MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION SERIES

James A. Banks, Series Editor

Racial Microaggressions: Using Critical Race Theory Deconstructing Race:
to Respond to Everyday Racism Multicultural Education Beyond the Color-Bind
Daniel G. Solórzano & Lindsay Pérez Huber Jabari Mahiri

City Schools and the American Dream 2: Is Everyone Really Equal? An Introduction to Key
The Enduring Promise of Public Education Concepts in Social Justice Education, 2nd Ed.
Pedro A. Noguera & Esa Syeed Özlem Sensoy & Robin DiAngelo
Teaching for Equity in Complex Times: Negotiating
Measuring Race: Why Disaggregating Data Matters
Standards in a High-Performing Bilingual School
for Addressing Educational Inequality
Jamy Stillman & Lauren Anderson
Robert T. Teranishi, Bach Mai Dolly Nguyen,
Cynthia Maribel Alcantar, Transforming Educational Pathways for Chicana/o
& Edward R. Curammeng Students: A Critical Race Feminista Praxis
Dolores Delgado Bernal & Enrique Alemán, Jr.
Campus Uprisings: How Student Activists and
Collegiate Leaders Resist Racism and Create Hope Un-Standardizing Curriculum: Multicultural Teaching
Ty-Ron M. O. Douglas, Kmt G. Shockley, in the Standards-Based Classroom, 2nd Ed.
& Ivory Toldson Christine E. Sleeter & Judith Flores Carmona
Global Migration, Diversity, and Civic Education:
Transformative Ethnic Studies in Schools:
Improving Policy and Practice
Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Research
James A. Banks, Marcelo Suárez-Orozco,
Christine E. Sleeter & Miguel Zavala
& Miriam Ben-Peretz, Eds.
Why Race and Culture Matter in Schools: Closing the
Reclaiming the Multicultural Roots of U.S. Curriculum:
Achievement Gap in America’s Classrooms, 2nd Ed.
Communities of Color and Official Knowledge
Tyrone C. Howard
in Education
Just Schools: Building Equitable Collaborations Wayne Au, Anthony L. Brown,
with Families and Communities & Dolores Calderón
Ann M. Ishimaru
Human Rights and Schooling:
Immigrant-Origin Students in Community College: An Ethical Framework for Teaching for Social Justice
Navigating Risk and Reward in Higher Education Audrey Osler
Carola Suárez-Orozco & Olivia Osei-Twumasi,
Eds. We Can’t Teach What We Don’t Know:
White Teachers, Multiracial Schools, 3rd Ed.
“We Dare Say Love”: Supporting Achievement in the
Gary R. Howard
Educational Life of Black Boys
Na’ilah Suad Nasir, Jarvis R. Givens, Teaching and Learning on the Verge:
& Christopher P. Chatmon, Eds. Democratic Education in Action
Teaching What Really Happened: Shanti Elliott
How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks and
Engaging the “Race Question”:
Get Students Excited About Doing History, 2nd Ed.
Accountability and Equity in U.S. Higher Education
James W. Loewen
Alicia C. Dowd & Estela Mara Bensimon
Culturally Responsive Teaching:
Theory, Research, and Practice, 3rd Ed. Diversity and Education:
Geneva Gay A Critical Multicultural Approach
Michael Vavrus
Music, Education, and Diversity:
Bridging Cultures and Communities First Freire:
Patricia Shehan Campbell Early Writings in Social Justice Education
Carlos Alberto Torres
Reaching and Teaching Students in Poverty: Strategies
for Erasing the Opportunity Gap, 2nd Ed. Mathematics for Equity
Paul C. Gorski Na’ilah Suad Nasir et al., Eds.
(continued)
Multicultural Education Series, continued
Race, Empire, and English Language Teaching Facing Accountability in Education
Suhanthie Motha Christine E. Sleeter, Ed.
Black Male(d) Talkin Black Talk
Tyrone C. Howard H. Samy Alim & John Baugh, Eds.
LGBTQ Youth and Education: Policies and Practices
Improving Access to Mathematics
Cris Mayo
Na’ilah Suad Nasir & Paul Cobb, Eds.
Race Frameworks
Zeus Leonardo “To Remain an Indian”
K. Tsianina Lomawaima & Teresa L. McCarty
Class Rules
Peter W. Cookson Jr. Education Research in the Public Interest
Gloria Ladson-Billings & William F. Tate, Eds.
Teachers Without Borders? The Hidden
Consequences of International Teachers in U.S. Multicultural Strategies for Education and Social
Schools Change
Alyssa Hadley Dunn Arnetha F. Ball
Streetsmart Schoolsmart Beyond the Big House
Gilberto Q. Conchas & James Diego Vigil Gloria Ladson-Billings
Americans by Heart
Teaching and Learning in Two Languages
William Pérez
Eugene E. García
Achieving Equity for Latino Students
Improving Multicultural Education
Frances Contreras
Cherry A. McGee Banks
Literacy Achievement and Diversity
Kathryn H. Au Education Programs for Improving Intergroup
Relations
Understanding English Language Variation Walter G. Stephan & W. Paul Vogt, Eds.
in U.S. Schools
Anne H. Charity Hudley & Christine Mallinson Thriving in the Multicultural Classroom
Mary Dilg
Latino Children Learning English
Guadalupe Valdés et al. Educating Teachers for Diversity
Asians in the Ivory Tower Jacqueline Jordan Irvine
Robert T. Teranishi
Teaching Democracy
Our Worlds in Our Words Walter C. Parker
Mary Dilg
The Making—and Remaking—of a Multiculturalist
Diversity and Equity in Science Education Carlos E. Cortés
Okhee Lee & Cory A. Buxton
Transforming the Multicultural Education
Forbidden Language of Teachers
Patricia Gándara & Megan Hopkins, Eds. Michael Vavrus
The Light in Their Eyes,10th Anniversary Ed.
Learning to Teach for Social Justice
Sonia Nieto
Linda Darling-Hammond et al., Eds.
The Flat World and Education
Linda Darling-Hammond Culture, Difference, and Power, Revised Ed.
Christine E. Sleeter
Diversity and the New Teacher
Catherine Cornbleth Learning and Not Learning English
Guadalupe Valdés
Frogs into Princes: Writings on School Reform
Larry Cuban The Children Are Watching
Educating Citizens in a Multicultural Society, 2nd Ed. Carlos E. Cortés
James A. Banks Multicultural Education, Transformative Knowledge,
Culture, Literacy, and Learning and Action
Carol D. Lee James A. Banks, Ed.
RACIAL
MICROAGGRESSIONS
Using Critical Race Theory to
Respond to Everyday Racism

Daniel G. Solórzano
Lindsay Pérez Huber
Published by Teachers College Press,® 1234 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY
10027

Copyright © 2020 by Teachers College, Columbia University

Front cover painting, Social Consciousness Through Intergenerational Knowledge:

Sustaining a Cycle of Justice, by Luis-Genaro Garcia. www.LuisGenaroGarcia.com.
Copyright © 2020. Reprinted with permission of the artist.

An excerpt from [“Certain moments send adrenaline to the heart,...”] from Citizen:
An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine is reprinted with the permission of The
Permissions Company, LLC, on behalf of Graywolf Press, graywolfpress.org, and
Penguin Random House UK. Copyright © 2014 by Claudia Rankine.

The photographs “Untitled, Harlem, New York, 1947” and “Department Store,
Mobile, Alabama, 1956” are reproduced courtesy of and copyright © The Gordon
Parks Foundation.

Chapters 2 and 3 contain text from “Racial Microaggressions as a Tool for Critical
Race Research,” by L. Pérez Huber & D. G. Solórzano, 2015, Race, Ethnicity,
and Education, 18(3), 297–320. Reprinted with permission of Taylor & Francis
Ltd, http://www.tandfonline.com.

