Page 95 - Microaggressions in Everyday Live Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation

The Microaggression Process Model 69

Table 4.1 (Continued)
DOMAIN DOMAIN EXAMPLES
“My date is looking for me to get a cab. But they
keep passing. So it’s just constant humiliation. It’s
just humiliation.”
Phase Four—Interpretation: “They treated me like the angry black woman and
The meaning the participant like afraid how I’m going to come back.”
makes of the incident, “But subtle, it’s more like they want to fi nd out
answering such questions as: what I know and who I am before they trust me
Why did the event occur? with it.”
What were the person’s
intentions?

Phase Five—Consequence “And I think I’ve learned in a lot of ways to sort of
for Individual: Behavioral, shield myself from any kind of, like, personal hurt
emotive, or thought processes that would come out of it. Like I don’t blame it on
which develop over time as a myself, it’s not like ‘What’s wrong with me?’ It’s like,
result of said incident. “Oh, that’s that White unconsciousness that they’re
so well-trained in.’”

when a potential racial microaggression presents itself: Incident, Perception,
Reaction, Interpretation, and Consequence.

Phase One — The Potential Microaggressive Incident or Event

Potential microaggressive incidents set in motion a chain of psychological
events within recipients that may directly or indirectly effect their interpersonal
interactions. Incidents may be the result of (a) ongoing interactions between
perpetrators and recipients (discussions of topics between individuals or
groups of people during social events), (b) more distant and passive relation-
ships (overhearing comments made by a stranger in a subway), or (c) those in
which environmental cues signal a devaluation of group identities (all male
pictures of past CEOs in a board room). For African Americans, communications
regarding the following themes have been found to be especially offensive, but
very common (Sue, Nadal, et al., 2008):

• Ascription of intellectual inferiority
• Second - class citizenship
• Assumption of criminality
• Assumption of inferior status
• Assumed universality of the Black experience
• Assumed superiority of White cultural values/communication styles

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