Page 33 - Microaggressions in Everyday Live Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation

Racial Microaggressions 7

Any one microaggression alone may be minimally impactful, but when
they occur continuously throughout a lifespan, their cumulative nature can
have major detrimental consequences (Holmes & Holmes, 1970; Holmes &
Rahe, 1967; Meyer, 1995, 2003; Utsey, Giesbrecht, Hook, & Stanard, 2008;
Utsey & Ponterotto, 1999). Many Whites, for example, fail to realize that
people of color from the moment of birth are subjected to multiple racial
microaggressions from the media, peers, neighbors, friends, teachers, and even
in the educational process and/or curriculum itself. These insults and indig-
nities are so pervasive that they are often unrecognized. Let ’ s discuss the two
case vignettes that open this chapter in terms of the origin, manifestation, and
impact of microaggressions on two sociodemographic dimensions: race
and gender.

RACIAL MICROAGGRESSIONS

Racism may be defined as any attitude, action, institutional structure, or social
policy that subordinates persons or groups because of their color (Jones, 1997;
Ponterotto, Utsey, & Pederson, 2006). The subordination of people of color is
manifested in inferior housing, education, employment, and health services
(Sue, 2003). The complex manifestation of racism can occur at three different
levels: individual, institutional, and cultural (Jones, 1997).
Individual racism is best known to the American public as overt, conscious,
and deliberate individual acts intended to harm, place at a disadvantage,
or discriminate against racial minorities. Serving Black patrons last, using
racial epithets, preventing a White son or daughter from dating or marrying
a person of color, or not showing clients of color housing in affl uent White
neighborhoods are all examples. At the other end of the spectrum, hate crimes
against people of color and other marginalized groups represent extreme
forms of overt individual racism. In two incidents occurring in 1998, Matthew
Shepard, a student at the University of Wyoming, was tortured and murdered
because he was a homosexual, and James Byrd was killed by being beaten,
chained, and dragged naked behind a pick - up truck until beheaded, solely
because he was Black.
Institutional racism is any policy, practice, procedure, or structure in busi-
ness, industry, government, courts, churches, municipalities, schools, and so
forth, by which decisions and actions are made that unfairly subordinate persons

of color while allowing other groups to profit from the outcomes. Examples of

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