Chapter 5 contains text from “Theorizing Racial Microaffirmations as a Response

to Racial Microaggressions: Counterstories Across Three Generations of Critical
Race Scholars,” by D. Solórzano, L. Peréz Huber, & L. Huber-­Verjan, 2020,
­Seattle Journal for Social Justice, 18(2), 185–215. Reprinted with permission.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,
or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the
publisher. For reprint permission and other subsidiary rights requests, please
contact Teachers College Press, Rights Dept.: [email protected]

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available at loc.gov

ISBN 978-0-8077-6438-1 (paper)

ISBN 978-0-8077-6439-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-8077-7909-5 (ebook)

Printed on acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America
Contents

Series Foreword James A. Banks vii

Acknowledgments xv
Artist’s Statement Luis-Genaro Garcia xix
Introduction: Origin Stories: How We Came to Study
Racial Microaggressions 1
Danny’s Story 1
Lindsay’s Story 8
Our Stories Coming Together to Further Theorize
Racial Microaggressions 14
Overview of the Book 17

1. Laying the Conceptual Groundwork for Understanding

Racial Microaggressions 19
Counterstories of Everyday Racism 19
Majoritarian Stories of Everyday Racism 22
Recognizing History to Name Everyday Racism 25
Chester Pierce and the Conceptual Development of Racial
Microaggressions 30
Defining Race and Racism 32
Using Critical Race Theory to Theorize Racial Microaggressions 33

2. Understanding the Types, Contexts, Effects, and Responses to

Racial Microaggressions Using Critical Race Hypos 37
A Critical Race Hypo 37
Types of Microaggressions 39
Contexts of Microaggressions 41
Effects of Microaggressions 42
Responses to Microaggressions 45

v
vi Contents

3. Examining the “Micro” Versus the “Macro” in

Researching Racial Microaggressions 51
Theorizing the Macroaggression: A Tree Metaphor 52
Macroaggression: The Roots of Racism 52
Institutional Racism: The Trunk and Branches 53
Racial Microaggression: The Leaves 54
Applying the Framework 56

4. Racism Within and Between Communities of Color:

Internalized Racism 66
Internalized Racism: The Clark Doll Experiment 69
Internalized Racist Nativism:
El Teatro Campesino’s “El Corrido” 71
Intergroup Conflict: The “Blexit” Movement 77

5. Responding to Racial Microaggressions:

Theorizing Racial Microaffirmations 84
Theorizing Racial Microaffirmations 85
Examples of Racial Microaffirmations: Existing Literature 88
Examples of Racial Microaffirmations: Our Personal Stories 92
Examples of Racial Microaffirmations: Empirical Evidence 94
6. Conclusion 98
Future Research on Racial Microaggressions:
Promising Areas 99
Praxis: Disrupting Racial Microaggressions 106
Notes 111
References 125
Index 144
About the Authors 155
Series Foreword

This illuminating and informative book about racial microaggression is be-

ing published at a propitious time because the devastating effects of the
COVID-19 pandemic have poignantly revealed the deep racial and social-­
class divisions and disparities within the United States (Villarosa, 2020).
During the pandemic, many middle- and upper-class professionals work vir-
tually while sheltering in their homes while most low-income and low-status
essential workers have to take buses, subways, and other forms of public
transportation to get to their work sites or face the possibility of being fired
from their jobs. One of the consequences of this difference is that African
Americans, Latinxs, and immigrants—who are heavily concentrated in
low-status jobs—have been infected with the coronavirus virus and died at
much higher rates than middle-class and upper-income workers, who are
disproportionately White (Mays & Newman, 2020).
Another startling example of the racial and social-class divide in U.S.
society was the images of lines of cars at food banks in different cities, some
several miles long, that were shown on national television news every eve-
ning after the U.S. economy was brought to a standstill by the pandemic
in late April and early May 2020. Unemployment has reached its highest
level since the Great Depression that began in 1929 and lasted through the
1930s (Cohen, 2020; Schwartz, Casselman, & Koeze, 2020). Food insecu-
rity, while affecting a large number of Americans, including many Whites,
has been highest among people of color. Racial and social class divisions
during the pandemic were also manifested in the digital divide that was re-
vealed when most school districts shuttered schools and instruction became
virtual. In some city school districts, such as Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles,
and Philadelphia, whose populations consist primarily of students of col-
or, a large proportion of the students have not received consistent instruc-
tion because they lack tablets, computers, or reliable Internet connectivity
(Goldstein, 2020). Nine out of ten students in the Detroit Public Schools did
not have access to tablets, computers, or the Internet until the school district
was given a $23 million grant by local foundations (Williams, 2020).
The COVID-19 epidemic and its painful consequences have ­seriously
challenged the idea of “American exceptionalism” (Grandin, 2019). In
May 2020, the United States had the highest number of deaths from the

vii
viii Series Foreword

pandemic of the major nations. The U.S. health care system, because of its
lack of preparation for the pandemic and infrastructure problems (Case &
Deaton, 2020; Rosenthal, 2020), was in disarray during the early phases of
the pandemic (Egan, 2020; Villarosa, 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic not
only revealed the deep racial and social class divisions within American soci-
ety (Blow, 2020), it also stimulated the rise of anti-Asian racism and micro­
aggressions (Stevens, 2020). President Donald Trump called COVID-19
“the Chinese virus” and the “Kung Flu virus.” Some Asian Americans have
been victims of racial hostility and attacks. The anti-Asian events and ex-
pressions evoked, for many Asian Americans, painful and repressed mem-
ories of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the internment of Japanese
Americans during the 1940s (Stevens, 2020).
Solórzano and Pérez Huber have adapted the definition of racial
­microaggression developed by Chester Pierce, the noted Harvard University
psychiatrist:

The subtle, stunning, repetitive event that many whites initiate and control in
their dealing with blacks can be termed a racial microaggression. Any single
microaggression from an offender to a defender (or victimizer to victim) in itself
is minor and inconsequential. However, the relentless omnipresence of these
noxious stimuli is the fabric of black-white relations in America. (Pierce, 1980,
cited in this volume, p. 31)

Solórzano and Pérez Huber expanded the definition constructed by Pierce to

encompass all people and communities of color. In his American Educational
Research Association (AERA) Distinguished Lecture in 2019, Solórzano
defined racial microaggressions as “a form of systemic everyday verbal or
non-verbal assaults directed toward People of Color. They are also layered
assaults, based on a Person of Color’s marginalized identities. . . . [T]hey are
[also] cumulative assaults that take a physiological, psychological, and aca-
demic toll on People of Color” (cited in Harmon, 2019). Solórzano and Pérez
Huber detail many graphic and authentic examples of racial microaggressions
throughout this book that will enable readers to comprehend and recognize
indicators of microaggressions when they experience or witness them.
The vivid examples and descriptions of racial microaggressions in
this book enabled me to recall and to categorize incidents that I have
experienced personally or witnessed during my life’s journey. When I was
an ­undergraduate student enrolled in an anthropology class at Chicago
Teachers College (now Chicago State University) that consisted of very
few African American students, the White professor, while discussing a
topic related to race, looked directly at me and asked, “Mr. Banks [class
discourse in college classes was formal in the early 1960s], what do Blacks
think about this?” I was traumatized and embarrassed by his question and
was speechless. An African American woman in the class, who was older
Series Foreword ix

than me and who had probably had past experiences with professors like
this one, was offended by his question and made a harsh comment to him.
His anger at her comment was palpable. He retaliated against her, and she
received a low grade in the class.
The University of Washington has a large number of Asian American
students, many of whom come from families that have lived in the United
States for generations. These students are sometimes asked, “Where are you
from?” When they answer “Los Angeles” or “San Francisco,” the next ques-
tion is, “Where are you really from?” This racial microaggression assumes
that these students were not born in the United States and are Asians, not
Asian Americans. When Michelle Obama was a student at Whitney Young
School, a magnet high school in Chicago, she said that she wanted to attend
Princeton University. A college counselor told her that she wasn’t “Princeton
material” (Obama, 2018). Obama had a successful academic experience at
Princeton and later graduated from Harvard Law School. Obama did not
internalize the college counselor’s view of her but was determined to defy and
resist it. The engaging and realistic examples of racial microaggressions in this
book, which inspired me to recall the ones detailed above, will enable readers
to comprehend the concept, identify examples, and to understand the adverse
effects that racial microaggressions have on their victims.
This book not only contains myriad examples of racial microaggressions,
it also describes the heavy psychological and physiological consequences
that the victims of racial microaggressions experience, including discomfort,
anxiety, confusion, stress, and hypertension. Solórzano and Pérez Huber
also describe actions that perpetuators of racial microaggression can take
to lessen the negative consequences for victims, including acknowledging
the harm and apologizing to victims. The authors embed their conception
of racial microaggressions within a critical race theory framework. They
describe how racial microaggressions are a manifestation of structural and
institutional racism within U.S. society and argue that “perpetrators of ra-
cial microaggressions should own the responsibility of dismantling everyday
racism, whether it be the racism that they carry out themselves or the racism
perpetuated by institutions” (p. 50).
The major purpose of the Multicultural Education Series is to provide
preservice educators, practicing educators, graduate students, scholars, and
policymakers with an interrelated and comprehensive set of books that
summarizes and analyzes important research, theory, and practice relat-
ed to the education of ethnic, racial, cultural, and linguistic groups in the
United States and the education of mainstream students about diversity.
The dimensions of multicultural education, developed by Banks (2004) and
described in the Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education, The
Routledge Companion to Multicultural Education (Banks, 2009), and the
Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education (Banks, 2012), provide the concep-
tual framework for the development of the publications in the Series. The
x Series Foreword

