Page 121 - Microaggressions in Everyday Live Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation

Microaggressions and Daily Hassles 95

Slavin, Rainer, McCreary, & Gowda, 1991). In many respects the transaction
model may accurately describe the process of stress - coping, but fails in
addressing racial/cultural, gender, and sexual - orientation factors that involve
group-specific race - related, gender - related, and sexual - orientation - related

stress. It also neglects the sociopolitical context under which marginalized

groups exist in the society and overlooks group-specific traumatic stress.
Because these conceptions are based primarily on a European American
perspective, it fails to understand or sympathize with the life experience of
marginality, the oppression that many experience, and how “ small slights ”
symbolize strong memories of historical and continuing injustice (Duran,
2006; Feagin, 2006; Feagin & McKinney, 2003). The following quote captures
the essence of this lack of appreciation and understanding of race - related
traumatic stress in stress - coping models and perspectives:
I don ’ t think white people, generally, understand the full meaning of racist dis-
criminatory behaviors directed toward Americans of African descent. They seem
to see each act of discrimination or any act of violence as an “ isolated ” event. As
a result, most white Americans cannot understand the strong reaction manifested by
blacks when such events occur . . . . They forget that in most cases, we live lives
of quiet desperation generated by a litany of daily large and small events that,
whether or not by design, remind us of our “ place ” in American society. [Whites]
ignore the personal context of the stimulus. That is, they deny the historical
impact that a negative act may have on an individual. “ Nigger ” to a white may
simply be an epithet that should be ignored. To most blacks, the term brings into
sharp and current focus all kinds of acts of racism — murder, rape, torture, denial of
constitutional rights, insults, limited opportunity structure, economic problems,
unequal justice under the law and a myriad of . . . other racist and discriminatory
acts that occur daily in the lives of most Americans of African descent. (Feagin &
Sikes, 1994, pp. 23 – 24)

The above quote is consistent with what may be referred to as “ historical
trauma, ” or the “ soul wound ” by American Indians (Duran, 2006).
Microaggressions are linked to a wider sociopolitical context of oppression
and injustice (historical trauma) that results in a soul wound passed on from
generation to generation of those who understand their own histories of
discrimination and prejudice (Sue, 2003). Each small race - related slight, hurt,
invalidation, insult, and indignity rubs salt into the wounds of marginalized
groups in our society. For American Indians, their everyday lives are fi lled
with reminders that their lands were unfairly seized from them, that they
were forced onto reservations, and that physical and cultural genocide were

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