MICROAGGRESSIONS
& OUR STUDENTS
UA Student Affairs Symposium 2012
HANNAH LOZON, Coordinator of Social Justice Education
JANET RICO UHRIG, Coordinator of Desk and Summer Operations
SPENSER DARDEN, Graduate Community Director
Today’s Learning Outcomes
1) Define, explore examples, and create awareness of
microaggressions
2) Provide student affairs staff the opportunity to
reflect on the impact of microaggressions on
retention at UA
3) Discuss strategies to minimize the impact of
microaggressions
Social Justice Terminology
• Diversity = The presence of difference.
• Social Justice = The process of social justice
involves an equitable distribution of resources,
equal access to those resources, and participation
from all members of society. The goal of social
justice is the full and equal participation of all
groups in a society shaped to meet their needs.
Social Justice Terminology
•
Identity = Aspects & characteristics that make up our definition of self
(individual identities); what aspects & characteristics society defines us by
(group identities).
o Dominant = Those identities that experiences privilege.
o Subordinate= Those identities that experience oppression.
• Privilege = Unearned, unasked for, often invisible benefits and advantages
only readily available to agent groups.
• Oppression = The systematic subjugation of subordinated groups by those
with social power (privileged groups). Privilege + Power = Oppression.
Definitions adapted from: Adams, M., Bell, L. A., & Griffin, P.
(Eds.) (2007) Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice 2nd
Edition
Levels of Oppression
Cultural
Institutional
Individual
Adapted from: Adams, M., Bell, L. A., & Griffin, P. (Eds.)
Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice 2nd Edition
Individual Oppression: Personal attitudes,
behaviors, and beliefs that maintain and perpetuate
oppression.
• Examples: believing people with mental
disabilities are not capable of working, telling
homophobic jokes, throwing a sexist theme
party, etc.
Institutional Oppression: Social institutions like
media, education, health services, and government
that maintain and perpetuate oppression through
laws, practices, policies, and norms.
• Examples: marriage being legal only for
heterosexual couples, public schools more
racially segregated than in 1950s, etc.
Cultural Oppression: Values, norms, societal
expectations, ways of thinking and ways of knowing
that form institutions and individual patterns of
oppression.
• Examples: standards of beauty that are
unrealistic for women, narrow definitions of
gender expression, etc.
Aversive Oppression
–
Subtle, often unintentional, belief that one does not
discriminate, usually views self as a “liberal”
•
•
Possesses unconscious stereotypes and biases
If those feelings are conscious, there is an attempt to
dissociate from those feelings
Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000
So What is a Microaggression?
Microaggression: Subtle, verbal and nonverbal slights, insults,
indignities, and denigrating messages directed toward an
individual due to their group identity, often automatically and
unconsciously. Usually committed by well-intentioned folks who
are unaware of the hidden messages being communicated.
So What is a Microaggression?
Microaggressions are similar to carbon
monoxide - “invisible, but potentially lethal” continuous exposure to these type of
interactions “can be a sort of death by a
thousand cuts to the victim”
Sue, (2010) Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender, and Sexual
Orientation.