dimensions are content integration, the knowledge construction process,

prejudice reduction, equity pedagogy, and an empowering institutional cul-
ture and social structure. The books in the Multicultural Education Series
provide research, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the behaviors
and learning characteristics of students of color (Conchas & Vigil, 2012;
Lee, 2007), language minority students (Gándara & Hopkins 2010; Valdés,
2001; Valdés, Capitelli, & Alvarez, 2011), low-income students (Cookson,
2013; Gorski, 2018), and other minoritized population groups, such as stu-
dents who speak different varieties of English (Charity Hudley & Mallinson,
2011) and LGBTQ youth (Mayo, 2014).
This book describes ways to identify and mitigate racial microag-
gressions in colleges and universities. A number of other books in the
Multicultural Education Series analyze and discuss problems related to di-
versity in higher education and ways in which higher education institutions
can be reformed to address those problems. These books include Engaging
the “Race Question”: Accountability and Equity in U. S. Higher Education
by Alicia C. Dowd and Estela Mara Bensimon (2015); Race, Empire, and
English Language Teaching: Creating Responsible and Ethical Anti-Racist
Practice by Suhanthie Motha (2014); Achieving Equity for Latino Students:
Expanding the Pathway to Higher Education Through Public Policy by
Frances Contreras (2011); Americans by Heart: Undocumented Latino
Students and the Promise of Higher Education by William Pérez (2011);
Asians in the Ivory Tower: Dilemmas of Racial Inequality in American
Higher Education by Robert T. Teranishi (2010); Immigrant-Origin
Students in Community College: Navigating Risk and Reward in Higher
Education, edited by Carola Suárez-Orozco and Olivia Osei-Twumasi
(2019); and Campus Uprising: How Student Activists and Collegiate
Leaders Resist Racism and Create Hope, edited by Ty-Ron M. O. Douglas,
Kmt G. Shockley, and Ivory Toldson (2020).
Solórzano and Pérez Huber not only describe how people of color are
victimized by racial microaggressions, they also detail how they exemplify
resiliency and efficacy by responding to racial microaggressions in creative
and innovative ways, as Michelle Obama did when she rejected the advice
of her high school college counselor and exemplified efficacy and strong
determination by pursuing her education goals.
One of the most edifying and inspiring parts of this book consists of
the definition, examples, and descriptions of what the authors call “racial
microaffirmations,” which are the powerful and transformative ways in
which people and communities of color respond to racial microaggressions.
The authors describe a telling example of racial microaffirmations in which
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the eminent African American Harvard University
scholar, explains in a letter to his daughters why he “still nod[s] or speak[s]
to black people on the streets and why it felt so good to be acknowledged
[with a nod] by the Afro-Italians who passed [his] table at the café in Milan”
Series Foreword xi

(Gates, 1994, cited in this volume, p. 84). Gates said that he “enjoy(s) the
unselfconscious moments of a shared cultural intimacy, whatever form they
take, when no else is watching, when no white people are around. . . . And I
hope you’ll understand why I continue to speak to colored people I pass on
the streets” (pp. 84–85).
The African American teachers in my segregated schools in the Arkansas
Delta in the 1950s and 1960s were keenly aware of the racial microaggres-
sions that we experienced daily in Marianna, Arkansas, including when we
went to the movie theater and had to use the colored entrance and watch
the movie upstairs in the small room where the movie projector was located,
which made it difficult to hear the movie because of the clinking sound of
the projector (Banks, 2020). Our teachers responded to these microaggres-
sions by constructing racial microaffirmations that included learning about
African Americans such as Booker T. Washington, George Washington
Carver, and Mary McLeod Bethune in our social studies lessons and singing
each day in morning exercise both the “The Star Spangled Banner” and the
Negro National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Our teachers wanted
us to develop a national identity but also an identity with our cultural com-
munity that would provide us with resiliency, affirmation, and hope.
The concept of racial microaffirmations, which the authors define and
illustrate with rich examples, is important to illuminate so that students
and faculty of color will not be perceived as mere victims of racial hostil-
ity and institutional racism. Examples of the resistance of racial and eth-
nic groups to institutional racism in the United States, such as journalist
Ida B. Wells’s campaign against lynching in the 1890s (Giddings, 2008)
and the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s (Garrow, 1986),
have been a consistent and integral part of the American saga. Okihiro
(1994) argues that it was groups on the margins of society, such as African
Americans, American Indians, and Asian Americans, that kept the United
States committed to the ideals stated in its founding documents, such as the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These groups challenged the nation to
live up to ideals such as justice and equality when it seriously violated them
with practices and institutions such as the takeover of Indian lands, slavery,
lynching, and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
This timely and significant book will help faculty and administrators
in colleges and universities to identify racial microaggressions that take a
heavy toll on students and faculty of color, to take actions to mediate the ef-
fects of racial microaggressions, and to better understand the ways in which
structural and institutional racism give rise to racial microaggressions, and
thus must be the target of reform.
I hope this needed, illuminating, and visionary book will receive the
wide and warm reception that it deserves.
—James A. Banks
xii Series Foreword

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Stevens, M. (2020, March 29). How Asian-American leaders are grappling with
xenophobia amid coronavirus. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://
www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/us/politics/coronavirus-asian-americans.html
Suárez-Orozco, C., & Osei-Twumasi, O. (2019). Immigrant-origin students in com-
munity college: Navigating risk and reward in higher education. New York,
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Teranishi, R. T. (2010). Asians in the ivory tower: Dilemmas of racial inequality in
American higher education. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Valdés, G. (2001). Learning and not learning English: Latino Students in American
schools. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Valdés, G., Capitelli, S., & Alvarez, L. (2011). Latino children learning English:
Steps in the journey. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Villarosa, L. (2020, May 3). Who lives? Who dies? How Covid-19 has revealed the
deadly realities of a racially polarized America. The New York Times Magazine,
pp. 34–39, ff. 50–51.
Williams, C. (2020, April 23). $23M to get Detroit students tablets, inter-
net amid pandemic. Associated Press. Retrieved from https://apnews.com/
cb984f50631e4a35c17418182c63f94e
Acknowledgments

