know, they have, you know, for large part,

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were created, for, for, for white people and,

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and African Americans and the Latinos

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or people of color just weren't allowed to attend in the,

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in, in the United States,

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we actually have historically black co, colleges

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and universities, and they were actually created

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for black people to attend

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because they could not attend,

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historically white institutions.

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And so there's a large history there.

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But now, you know,

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anyone pretty much can attend any university if they get

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into those universities.

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But they still, we still have universities that, you know,

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over overwhelmingly, white.

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And so when you go in,

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you might only have a small percentage of,

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of students of color there.

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Like, you know, the, the university.

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They may only have like three or 4% of black students,

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or five or 6% Latino students.

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And so that becomes this predominantly white in

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predominantly white context.

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And it becomes really hard for students

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of color in those contexts.

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They are influenced by institutional racism

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and oppressive structural policies and processes.

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And I just wanna make sure you understand

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that they can occur anywhere at any time in any context,

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not just in predominantly white

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institutions of higher education.

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And so people of color experience racial microaggressions

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everywhere in schools, in the grocery store, the workplace

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hospitals everywhere.

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And so there is a growing body

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of literature on racial microaggressions in various contexts

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ranging from workplace, the workplace,

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the healthcare education to, you know,

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to supermarkets, to everywhere

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and both K 12 and higher education.

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Um, the term racial microaggressions was first introduced in

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the 1970s by psychiatrist Chester Pierce, who studied

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how black people cope with racism.

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However, the concept

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of racial microaggressions did not appear in the research

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literature until the early two thousands.

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And the first work was published in 2000 by Daniel Ano,

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Miguel Seha and Teso.

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And their study used critical race theory

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to explore African American college students experiences

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with racial microaggressions

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and their impact, impact on campus racial climate.

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In fact, there's been a lot of work on,

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racial microaggressions within the, within,

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within the university context.

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And the second, early work was published in 2007

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by Darryl Wing Sue and colleagues.

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And they provided a taxon taxonomy

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of racial microaggressions focusing on types

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of racial microaggressions in terms of, say, micro insults,

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which are like behaviors

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or comments that demean someone's cultural heritage

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or like micro assaults.

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These are like explicit derogations, you know, that this,

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that you know, that are insulting someone.

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And, and micro invalidations, which are behaviors

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or comments that negate or nullify feelings

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and experiences that people of color may have.

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And so the research literature largely approaches racial

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microaggressions from two

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perspectives, a systemic perspective.

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This is where ano colleagues are situated,

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or an interpersonal perspective where Sue

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and colleagues are situated.

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And my work combines both this systemic

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and interpersonal perspectives.

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For me, it's important to understand

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how individuals are impacted by racial microaggressions,

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interpersonally, you know, particularly kind of

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how you know individuals, experiences

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and then kind of how they interact with others,

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but then systemically, particularly

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how all the policies in the context may kind of help,

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support that and implement those things.

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So likewise, any interventions

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for change should occur both at the interpersonal

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and at the systemic levels.

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Founded in the 1970s, by Derek Bell, Kimberly Crenshaw,

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Richard Dugo, and others, critical race theory

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or CRT is a counter legal scholarship

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or racial framework that examines the relationships

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between race, racism, and power.

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And CRT was created

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to challenge the laws complicity in upholding white

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supremacy, as well as the slow progress of racial reform.

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Um, CRT can be characterized by various themes

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and components or tenets.

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Um, and so two of those tenets, tenets

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that I actually looked at in my work, was centrality

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of race and racism and intersectionality.

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The centrality of race and racism focuses on the perva

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pervasiveness of racism in society where intersectionality

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examines the intersection of subordinating identities such

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as race and gender.

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The study consisted of 15 participants,

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11 women and four men.

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10 were doctoral students, three were master's students,

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and two were undergraduate students.

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And participants were,

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were education psychology or STEM majors.

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And they attended predominantly white

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institutions from across the states.