Microaggressions in Everyday Life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJL2P0JsAS4
Types of Microaggressions
• Microinsult: Often unconscious verbal, nonverbal, and environmental
communications that subtly convey rudeness and insensitivity that
demean a person's heritage or identity
– Examples: asking a student of color which scholarship they received for
admittance to college, joking that you cannot give female office worker
constructive feedback or she’ll cry, “helping” a wheelchair user without asking
if they need assistance
• Microassault: Conscious and intentional discriminatory actions on one’s
identity
– Examples: flying a confederate flag, denying child from dating someone of the
same sex, UA student whistling at female professor in Centennial class
• Microinvalidation: Communications that subtly exclude negate or nullify
the thoughts, feelings or experiential reality of a person’s identity
– Examples: color blindness, pictures that represent organization are
homogenous, denial of individual homophobic experience
Taken from: Sue, Capodilupo, Torino, Bucceri, Holder, Nadal & Equilin, 2007
Real Life Microaggressions
• UA professor asks a student wearing a hijab to explain to the class about
arranged marriages, because “where she’s from they must do a lot of
that”
• Students and faculty dismissing questions by international students by
responding “I don’t understand you?” or ignoring what was said (Kim &
Kim, p. 175, 2010)
• “When I tell someone I'm Jewish, some people are shocked. And then I
get, "wait so do you celebrate Christmas?" But most people just say,
"YOU'RE JEWISH?!" And then I can't stand when people are always making
"Jew jokes" about being cheap, or saving money. “ – UA Student
• Commenting that “mixed race people are so beautiful/handsome/exotic”
(Johnston & Nadal, p. 131, 2010)
Real Life Microaggressions
• Peer “translating” what a professor just explained to an
international whose English skills are strong (Sue, Lin et all, 2009)
• “Don’t you worry your pretty little head” said to female students
(Steinem, 2008)
• “I love gay guys, they’re so much fun! I would love to have a gay guy
best friend. But lesbians are just annoying.” – Said to a female,
lesbian college roommate (www.microaggressions.com)
• “I know this is the 3rd committee this year I’ve asked you to serve
on, but I need the student of color perspective” said to a graduate
student (Guzman, Trevino, Lubuguin, Arayan, p. 153, 2010)
Real Life Microaggressions
• UA Latina student heard other students asking “what is that awful
smell? and how can she eat that?” when student was cooking her
comfort food in residence hall community kitchen.
• Counselor expresses “surprise” in a counseling session when LGBTQ
student hasn’t come out to family, suggesting there’s a right and
wrong way to be LGBTQ.
• “On any given day someone will race across the parking lot, and I
wont be looking for help. I am putting my wheelchair in my car, and
I hear ‘can I help you? can I help you?’” (Keller & Galgay, p. 253,
2010)
Microaggressions & Impact on
College Campuses
• Academic Invalidation
– Work of graduate students/scholars of color is constantly
challenged and invalidated faculty or students from
dominant groups
– Discouraged use of local & national database , journals,
publications, research that are specific to people of color –
“You’re primarily using sources written by scholars of color.
I think your work will not be as strong. Try to vary your
sources.” (Guzman, Trevino, Lubuguin, Arayan, p. 153,
2010)
Microaggressions & Impact on
College Campuses
• Psychological Impact on Students (Sue, p. 214-215, 2010)
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Anxiety
Paranoia
Depression
Sleep Difficulties
Lack of Confidence
Worthlessness
Intrusive Cognitions
Helplessness
Loss of Drive
False Positives
What Can be Done About
Microaggressions?
– Students experience more incidents of stereotyping and discrimination in
low-diversity environments, and it doesn't completely disappear in highdiversity environments, though it occurs at a significantly lower rate,”
Dr. Sylvia Hurtado, director of the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA (from “The
Climate for Underrepresented Groups and Diversity on Campus.”)
– “Studies have shown that unlike blatant old-fashioned racism,
contemporary subtle forms of prejudice and discrimination (ie.
microaggressions) can impede cognitive function and performance”
(Banji, Greenwald, 1994; Salvatore and Shelton, 2007; Steele, 1997)
What Can be Done About Microaggressions?
– How to support students
• Don’t dismiss the experience of the microaggression as
an isolated incident, or “not that big a deal”
• Coalition building/networking amongst identity is
encouraged and supported
–
–
–
–
–
AASA’s new Legacy mentoring program
LGBTQ & Transgender support group
Sip N’ Bitch & NEW Leadership
Student clubs
Affinity groups for undergraduate and graduate students, and
for staff/faculty
What Can be Done About Microaggressions?
– How to support students
cont.
• “It’s important that colleges
are aware of their campus
racial climate and the
specific challenges that their
underrepresented students
face. Improving the diversity
of a campus is a first step,
followed by working to
improve interracial relations
to build students’ skills for
citizenship in a multicultural
society,” Hurtado says.
Being Inclusive As a Campus
Inclusive excellence is about the transformation of our
institutions of higher learning by embedding inclusiveness into
all aspects and processes of a college or university.*
5 dimensions that impact inclusive and exclusiveness*
1. Examine institutional past regarding inclusion
and exclusion
2. Thinking of Diversity beyond the numbers
3. Campus climate
4. Organizational dimensions
5. Societal factors
*pgs 147-8 (Microaggressions and Marginality, Milem ,Chang, & Antonio, 2005))
Thank you!