This book project would not have been possible without the support, in-
sight, critical dialogue, and critiques from our friends, family, and col-
leagues. We can never recognize everyone by name, and we hope that those
that we do not list will forgive us. We acknowledge collectively, those who
have contributed to our thinking and theorizing of racial microaggressions,
including those who served as coauthors with us in the past. We also ac-
knowledge important places and organizations that have supported us and
our scholarship. We end with personal acknowledgements to our mentors,
friends, and families who have made our careers and scholarship possible
and have fulfilled our lives.
This work would not be possible if not for Dr. Chester Pierce, who set
the foundation for all research on racial microaggressions. We thank you,
Dr. Pierce, for your many contributions and for giving academia a name for
everyday racism. A special thanks to Professor Peggy Davis for introducing
us to Dr. Pierce’s work. Many colleagues have offered their support over the
years and contributed toward our development of racial microaggressions
and racial microaffirmations. Many of these scholars have coauthored (with
one or both of us), and others have offered important insights and feedback
on our ideas about racial microaggressions presented in this book. Thank you
to Walter Allen, Grace Carroll, Miguel Ceja, Bert Cueva, Dolores Delgado
Bernal, Valerie Gomez, Layla Huber-Verjan, Rita Kohli, Maria Ledesma,
María Malagón, Laurence Parker, Derald Wing Sue, Verónica Vélez, Octavio
Villalpando, Kenjus Watson, and Tara Yosso. We are forever grateful for your
collaboration. We would also like to thank Dr. James A. Banks for his support
of this work to be included among a significant list of highly influential books
on social justice and education. We are honored to be included in this series.
Thanks also to Brian Ellerbeck and John Bylander, our editors. We would
also like to thank Luis-Genaro Garcia for providing the artwork for our book
cover.
There are many other scholars whose work has been critical and in-
fluential to our work in Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the law and edu-
cation. We wish to thank legal scholars Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Williams
Crenshaw, Richard Degaldo, Charles R. Lawrence III, Mari J. Matsuda,
Margaret Montoya, and Jean Stefancic, whose work has played a significant

xv
xvi Acknowledgments

role in theorizing racial microaggressions from a CRT perspective. There

have been many other scholars within and outside the field of education that
have contributed to our use of CRT. We wish to thank Rudy Acuña, Gloria
Anzaldúa, Patricia Hill Collins, Dave Gillborn, Tyrone Howard, Gloria
Ladson-Billings, Don Nakanishi, Gordon Parks, William Smith, Dave
Stovall, and William Tate for their work that has informed our theorizing.
There are also many important students across the years we wish to
acknowledge. We thank German Aguilar-Tinajero for his editing assistance
with this book project. Many others have played an important role in the
development of CRT and racial microaggressions. I (Lindsay) would like to
thank Tamara Gonzalez and Gabriela Robles, my graduate students in the
Social and Cultural Analysis of Education (SCAE) program at California
State University, Long Beach (CSULB), who have worked with me to collect
data on racial microaffirmations (some of which we present in this book).
I would also like to thank SCAE alum Lorena Camargo Gonzalez, Dolores
Lopez, and Brianna Ramirez for each of their contributions to racial mi-
croaggressions. Finally, I am grateful to my community of SCAE graduate
students, and colleague Nina Flores at CSULB, for pushing my thinking and
teaching work. I (Danny) would like to thank my former students at East
Los Angeles College, California State University, Northridge; California
State University, Bakersfield; and the University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA), who have worked with me on research and teaching. I would like
to thank the hundreds of past and current students from the UCLA Research
Apprenticeship Course (RAC), some already mentioned here. RAC began in
the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies at UCLA in 1995
and continues to this day. Well over 500 students have come through the
RAC, and it has been an incubator for the development of Critical Race
Theory in Education. It is a space where ideas are shared, challenged, and
pushed forward. Countless contributions to the field of CRT have come
from current and former members of the RAC—I see myself in you.
There are several organizations that have supported us and our work
over the years that we would like to acknowledge here. The Latina/o Critical
Legal Theory (LatCrit), Inc., community of scholars has included and sup-
ported our work as education scholars for over two decades. This has been
a critical site of knowledge production for CRT, and we have appreciated
the opportunity to engage with LatCrit. We would like to thank Nancy
Parachini and the UCLA Principal Leadership Institute, as well as the UCLA
Teacher Education Program for their support to integrate racial microag-
gressions research into their teacher and administrator training. The UCLA
Center for Critical Race Studies in Education serves as another important
venue for dissemination of CRT scholarship in education, and we thank
those whose vision began it: Alma Itze Flores, Tanya Gaxiola Serrano, and
Ryan Santos. We appreciate the support of the Ford Foundation Fellowship
Program, where we both have received dissertation (Lindsay) and
Acknowledgments xvii

postdoctoral (Danny) fellowships to pursue our research ideas. For decades,

this fellowship program has and continues to diversify U.S. faculty ranks by
supporting PhDs of Color from all fields. We would also like to thank Chon
Noriega, Carlos Haro, and the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
for their support of our work over the years and for their commitment to
improving the Latina/o education pipeline. Finally, we thank the Critical
Race Studies in Education Association where we have presented our work
since its first annual meeting in 2007 in Chicago, Illinois. This organization
provides an important space for CRT scholars in education and beyond to
come together to move the field forward.
I (Danny) want to express my gratitude to the people who helped me
through this book project. Though not here, I begin by thanking my parents
Elizabeth and Manuel Sr. for their unwavering love and support through
this and other chapters of my life. To my brothers Ronny and Manuel Jr.:
I give special thanks to you for your love and support throughout my life.
To my best friend, wife, and life partner, Laura Telles: Your strength, sup-
port, and love has contributed so much to this and all the work I do. I also
want to thank my nieces, nephews, and godchildren for your support­—
you inspire me. Thanks to my coauthor, Lindsay, whose wisdom, intellect,
and commitment have guided us on this and other research and writing
projects. Over the years I have been blessed with many mentors but three
stand out—thanks to Leobardo Estrada, David Drew, and Arturo Madrid
for continuing to guide me and serving as a model on this long journey. I
want to acknowledge my teachers from grammar school to graduate school.
Special thanks goes to the Catholic nuns, priests, brothers, and lay teachers
who instilled in me the importance of struggling for “social justice.” They
accomplished this, in part, by teaching social justice through the works of
Jesus Christ and Catholic Social Teaching.
When I (Lindsay) was in elementary school my family (my parents, two
younger sisters, and myself) lived in a small studio apartment in Los Angeles
County. We shared one open room with a trundle bed that my younger sis-
ter and I would sleep on, while my parents and little sister slept on a couch
or on the floor. I remember asking my parents one day, “Why do you let us
sleep on the beds?” My father replied, “You both have to go to school, so
you get the beds.” This was an important message I was taught early on.
Education is a big deal. My first conversations about the importance of edu-
cation began in my home with them, and I thank them for this—for always
believing in me and for always supporting me.
I would like to thank the mentors I have had over the years that have
made my pursuit of an academic career possible. My coauthor, Danny, is
a true role model for exceptional mentorship, and I will be forever grateful
for the many years of his support, patience, care, and encouragement. It is
an honor to write this book with him. I was lucky to have mentors early on
that encouraged me to pursue graduate school. Thank you to Lisa García
xviii Acknowledgments

Bedolla, Jeanett Castellanos, and Ramon Muñoz. Each of these mentors

are like family, an academic family that have always been there and al-
ways believed in me. My academic family also includes my colleagues and
dear friends Maria Malagón and Verónica N. Vélez, who have supported
me personally and intellectually and have been there every step of the way
during my academic trajectory. Finally, and most importantly, I thank my
partner, Guillermo Verjan. We have shared 20 years of our lives together,
and I will always be grateful for his unconditional love and support. I thank
my daughters, Layla and Luna, who have played an active role in this book.
They have both been note-takers, time-keepers, illustrators, collaborators,
and copresenters during meetings and conferences. Layla has also been my
coauthor on earlier work, also included in this book. I am so grateful to be
their mom. They are the loves of my life, my joy, the two most important
reasons I do this work.
Artist’s Statement
Social Consciousness Through Intergenerational
Knowledge: Sustaining a Cycle of Justice