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Um, and we, we recruited them by, sending,

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emails to Listservs

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and actually recruiting from, organizations to come

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to see if we can get people to tell their stories.

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And we use convenience and snowball sampling to regroup.

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So once we got one person, we said, Hey,

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do you know someone else who might wanna participate?

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And so we were able to get some of their friends

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to participate in studies.

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And so students participated in one hour semi-structured

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interviews focusing on their experiences

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with racism on campus

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and how they cope with those experiences.

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Experiences. The interviews were audio recorded

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and transcribed for later analysis.

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We developed a code book to help with the coding process,

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and then we used, the Deduce software.

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Um, we engaged in open coding to help make sense

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of the interviews and use axial coding to make connections

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between our co codes and concepts.

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Then, using critical race theory,

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we organize our concepts into larger themes

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to tell the participants' stories.

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Well, all of the participants experienced

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racial microaggressions.

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Several of the participants described experiencing racial

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microaggressions that caused emotional

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and physical harm impacting their feelings and belonging.

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And we focused the article on their stories

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because they, they told some really, impactful,

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kinda shocking stories.

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Uh, for instance, we shared a story of Jamie,

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a second year master student in elementary education

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who described a racial racist encounter

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that she experienced in the university cafeteria.

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Um, a cumulative racial trauma caused

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her to react violently.

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She, she stabbed someone in the hand with a plastic fork

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to experience, to experience in a particular

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racial microaggression.

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And this experience, along

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with all the other racial microaggressions within her PPWI

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was just too difficult and race.

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So racism remains persistent within educational context.

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It can negatively impact victims in a variety of ways.

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And so after this experience, she actually wanted

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to leave her university.

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And then a second story we shared was from Candace,

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a second year master student in school administration.

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She described a variety

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of racial microaggressions from peers

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and professors causing her to leave her institution.

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She talked about not feeling as though she belonged

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because of her race as well as being sexually assaulted.

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She also talked about being stereotyped as a black woman.

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Candace encountered intersectional macroaggressions based

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upon race and gender.

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She experienced compounded trauma from

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double subordinate statuses.

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Also, participants use a variety of coping strategies

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to help deal deal with their experiences.

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A few participants use eating as a form of escapism.

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Several participants use avoidance coping strategies

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where they try to avoid or not focus on the experiences.

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Although this is may, this may see be seen as a maladaptive

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or negative coping strategy,

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in the traditional coping literature.

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But when it comes to coping with racism,

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withdrawing from a context often helps

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with self preservation.

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Um, but other participants used positive,

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a more self-protective strategies.

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They engaged in journaling,

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found supportive networks or even attended therapy.

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So, you know, there was a sort, there was a variety of

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of findings there, but all these different things impacted

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their sense of belonging within the school context.

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One, racial microaggressions provide additional barriers

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for African American students of attending, attending PWIs.

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I mean, there are a lot of different things going on,

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but having to deal with racial microaggressions on top

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of just the general stress you, you experience, you know,

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going to college, it can be a bit overwhelming.

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And then racial microaggressions can intersect

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with other forms of oppression and compound their impact.

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Um, third, students often use a variety

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of coping strategies, both positive

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and negative to deal with the pain

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of experiencing racial microaggression.

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And then fourth, this, all,

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all these different things influence African American

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students' feelings of belonging within the PWI I context.

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And so from there we had a variety of implication,

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particularly from a policy perspective.

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'cause you know, you know,

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although I talk a lot about interpersonal,

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experiences in, in terms of racial microaggressions,

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it's really important to talk about, well,

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how can we make large scale policy changes?

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But first, racism is a,

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racism related stress results from systemic racism

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and is a public health issue.

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And we should be treating racism related stress that way,

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including providing appropriate resources such

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as state and federal funding.

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Second on campus,

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African American students need more safe spaces, places

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where they feel they belong, such as affinity,

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affinity spaces like, you know, black cultural center.

