Page 173 - Microaggressions in Everyday Live Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation

Racial Microaggressions and African Americans 147

chronic, overt or covert, deliberate or unintentional, and dramatic or subtle.
All forms are oppressive and harmful, but what makes them especially dam-
aging are their continuing and cumulative nature (e.g., daily experiences of
racist hassles). In the previous section we indicated that modern racism in the
form of racial microaggressions reflects a worldview that denigrates people of

color through biased belief systems and attitudes. For African Americans, the
worldview that they are lesser human beings with negative qualities can be
seen in this quote from the early 1940s, contrasted with a quote from 2003:

White male, age 38, newspaperman in Newport News, Virginia:

Our colored people are hard - working, self - respecting, and do not attempt to mix
anywhere with the whites. There are some who try to butt in with their rights . . . .
The best evidence of the fair treatment they get are the public school facilities. They
have very excellent nigger schools. . . . The Negro is a black and kinky - haired person
from whose body comes a not entirely pleasant odor. He is always regarded as an
inferior person and race, mentally and morally, destined by birth and circum-
stances to serve the white people . . . . I don ’ t understand the northerners. How
would they like a nigger to marry their daughter? (Jones, 1997, p. 46)

White male, age 25, student in New York City:

I have nothing against the Blacks, or should I say African Americans. I go to my

classes with them and we work alongside one another at my office. Okay, I don ’ t
socialize with them much outside of class, but they keep to themselves anyway.
There is nothing wrong with being with people who share your interests. Frankly,
I don ’ t like rap music and I ’ m not sure it ’ s really music anyway . . . . Please don ’ t
misunderstand me, if they like it, that ’ s fine. Interracial relationships are fi ne.

I don ’ t object. Inter - marriage is fine. I don ’ t object. But, I do worry about the
children, though. It ’ s going to be hard on them . . . being mixed.
The first quote represents the belief systems of old - fashioned racism toward

African Americans. The speaker is sincere in expressing his thoughts on Black
inferiority, the necessity of keeping the races separate, and the many negative
qualities possessed by Blacks that justify his beliefs and actions. He states these
as absolute truths.
In the second quote, bias toward African Americans is expressed more sub-
tly and is couched in vagueness and external reasons that do not refl ect on
potential racist attitudes and actions. In the first quote, for example, the speaker

indicates that “ good ” Blacks who know their place do not attempt to mix with
Whites. The second speaker couches his observations as “ self-segregation ”

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