ABOUT THE COVER ART

In his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), Paulo Freire calls on educa-
tors to unveil the reality of oppression that exists in marginalized communi-
ties and commit to social transformation through the process of praxis. He
adds that critical pedagogy should include a critical and liberating dialogue
to challenge oppression and needs to be cofacilitated between students and
educators to achieve social transformation.
Based on conversations that developed between the authors of this
book and myself regarding the interdisciplinary knowledge of art, critical
education, and Critical Race Theory, the work on the cover of this book is
a representation of Freire’s idea of a critical pedagogy. The image is inspired
by the continued activism of Erika Huggins, human rights activist, poet,
educator, Black Panther Party leader, and former political prisoner. The im-
age reflects a moment of transformation for a group of students who are
developing their own social consciousness through the teaching that is tak-
ing place in the real-life settings and circumstances of their communities. It
presents the ways in which an activist (that takes on the role of an educator)
draws on her lived experiences to explain how past forms of racism target-
ing People of Color have sustained modern forms of racism in the media
(i.e., “China Virus,” “Kung Flu”) systemically and have caused intergen-
erational trauma. The historical and contemporary signage references the
history of racism in the United States. However, the image also represents
the response and resistance to racism, anchored by Victor Hugo Green’s
The Negro Motorist Green Book. This guidebook was published annual-
ly from 1936 to 1966, and was created for African American travelers to
find lodging, businesses, and gas stations that would serve them during the
Jim Crow era. It also provided information on places to avoid along travel
routes that could be dangerous for African Americans to pass through (i.e.,
“sundown” towns). The guidebook was recognized as a form of shared
knowledge among Black communities and was quite literally a navigational

xix
xx Artist’s Statement

tool. The Green Book represents the resistance of Black communities to the
racism and violence perpetrated by whites during the time.
Response and resistance to racism is also represented through the de-
velopment of students’ own social consciousness—a new generation of
youth activists (illustrated towards the bottom of the image) that under-
stand how the historical circumstances of the past have shaped current ac-
tivist movements like Black Lives Matter, the American Indian Movement,
Immigrant Rights, and the LGBTQ Movement. These movements have led
to new generations of activists like the young Girls of Color in Radical
Monarchs (radicalmonarchs.org), uniting in solidarity and a shared struggle
to become radical leaders of change in their communities. And the cycle of
justice continues.
Teaching Art for 14 years in the high school I attended enabled me to
understand my students and their communities. It allowed us to understand
our community’s past and present struggles and we found ways to change
those circumstances both inside and out of the classroom.
—Luis-Genaro Garcia

Luis-Genaro Garcia, PhD (education), is a Los Angeles artist and former high
school art teacher of 14 years from South Central Los Angeles. His ap-
proach to art education uses art and ethnic studies as tools of resistance by
drawing on the theoretical frameworks of the funds of knowledge, critical
pedagogy, and Critical Race Theory. His critical arts-based research focuses
on using critical education frameworks along with the ethnic, personal, and
historical experiences of working-class Students of Color in order to chal-
lenge, navigate, and transform the institutional circumstances that exist for
Communities of Color. He is currently an assistant professor of art educa-
tion at California State University, Sacramento. Learn more about his work
at luisgenarogarcia.com.
 INTRODUCTION

Origin Stories
How We Came to Study
Racial Microaggressions

You’ve given me a name for my pain.

—Detroit High School Student, Spring 2001

In the spring of 2001, after I (Danny)1 presented our team’s research on

racial microaggressions at the University of Michigan, the audience lined up
for questions and answers. A young African American high school student
came to the microphone. She stood there crying. When she finally spoke,
she said, “Thank you. You’ve given me a name for my pain.” This com-
ment remains with us because this young woman expressed the raw and
real feelings that many People of Color have since expressed from many dif-
ferent age groups, communities, and walks of life. This high school student
showed us that these two words, racial microaggressions, are a powerful
way to acknowledge and name the everyday pain and suffering that People
of Color experience. This book builds on that acknowledgment and on ear-
lier research on racial microaggressions we began in 1995.

DANNY’S STORY

I (Danny) came to my work in racial microaggressions long before my first

publication in 1998 (Solórzano, 1998a). I have spent most of my academic
life searching for, collecting, and analyzing books, journal articles, news-
papers, magazines, and other written and visual materials on the everyday
racialized experiences of Communities of Color (see Solórzano, 2013).
Indeed, I have spent many hours, days, months, and years in libraries and
archives of all sizes practicing my craft of knowledge exploration, recov-
ery, and recreation. I have searched in bookstores, video stores, secondhand
stores, antique stores, estate sales, yard sales, and photo archives looking
for materials to help me better understand the cultural wealth that exists
in Communities of Color (Yosso, 2005; Yosso & Solórzano, 2005). The
following story is about how I used the tools of Critical Race Theory (CRT)

1
2 Racial Microaggressions

to identify and analyze the concepts of marginality and racial microaggres-

sions. I begin by telling my story of how I came to CRT and how that led me
on a journey to discover and utilize the concepts of marginality and racial
microaggressions in my research, writing, and teaching. I end by reflecting
on the journey and where I see the challenges and opportunities facing the
field of racial microaggressions.

My Journey to CRT

I was first introduced to CRT in July of 1993 at the library of East Los
Angeles College, a community college in Southern California.2 I came across
an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education3 by Peter Monaghan (1993)
titled “‘Critical Race Theory’ Questions Role of Legal Doctrine in Racial
Inequality.” Although I didn’t know it at the time, this was my first “crit-
ical race moment.”4 The article introduced me to an emerging field that
was challenging the orthodoxy of race, racism, and the law. It also men-
tioned and led me to CRT’s founding legal scholars, such as Derrick Bell,
Kimberle Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, Cheryl Harris, Linda Greene, Lani
Guinier, Charles Lawrence, Mari Matsuda, Margaret Montoya, and Patricia
Williams.5 Critical Race Theory in the law seemed to be a framework that
began to answer some of the questions that had been troubling me—espe-
cially questions on how we center race and racism in our academic research
and teaching. Yet, two reactions also went through my mind as I read the
article: My first reaction: This framework is a new and powerful way of
looking at race and racism in the law and by extension the social sciences,
humanities, and education.6 My second reaction: I’ve seen this before. In
the days that followed I realized the language of CRT in the law resonated
with my previous training in race and ethnic studies and Freirean critical
theory. At that point, I returned to some of the early foundational writings
in these fields and tried to connect and put them in conversation with CRT.7
In order to secure time for this academic journey, I asked for and received a
sabbatical to immerse myself in the CRT legal literature, incorporate it with
my background and training in race and ethnic studies and Freirean peda-
gogy, and apply them to social science and educational research. Figure I.1
represents a model of my intellectual journey to CRT.

My Journey to Marginality

My experience with the concept of marginality predates my introduction

to CRT. In 1987, I received a Ford Foundation postdoctoral fellowship in
sociology to study the career paths of Chicana and Chicano PhD scholars.
This multimethod study surveyed an initial sample of Chicana and Chicano
Ford predoctoral, dissertation and postdoctoral fellows on issues related to
their experiences with race and racism in academia (see Solórzano, 1993). At
Origin Stories 3

Figure I.1. My Journey to Critical Race Theory

My Journey
to Critical
Race Theory

Ethnic Studies Cultural Critical Legal Marxist/ Internal Freirean

& Women's Nationalism Studies Neo-Marxist Colonial Critical Theory
Studies

CRT in the Law

CRT in Education

the same time, I was creating another data set of life history interviews with
Chicana and Chicano PhD scholars in mathematics, science, and engineering
(MSE).8 I began by using the tool of marginality to frame their journey to,
within, and beyond the academy (see Collins, 1986). I was looking at how
these scholars experienced racial/ethnic, gender, and class marginality. I dif-
ferentiated the related concepts of the margin and marginality. I defined the
margin as a complex and contentious space or place where People of Color9
experience race, gender, and class subordination. In those complex and con-
tentious spaces or places, People of Color are forced out of the center and
into the margins of society and their academic fields (hooks, 1990).10 I then
defined marginality as that complex and contentious status of subordination
experienced by People of Color. The construct of marginality was a useful an-
alytical tool for me in understanding the problem of the underrepresentation
and subordination of People of Color—especially within the academy. I also
recognized that W. E. B. Du Bois theorized about racial marginality in the late
19th century. As early as 1897, Du Bois introduced the concepts of the veil,
second-sight, double-consciousness, and two-ness. He wrote:

After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian,
the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in
this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but
only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar
sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self
through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that
looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,—an American,
a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals
in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
(p. 194, emphasis mine)
4 Racial Microaggressions

Although Du Bois never referred to these concepts as marginality, his

insight was clearly the precursor to the concept of marginality that Robert
Park (1928) introduced to the field of sociology in 1928—31 years later.
According to Aldon Morris (2015), Park never acknowledged what his
thinking owed to insights from Du Bois.11
Using CRT as a basic framework, I analyzed the life history interview
data looking for experiences with and responses to racism, sexism, and
classism. Specifically, after all the interviews were conducted and analyzed,
some thematic patterns around marginality emerged (Glaser & Strauss,
1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Specifically, I began to: (1) identify all the
examples of and reactions to racial, gender, and class marginality, (2) de-
termine whether patterns could be found in the types, contexts, effects, and
response to race, gender, and class marginality, and (3) find examples of
text or “autobiographical moments” that illustrated the different forms of
and reactions to marginality (see Culp, 1996). In this analytical process, I
found examples and began to compare these raced, classed, and gendered
experiences across the scholars in my study.

