Page 142 - Microaggressions in Everyday Live Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation

116 microaggressive perpetrators and oppression

It becomes invisible, transparent, and an inseparable part of the background
when White people are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, aver-
age, or ideal (Sleeter & Bernal, 2004). The result is that both White suprem-
acy and overt/covert racism become culturally conditioned into the lives
of White people, albeit without their informed consent, and institutional-
ized in the very organizations that control their lives (Jones, 1997; Ridley,
2005; Smedley & Smedley, 2005). This transformation is quite insidious

and Sue (2006a) has proposed a four - step process model to explain how
Whiteness becomes converted to racism (see Table 6.1 ). The majority of White
Americans are unaware of how the process of social conditioning has affected
their worldview; some may understand the process on an intellectual level,
but still emotively and behaviorally lag far behind their cognitive insights.
Nevertheless, liberation psychology speaks to making the “ invisible ” visible
as the first step to combating oppression and its consequences (Freire, 1970;

Sue, 2004).

Transformation One — Association of Whiteness
with White Supremacy
White skin color is a given and by itself carries no positive or negative con-
notations. It is when Whiteness becomes inextricably linked with White
supremacy that the foundations are set for the development of racism. White
supremacy notions rest on an interlocking set of beliefs and principles that
justify discrimination, segregation, and domination of people of color (Feagin
& Feagin, 1996; Welsing, 1991): (1) fair skin color is elevated to superior sta-
tus while darker colors symbolize inferiority (Sue, 2005); (2) strong in - group
preferences develop that reject or view other customs as unacceptable, devi-
ant, or primitive (Jones, 1997); and (3) a sense of entitlement or divine des-
tiny associated with White superiority develops (Sue, 2006a). The doctrine of
White supremacy can operate at both a conscious and unconscious level. As
we have mentioned previously, the extreme conscious manifestation of White
racial superiority and minority inferiority are most clearly associated with White
supremacists such as Skinheads and Ku Klux Klan members. Most
White Americans in our society, however, inherit and possess unconscious
White supremacist notions that are revealed in aversive racism or forms of
racial microaggressions.

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