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So things like that. Third,

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universities should treat racial

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microaggressions more seriously.

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Um, policy should be created to hold aggressors accountable,

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and this will protect the victims

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and place the responsibility on

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of resolution on institutions rather than victims.

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Because a lot of times when,

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students experience racial microaggressions,

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it's the students who are, are the ones who actually have

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to, you know, take, take responsibility for

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and, for solving the issue rather than the institution.

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So institutions should be involved in, you know,

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making sure, black students are safe rather

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than the black students themselves.

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And last institutions need to take,

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eradicating systemic racism seriously in their

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p policies and practices.

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This would help create a stronger sense of belonging for,

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for all students of color.

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Um, but in terms of, future research,

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we actually have several recommendations.

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Um, first we need to shift from focus on the perpetrator

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to focus exclusively on the victims

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of racial microaggressions

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because a lot of, lot of, the models in the work,

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on racial microaggression talks a lot about the types of,

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racial microaggressions.

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And, and you want, wanna get at why people are, you know,

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engaging in committing racial, racial microaggressions.

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Well, we need to focus on how are,

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how's all impacting those

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experiencing racial microaggressions.

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And so we need to better understand their experiences,

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particularly in terms of

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how it impacts their feelings of belonging.

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Second, we should examine

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how racial microaggressions intersect

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with other forms of oppression.

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You know, for here, here in my, in our study,

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we talked about, you know, we actually had a student

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that talked about, you know, being sexually assaulted,

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assaulted, and she talked about

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how they always talked about her, her being a black woman.

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So it, it was race and it was also gender. But,

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You know, but how do racial microaggressions intersect

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with other, identity, for instance,

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sex sexual orientation.

11:58.585 --> 12:01.525
Um, so, you know, it is never just one particular identity.

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It's always multiple identities that are intersecting.

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And last, we need to better understand

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how African Americans cope with racial microaggressions.

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Um, you know, you know, it's

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because racial microaggressions are

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always, you know, always there.

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They're constant. And so we need to need, need

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to provide more emotional support.

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Um, as African American students come, are in these,

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these contexts and they're experiencing racial

12:22.325 --> 12:23.085
microaggressions.

00:00 - Racial microaggressions are a form of systemic or everyday racism. And these intentional or unintentional assaults can come in a form of snubs looks, words, gestures, or tones. And they're intended to communicate negative

00:14 - or derogatory messages towards people of color. And so, the name not microaggressions is a bit mis misleading or if not a misnomer. So the harm caused by microaggression is far from micro it. They can be very substantial. And so in this study, it was an interview study and with my colleagues, Whitney McCoy, Steven Gibson, I, and we focused on 15 African American college students and their experiences with racial microaggressions in predominantly white institutions or PWIs.

00:42 - and we use critical race theory or CRT, which you may have heard of. and we examine how experiencing racial microaggressions influence their feelings of belonging and how they cope with those experiences. Higher education contexts that are you usually 50% or more, white contexts, or sometimes we call 'em historically white institutions that, you know, they have, you know, for large part, were created, for, for, for white people and,

01:09 - and African Americans and the Latinos or people of color just weren't allowed to attend in the, in, in the United States, we actually have historically black co, colleges and universities, and they were actually created for black people to attend because they could not attend, historically white institutions. And so there's a large history there. But now, you know,

01:29 - anyone pretty much can attend any university if they get into those universities. But they still, we still have universities that, you know, over overwhelmingly, white. And so when you go in, you might only have a small percentage of, of students of color there. Like, you know, the, the university. They may only have like three or 4% of black students, or five or 6% Latino students.

01:50 - And so that becomes this predominantly white in predominantly white context. And it becomes really hard for students of color in those contexts. They are influenced by institutional racism and oppressive structural policies and processes. And I just wanna make sure you understand that they can occur anywhere at any time in any context, not just in predominantly white institutions of higher education.