My Journey to Racial Microaggressions

In 1994, I was analyzing the interviews and writing an initial manuscript on

marginality titled “A Critical Race Analysis of Marginality: Examining the
Career Paths of Chicana and Chicano Doctoral Scientists.”12 I came across
an article in the Yale Law Journal by Peggy Davis (1989) titled “Law as
Microaggression.” This was the first time I saw the word microaggression
in either a title or a narrative. To examine the concept of microaggression,
Davis takes readers on a brief elevator ride and describes the following
incident:

The scene is a courthouse in Bronx, New York. A white assistant city attorney
“takes the court elevator up to the ninth floor. At the fifth floor, the doors open.
A black woman asks: ‘Going down?’ ‘Up,’ says [the city attorney]. And then, as
the doors close: ‘You see? They can’t even tell up from down. I’m sorry, but it’s
true’” (pp. 1560–1561).

Davis (1989) describes the many explanations for the Black woman’s
question “going down?,” from the possibility that she was just being conge-
nial, to a broken elevator display. However, the white city attorney jumped
to an assumption that the Black woman was unintelligent. His comment
was based on a stereotype, and as Davis (1989) interprets, was a microform
of racism—that is, not just a personal slight, but an instance of racialized
harm. Davis (1989) goes on to define microaggressions as “stunning, auto-
matic acts of disregard that stem from unconscious attitudes of white su-
periority and constitute a verification of black inferiority” (p. 1576). Davis
Origin Stories 5

(1989) cites the origins of this concept in the work of Chester Pierce. At
footnote number five in the article, Davis’s first Pierce citation is a two-
page unpublished manuscript in 1986 titled “Homoracial Behavior in the
U.S.A.” (Pierce & Profit, 1991. The Davis article had a total of five Chester
Pierce citations and led me to Chester Pierce and his colleagues’ (1978) defi-
nition of microaggressions as

subtle, stunning, often automatic, and non-verbal exchanges which are “put
downs” of blacks by offenders. The offensive mechanisms used against blacks
often are innocuous. The cumulative weight of their never-ending burden is the
major ingredient in black-white interactions. (p. 66)

The Davis article, the Pierce citations, and this definition started me on
a journey to find, understand, and utilize the concept of racial microaggres-
sions in my research and teaching. I went on to read (and re-read) all the
works of Chester Pierce.13 Indeed, I wanted to know how and why he came
to work on microaggressions.

Bringing Racial Microaggressions to My Work on Marginality

In 1994–1995, I went back to my study of Ford Fellows and reanalyzed

the data using the analytical tool of racial microaggressions. I also reana-
lyzed the life history interviews from my sample of Chicana and Chicano
PhDs in MSE. I continued to use CRT as a framework to examine how
racial and gender microaggressions affect the career paths of these Chicana
and Chicano scholars. I had three objectives for these studies: (1) to extend
and apply Critical Race Theory to research in education, (2) to recognize,
document, and analyze racial and gender microaggressions against Chicana
and Chicano scholars, and (3) to hear the voices of survivors of discrimi-
nation by examining the effect of race and gender microaggressions on the
lives of these Chicana and Chicano scholars. As I analyzed the data, three
patterns of racial and gender microaggressions were found: (1) scholars felt
out of place in the academy because of their race and/or gender, (2) scholars
felt their teachers/professors had lower expectations for them, and (3) the
scholars reported subtle and not so subtle experiences with race and gender
discrimination.
As I used the tool of racial microaggressions to reanalyze the Ford and
MSE scholar data, I began to see the power, complexity, and utility of the
concept. For instance, in the interview passages below, I began to re-code
for racial and gender microaggressions. A Chicana biochemist recounts the
following:

Sometimes you don’t know it’s gender discrimination when you’re in

the midst of it because it’s so subtle, but when you mature and you
6 Racial Microaggressions

look back, you realize that, yes, there were distinctions by which
young males were really encouraged to participate in math courses,
in math clubs, and the intense extra-curricular activities whereas
the young women were encouraged to be more auxiliary. (personal
communication, June 14, 1988)

Another Chicana biologist shares:

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told “you’re not like
the rest of them,” “you’re different,” or more specifically, “you’re
different from other Mexicans.” Ever since my college days, I have
been told this time and time again. (personal communication, June
16, 1988)

A Chicano mathematician mentioned a feeling that some of the other

scholars expressed about the experiences of many minority professors in
the field:

It wasn’t the time period when I got my PhD that causes problems for
me. It is the subtle racism in my department that no matter how much
I produce, I am and will forever be a “target of opportunity,” or an
“affirmative action professor” and that means that I will never be seen
by my colleagues as their equal. (personal communication, June 27,
1988)

Throughout these interviews, a majority of the participants expressed

a sense that each individual racist and sexist act could be overcome. For
instance, the day-to-day slights, the remarks, the attitudes, the behaviors
of others were negative experiences they learned to live with. However, the
cumulative effect of these individual acts over time is what affected these
scholars. A Chicano biologist reinforces the illustration:

There are overt and blatant forms of racism but there are also the
constant and subtle negative experiences that can wear down one’s
spirit. The racism just below the surface. It is the accumulation of
these racist events that wear you down . . . What bothers me is the
constant retort from non-Hispanics that, “I was being too sensitive
about racial issues.” (personal communication, June 16, 1988)

As I worked my way through this analytical process of moving from

marginality to racial microaggression, I came to define racial microaggres-
sions as one form of systemic everyday racism used to keep those at the
racial margins in their place. Racial microaggressions can be
Origin Stories 7

• verbal and nonverbal assaults directed toward People of Color,

often carried out in subtle, automatic, or unconscious forms;
• layered assaults that are based on a Person of Color’s race, gender,
class, sexuality, language, immigration status, phenotype, accent, or
surname; and
• cumulative assaults that take a physiological, psychological, and
academic toll on People of Color.

In 1998, I published an article based on the Ford scholars in the

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education titled “Critical
Race Theory, Racial and Gender Microaggressions, and the Experiences of
Chicana and Chicano Scholars” (Solórzano, 1998a). As far as I can tell, oth-
er than the 13 works of Pierce and his colleagues, this was the first empirical
research article to examine racial microaggressions (see Wong, Derthick,
David, Saw, & Okazaki, 2014).

My Continuing Journey:
University of Michigan Law School Case (2000–2003)

In the fall of 1999, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), profes-

sor Walter Allen contacted me and asked if I would be part of a team of
researchers who would conduct campus climate studies and serve as ex-
pert witnesses for the Grutter v. Bollinger affirmative action case (Grutter
v. Bollinger, 2003). Grutter was a federal case making its way through
the lower courts and was challenging the use of race in admissions at the
University of Michigan Law School. Professor Allen mentioned that the 6th
Circuit Federal Appeals Court agreed to let student interveners enter the
trial. As a result, the federal district judge stopped the proceedings and set a
July 31, 2000, date for submission of all reports, briefs, and other support-
ing materials on behalf of the student interveners.
In January 2000, Professor Allen convened his team to design a campus
climate study of the University of Michigan Law School and its four main
feeders—University of Michigan Undergraduate, Michigan State University,
Harvard University, and the University of California, Berkeley.14 Our mul-
timethod design incorporated surveys, focus groups, interviews, document
analysis, and other public records. We went into the field to gather data at
each of the universities in March of 2000. We submitted the final report
to the court on July 31, 2000. The federal trial in the Eastern District of
Michigan resumed in January 2001.
The final report to the federal court was published in the UC Berkeley
La Raza Law Journal and titled “Affirmative Action, Educational Equity
and Campus Racial Climate: A Case Study of the University of Michigan
Law School” (Allen & Solórzano, 2001). Data from our Grutter study was
8 Racial Microaggressions

turned into two additional articles. Our first article focused on the expe-
riences of African American students and was published in the Journal of
Negro Education and titled “Critical Race Theory, Racial Microaggressions
and Campus Racial Climate: The Experiences of African American College
Students” (Solórzano, Ceja, & Yosso, 2000).15 Later we published an article
on Latina/o16 students in the Harvard Educational Review titled “Critical
Race Theory, Racial Microaggressions, and Campus Racial Climate For
Latina/o Undergraduates” (Yosso, Smith, Ceja, & Solórzano, 2009).

