Page 97 - Microaggressions in Everyday Live Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation

The Microaggression Process Model 71

Incidents possessing these themes may be interpreted as microaggressions
as they contain derogatory racial, gender, or LGBT overtones. The medium
of their delivery may be through verbal, behavioral, and environmental
channels.

Verbal
Verbal incidents are direct or indirect comments to targets. For example, during
a racially mixed social gathering for students at the university, a White male
faculty member was engaged in a conversation with a Black male student. The

faculty member lamented how many well - qualified and quite brilliant students
were being rejected by the university because of enrollment limits. The Black
student agreed and stated that he felt quite fortunate to have been admitted to

Columbia. The faculty member then stated: “ Yes, you certainly are, young man.
I pity White males now because they are the ones being discriminated against. ”

Hidden Messages: “ You did not make it into an Ivy League school on your own
merit but through some affirmative action program. White males are the ones now

being discriminated against. ”

Nonverbal/Behavioral
Nonverbal incidents are experiences that include the use of body language
or more direct physical actions. For example, in class, openly gay/lesbian
students often report that fellow straight classmates often choose not to sit
near them. One Black male information technology employee/troubleshooter
describes how he oftentimes gets “ double takes ” when he enters a company
and announces that he has been sent to fix their malfunctioning informational

system. Another Black informant describes how clerks often treat her: “ The
way that my money is given back to me when I go shopping . . . . I put money in
someone ’ s hand and they won ’ t put the money back in my hand. They ’ ll make sure
that they put the money on the counter ” (Sue, Capodilupo, & Holder, 2008). She
goes on to describe how offensive these incidents are, especially when the
clerk freely places change back into the hands of White customers.

Hidden Messages: “ Blacks are not supposed to be intelligent. ” “ I don ’ t want to
risk catching anything from Gays/Lesbians or Blacks. "

Environmental
In many situations, the physical surroundings represent the microaggressive
event (Purdie - Vaughns, Davis, Steele, & Ditlmann, 2008; Sol ó rzano et al., 2000).

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