02:12 - And so people of color experience racial microaggressions everywhere in schools, in the grocery store, the workplace hospitals everywhere. And so there is a growing body of literature on racial microaggressions in various contexts ranging from workplace, the workplace, the healthcare education to, you know, to supermarkets, to everywhere and both K 12 and higher education. the term racial microaggressions was first introduced in

02:40 - the 1970s by psychiatrist Chester Pierce, who studied how black people cope with racism. However, the concept of racial microaggressions did not appear in the research literature until the early two thousands. And the first work was published in 2000 by Daniel Ano, Miguel Seha and Teso. And their study used critical race theory to explore African American college students experiences with racial microaggressions

03:04 - and their impact, impact on campus racial climate. In fact, there's been a lot of work on, racial microaggressions within the, within, within the university context. And the second, early work was published in 2007 by Darryl Wing Sue and colleagues. And they provided a taxon taxonomy of racial microaggressions focusing on types of racial microaggressions in terms of, say, micro insults, which are like behaviors

03:30 - or comments that demean someone's cultural heritage or like micro assaults. These are like explicit derogations, you know, that this, that you know, that are insulting someone. And, and micro invalidations, which are behaviors or comments that negate or nullify feelings and experiences that people of color may have. And so the research literature largely approaches racial microaggressions from two perspectives, a systemic perspective.

03:55 - This is where ano colleagues are situated, or an interpersonal perspective where Sue and colleagues are situated. And my work combines both this systemic and interpersonal perspectives. For me, it's important to understand how individuals are impacted by racial microaggressions, interpersonally, you know, particularly kind of how you know individuals, experiences and then kind of how they interact with others,

04:19 - but then systemically, particularly how all the policies in the context may kind of help, support that and implement those things. So likewise, any interventions for change should occur both at the interpersonal and at the systemic levels. Founded in the 1970s, by Derek Bell, Kimberly Crenshaw, Richard Dugo, and others, critical race theory or CRT is a counter legal scholarship or racial framework that examines the relationships

04:45 - between race, racism, and power. And CRT was created to challenge the laws complicity in upholding white supremacy, as well as the slow progress of racial reform. CRT can be characterized by various themes and components or tenets. and so two of those tenets, tenets that I actually looked at in my work, was centrality of race and racism and intersectionality. The centrality of race and racism focuses on the perva

05:11 - pervasiveness of racism in society where intersectionality examines the intersection of subordinating identities such as race and gender. The study consisted of 15 participants, 11 women and four men. 10 were doctoral students, three were master's students, and two were undergraduate students. And participants were, were education psychology or STEM majors. And they attended predominantly white

05:34 - institutions from across the states. and we, we recruited them by, sending, emails to Listservs and actually recruiting from, organizations to come to see if we can get people to tell their stories. And we use convenience and snowball sampling to regroup. So once we got one person, we said, Hey, do you know someone else who might wanna participate? And so we were able to get some of their friends to participate in studies.

05:59 - And so students participated in one hour semi-structured interviews focusing on their experiences with racism on campus and how they cope with those experiences. Experiences. The interviews were audio recorded and transcribed for later analysis. We developed a code book to help with the coding process, and then we used, the Deduce software. we engaged in open coding to help make sense of the interviews and use axial coding to make connections

06:27 - between our co codes and concepts. Then, using critical race theory, we organize our concepts into larger themes to tell the participants' stories. Well, all of the participants experienced racial microaggressions. Several of the participants described experiencing racial microaggressions that caused emotional and physical harm impacting their feelings and belonging. And we focused the article on their stories

06:49 - because they, they told some really, impactful, kinda shocking stories. for instance, we shared a story of Jamie, a second year master student in elementary education who described a racial racist encounter that she experienced in the university cafeteria. a cumulative racial trauma caused her to react violently. She, she stabbed someone in the hand with a plastic fork to experience, to experience in a particular

07:15 - racial microaggression. And this experience, along with all the other racial microaggressions within her PPWI was just too difficult and race. So racism remains persistent within educational context. It can negatively impact victims in a variety of ways. And so after this experience, she actually wanted to leave her university. And then a second story we shared was from Candace, a second year master student in school administration.