My Continuing Journey to Racial Microaggressions

Since those first articles on racial microaggressions, I have continued to

work with colleagues on research and conceptual manuscripts. For in-
stance, our work on racial microaggressions included publications on a
second affirmative action federal court case in California (Solórzano &
Allen, 2000; Solórzano, Allen, & Carroll, 2002), on racial battle fatigue
(Smith, Yosso, & Solórzano, 2006, 2007), on teachers (Kohli & Solórzano,
2012; Ledesma & Solórzano, 2013), on visual microaggressions (Pérez
Huber & Solórzano, 2015a), on microaggressions as research tools (Pérez
Huber & Solórzano, 2015b), on microaggressions and social work ped-
agogy (Pérez Huber & Solórzano, 2018), and encyclopedia entries and
policy briefs (Pérez Huber & Solórzano, 2015c; Solórzano & Pérez Huber,
2012). Much of my recent work has been conducted in collaboration with
my coauthor, Lindsay. She will further explain how we came together to
do this research, but first she will tell her story of coming to the work of
racial microaggressions.

LINDSAY’S STORY

If I (Lindsay) think about where and when my interests in studying race

and education began, I would have to go back to my undergraduate years
at UC Irvine. There I began a major in political science as a college student
interested in the law and politics. However, as I began taking courses, I
felt a disconnect. That disconnect was between my own experiences and
those that I studied in my classes, between the conflicting demands of col-
lege expectations and my first-generation college student status, between
my world and the world of higher education. Then I found ethnic studies.
My college counselor, Ramon Muñoz, encouraged me to take courses in
the new Chicana/o studies major. I still remember my first course on race
and citizenship, taught by political scientist Dr. Lisa García Bedolla. I was
hooked. I remember searching through the university course catalogue for
any class with “race” in the title in my department. When I took all of
those, Ramon encouraged me to add another major in Chicana/o studies,
Origin Stories 9

because many of these classes already fulfilled the requirements. By the end
of my undergraduate career, and because of the mentorship I received at
UC Irvine, I knew that I wanted to pursue a PhD program that joined my
interests in race, ethnic studies, and education.17 At the time there were few
programs in the country that had this explicit focus. My top choice became
the PhD program in Social Science and Comparative Education (SSCE) with
a specialization in race and ethnic studies at UCLA. I was accepted first as
a master’s student, then as a PhD student, and this was where I first learned
about Critical Race Theory (CRT) and racial microaggressions.

My Early Training in CRT and Racial Microaggressions

My research in racial microaggressions began with the training I received

while a graduate student in education at UCLA. I was first introduced to the
concept of racial microaggressions in 2004, during my first year of study at
UCLA. I remember two graduate seminars I took in that year that assigned
readings on racial microaggressions, one taught by my coauthor, Dr. Daniel
Solórzano (Danny), professor of education, and the other by Dr. Walter
Allen, professor of higher education. I did not learn until later that Danny
and Walter had worked together as expert witnesses on racial microaggres-
sions in the Grutter v. Bollinger affirmative action case. Nor did I know
that what I had read that year was some of the first empirical research to be
published about racial microaggressions and the experiences of Students of
Color. What I did learn that year was this: There was a name and a frame-
work for the experiences I had lived.
I was initially drawn to these frameworks because they allowed me, as
a Woman of Color, to recognize how racism, patriarchy, capitalism, and
other systems of oppression are embedded in social institutions, and how
those systems shape our everyday experiences. I remember specific moments
in my life—for example, when my high school counselor encouraged me
to pursue a vocational program rather than college, or, when I became an
expectant mother and was told that pursuing a doctoral degree would not
be possible—I felt the pain of microaggressions, but did not have a name
or an explanation for it. I believe this is exactly why I was so drawn to the
concept when I encountered it in graduate school. I began my training in
CRT in education working on research with Danny.

The UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center (CSRC)

Shortly after my first year in the program, I began working with Dr. Carlos
Haro (then assistant director) at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
on a conference to feature Latina/o education. This conference would be-
come the UCLA CSRC Latina/o Education Summit, and we would have
our inaugural meeting in March 2006 at the UCLA campus. The summits
10 Racial Microaggressions

were designed to examine the critical transitions in the educational pipeline

for Latina/o students, from K–12 to higher education, with an emphasis on
recommendations for improving the educational outcomes for our students.
On our first panel at this summit was the superintendent of Montebello
Unified School District, a small urban district in the eastern Los Angeles
area. During his presentation, he announced that he had to leave to address
an “urgent issue” in his district. At the time, we did not know what this is-
sue was. However, as the day progressed, conference participants and audi-
ence members began getting the news by text and social media that students
across Los Angeles were walking out of their schools in protests of H.R.
4437, the Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control
Act of 2005. H.R. 4437 was a bill introduced in Congress and passed by the
House of Representatives in December 2005.18 H.R. 4437 was a bill that
further criminalized the undocumented by imposing stricter penalties and
punishments, expanded the border wall, and threatened anyone providing
shelter for the undocumented with felony charges (see Pantoja, Menjívar, &
Magaña, 2008).
At the end of the day, conference participants engaged in a collective
discussion to devise next steps in improving the Latina/o educational pipeline.
A young woman graduate student raised her hand during this discussion and
stood up. She said, “This entire day we have been discussing how to make
education better for Latina and Latino students. However, I am undocument-
ed. My experience has not been represented here today, and I don’t feel that
my experience has been included in these discussions,” and she sat down. In
2006 there was very little research on the experiences of undocumented stu-
dents, particularly those in higher education. In the report I coauthored and
disseminated for the conference (Pérez Huber, Huidor, Malagón, Sánchez, &
Solórzano, 2006), there was a brief mention of the only study I had found at the
time, authored by a sociology graduate student at UCLA, Leisy Abrego (now
Dr. Leisy Abrego, UCLA professor of Chicana and Chicano studies).19 The
undocumented Latina student had called our attention to the irony of holding
an all-day conference focused on improving the Latina/o educational pipeline
without the representation of undocumented student experiences, while at the
same moment, students were demonstrating against anti-­immigrant sentiment
for undocumented communities.
By the end of the conference that day, we had learned that students
were walking out not only in Los Angeles but across the state and across
the nation. By that evening, Spanish-language radio in Los Angeles was an-
nouncing another protest planned for the following day in downtown Los
Angeles and asking everyone to wear white shirts to show peace and sol-
idarity. On March 26, 2006, I participated in this protest with my young
daughter, and with other graduate student friends from UCLA, all of us
wearing white. As we arrived in the downtown area, we expected to join
Origin Stories 11

perhaps a few thousand people near City Hall. However, when we got there
everywhere we looked we saw people wearing white. Looking north toward
the direction of City Hall we saw a sea of people, tens of thousands moving
forward, intermittently breaking into chants: “¡El pueblo, unido, jamás será
vencido!”20 The feeling of community among so many people was almost
overwhelming. Perhaps for the first time in Los Angeles history, downtown
was effectively shut down by the masses of people protesting for immigrant
rights. Indeed, by day’s end history had been made. It was reported that
more than half a million people participated in what became the largest
immigrant rights demonstration in the history of the United States.
I remember vividly walking past a street corner and seeing a little girl,
Latina, maybe 7 years old, holding a protest sign that read “Racism Must
Die for Humanity to Live.” Her words were like a bright spotlight, demand-
ing recognition of the racism that pervades immigration discourse and de-
humanizes undocumented immigrant Latina/o communities. Because of my
training in Chicana/o studies as an undergraduate, I knew that anti-Latina/o
racism had targeted our communities, both immigrant and U.S.-born, for
more than a century in the United States.21 Indeed, what was happening was
a cumulative response to decades-long anti-immigrant policies that have
targeted undocumented Latina/o immigrants in California and across the
nation. In 2006, it had been only 10 years since Proposition 187 was passed
by California voters, a ballot initiative that sought to ban undocumented
(mostly) Latina/o immigrants from health care, social services, and public
education (García Bedolla, 2005). A ban on Spanish language instruction in
schools was passed just a few years later in California with Proposition 227
(Pérez Huber, 2011). Shortly after this historic event, I began working on
several studies to more carefully examine the links between racism, immi-
gration, and education, using CRT.