07:39 - She described a variety of racial microaggressions from peers and professors causing her to leave her institution. She talked about not feeling as though she belonged because of her race as well as being sexually assaulted. She also talked about being stereotyped as a black woman. Candace encountered intersectional macroaggressions based upon race and gender. She experienced compounded trauma from double subordinate statuses.

08:05 - Also, participants use a variety of coping strategies to help deal deal with their experiences. A few participants use eating as a form of escapism. Several participants use avoidance coping strategies where they try to avoid or not focus on the experiences. Although this is may, this may see be seen as a maladaptive or negative coping strategy, in the traditional coping literature. But when it comes to coping with racism, withdrawing from a context often helps

08:33 - with self preservation. but other participants used positive, a more self-protective strategies. They engaged in journaling, found supportive networks or even attended therapy. So, you know, there was a sort, there was a variety of of findings there, but all these different things impacted their sense of belonging within the school context. One, racial microaggressions provide additional barriers for African American students of attending, attending PWIs.

08:57 - I mean, there are a lot of different things going on, but having to deal with racial microaggressions on top of just the general stress you, you experience, you know, going to college, it can be a bit overwhelming. And then racial microaggressions can intersect with other forms of oppression and compound their impact. third, students often use a variety of coping strategies, both positive and negative to deal with the pain of experiencing racial microaggression.

09:20 - And then fourth, this, all, all these different things influence African American students' feelings of belonging within the PWI I context. And so from there we had a variety of implication, particularly from a policy perspective. 'cause you know, you know, although I talk a lot about interpersonal, experiences in, in terms of racial microaggressions, it's really important to talk about, well, how can we make large scale policy changes?

09:42 - But first, racism is a, racism related stress results from systemic racism and is a public health issue. And we should be treating racism related stress that way, including providing appropriate resources such as state and federal funding. Second on campus, African American students need more safe spaces, places where they feel they belong, such as affinity, affinity spaces like, you know, black cultural center.

10:07 - So things like that. Third, universities should treat racial microaggressions more seriously. policy should be created to hold aggressors accountable, and this will protect the victims and place the responsibility on of resolution on institutions rather than victims. Because a lot of times when, students experience racial microaggressions, it's the students who are, are the ones who actually have

10:31 - to, you know, take, take responsibility for and, for solving the issue rather than the institution. So institutions should be involved in, you know, making sure, black students are safe rather than the black students themselves. And last institutions need to take, eradicating systemic racism seriously in their p policies and practices. This would help create a stronger sense of belonging for, for all students of color.

10:57 - but in terms of, future research, we actually have several recommendations. first we need to shift from focus on the perpetrator to focus exclusively on the victims of racial microaggressions because a lot of, lot of, the models in the work, on racial microaggression talks a lot about the types of, racial microaggressions. And, and you want, wanna get at why people are, you know, engaging in committing racial, racial microaggressions.

11:21 - Well, we need to focus on how are, how's all impacting those experiencing racial microaggressions. And so we need to better understand their experiences, particularly in terms of how it impacts their feelings of belonging. Second, we should examine how racial microaggressions intersect with other forms of oppression. You know, for here, here in my, in our study,

11:40 - we talked about, you know, we actually had a student that talked about, you know, being sexually assaulted, assaulted, and she talked about how they always talked about her, her being a black woman. So it, it was race and it was also gender. But, You know, but how do racial microaggressions intersect with other, identity, for instance, sex sexual orientation. so, you know, it is never just one particular identity. It's always multiple identities that are intersecting.

12:04 - And last, we need to better understand how African Americans cope with racial microaggressions. you know, you know, it's because racial microaggressions are always, you know, always there. They're constant. And so we need to need, need to provide more emotional support. as African American students come, are in these, these contexts and they're experiencing racial microaggressions.

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