My Journey to Racist Nativism

The first project I undertook was in response to the woman graduate stu-
dent who voiced her concern at the 2006 Latina/o education summit. I be-
gan working with another graduate student and friend, Maria Malagón, on
a study that examined the experiences of undocumented Latina/o college
students attending public higher education in California (Pérez Huber &
Malagón, 2007). To my knowledge, this was the first study in education to
utilize CRT, and specifically LatCrit (Latina/o critical theory) to examine
the experiences of undocumented Latina/o students. We found that in every-
day experiences on college campuses, there were indicators of “institutional
neglect,” the ways that racist beliefs and ideologies about undocumented
Latinas/os surface on college campuses through institutionalized and infor-
mal policies and practices that marginalized undocumented students.
12 Racial Microaggressions

During this time, I also began working on another study with Danny
and with my peers Veronica Vélez, Corina Benavides Lopez, and Ariana de
la Luz researching the media portrayals of the students who participated
in the walkouts, protests, and other forms of activism against H.R. 4437
in 2006. In this study, we found that there was a range of contradicting
portrayals of Latina/o youth from across the nation who participated in
the activism for immigrant rights (Vélez, Pérez Huber, Benavides Lopez, de
la Luz, & Solórzano, 2008). Most concerning to us was that the discourse
used to frame these youth reflected the racist and nativist perspectives that
have historically pervaded Latina/o immigration. The findings in this study
led our research group to further theorize what historian George Sánchez
(1997) called “racial nativism.” Sánchez (1997) used the concept to de-
scribe the historical and persistent link between race and immigration that
prescribes nativist responses (formally and informally) toward immigrants
and that shapes constructions of an “American” identity (Sánchez, 1997).
This, we believed, was precisely what we saw happening in 2006 to un-
documented Latina/o communities. As my thinking around these issues de-
veloped, I worked with my graduate school peers Véronica Vélez, Corina
Benavides Lopez, María Malagón, and Danny to further theorize. We met
several times over the summer and fall of 2006 at East Los Angeles County
Library to discuss our ideas. Ultimately, we utilized CRT and, specifically,
Latina/o critical theory (LatCrit) to build from Sánchez’s (1997) concept of
racial nativism to develop the concept of racist nativism. We theorized the
concept of racist nativism as

the assigning of values to real or imagined differences, in order to justify the su-
periority of the native, who is to be perceived white, over that of the non-native,
who is perceived to be People and Immigrants of Color, and thereby defend the
right of whites, or the natives, to dominance. (Pérez Huber, Lopez, Malagon,
Velez, & Solórzano, 2008, p. 43)

What was distinct about our theorizing of racist nativism was the de-
sire to locate the discussion of racist nativism as a “symptom” of an often-­
unspoken ideology of white supremacy that justifies and (re)produces all
forms of racism. Here, Robert Carter’s (1988) metaphor of racism as a
“symptom” of the “disease” of white supremacy was critical, and will be
further explained in Chapter 3.22 In my research that followed, I focused
on how discourses of racist nativism emerged in the educational trajecto-
ries of undocumented and U.S.–born Chicana/Latina college students. I
found racist nativism emerged through everyday practices of subordination
in their schools and universities that were often supported by institutional
policies. These practices assigned values to these women as “not belonging”
and made clear distinctions of their perceived “non-nativeness” within ed-
ucational institutions, while reinforcing belonging and nativeness to white
Origin Stories 13

students. Subjugation of the Spanish language, marginalization from college

preparatory courses, and exclusion from financial aid programs (for the un-
documented students), were only a few of the practices and policies in place
that hindered educational access for these students, from K–12 to higher
education (Pérez Huber, 2009a; Pérez Huber, 2010; Pérez Huber, 2011).
Through this work, I found that many of the practices that subordinated
students throughout their educational trajectories were forms of racial mi-
croaggressions, the everyday subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) reminders
that they were not as capable as their white peers, and even worse, that op-
portunities for educational access and social mobility should be reserved for
those peers. These studies provided empirical evidence of how microaggres-
sions in everyday schooling experiences were shaped by structural inequities
and institutional racism.

Bringing Together CRT and Chicana Feminisms

As my research progressed in this area, I began to delve deeper into the

area of Chicana feminist scholarship. I was first introduced to Dolores
Delgado Bernal’s (1998) groundbreaking piece “Using a Chicana Feminist
Epistemology in Educational Research” as a student in Danny’s class
during my PhD program. Although I had read work in Chicana feminisms
as an undergraduate and early graduate student, Delgado Bernal’s work
on Chicana feminist epistemology allowed me to see how Chicana femi-
nist approaches could be used in educational research. I began exploring
the ways that CRT and Chicana feminist approaches aligned, and how
they were distinct. I found that bringing together these approaches was
particularly useful in developing humanizing research methodologies, and
specifically in developing testimonio as a methodology in critical race re-
search (Pérez Huber, 2008, 2009b). I then began to use Chicana feminist
theories to examine the detrimental psychological and physiological ef-
fects microaggressions had on students, as well as the ways in which these
students engaged strategies of healing from the trauma of racism (Pérez
Huber & Cueva, 2012). Since this time, Chicana feminisms have been
critical to my journey in CRT research and for theorizing racial microag-
gressions. Chicana feminist approaches provided insight into the ways rac-
ism and racist nativism marked the minds, bodies, and spirits of Latina/o
students, and particularly women. However, these approaches also opened
opportunities to understand how Chicanas and Latinas engage in power-
ful strategies of resistance and healing (Delgado Bernal, Pérez Huber, &
Malagon, 2019).
This work led me to want to further theorize the relationship between
racial microaggressions and institutional racism, those policies I found rein-
forced and (re)produced microaggressive experiences that negatively affect
the minds, bodies, spirits, and well-being of Chicana/Latina women, and
14 Racial Microaggressions

particularly undocumented women. Indeed, there was a need in the liter-

ature for deeper theorizing around racial microaggressions to understand
how everyday racism was in fact linked to institutional racism and ideolo-
gies of white supremacy.

OUR STORIES COMING TOGETHER

TO FURTHER THEORIZE RACIAL MICROAGGRESSIONS

By summer of 2013, we (Danny and Lindsay) wrote an encyclopedia entry

on racial microaggressions for the Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education
(Solórzano & Pérez Huber, 2012), but because of limited space allotted
to our contribution, we were not yet able to tackle this conceptual link.
However, the entry began our collaboration on several studies in the next
few years that attempted to show how CRT could be utilized to make con-
nections to systemic racism. In the first paper we began working on, we
developed a “racial microaggressions analytic framework” that could be
used to explain the systemic relationship between racial microaggressions,
institutional racism, and macroaggressions, or ideologies of white suprem-
acy that reinforce racism (Pérez Huber & Solórzano, 2015a). In this frame-
work, we showed how these experiences are perpetuated and (re)produced
by institutional racism. We also developed the framework to show how ide-
ologies of white supremacy played a foundational role in justifying the sub-
jugation that racial microaggressions employ. We worked on revising and
refining this framework for more than a year, until its final publication in the
journal Race, Ethnicity, and Education in 2015 in an article titled “Racial
Microaggressions as a Tool for Critical Race Research” (Pérez Huber &
Solórzano, 2015b). We will continue to discuss this model later in this book.
In the second paper that summer, we began to theorize one type of
racial microaggression we called visual microaggression.23 This paper be-
gan with an experience I (Lindsay) had with my then 8-year-old daughter
Layla, one night while reading a book together. The book was titled Don’t
Tell Lies, Lucy!: A Cautionary Tale and, as the title implies, is a story
about a little girl who had a bad habit of telling lies (Cox, 2004). Midway
through the book, Lucy borrows her friend’s bike and crashes into a tree.
Her friend’s bike is shown in the illustration, scattered in pieces, strewn
across the page. When Lucy explains to her friend what happened to the
bike, she says that a “bandit” jumped in front of her. The correspond-
ing illustration portrays Lucy riding down a path with a surprised, per-
haps fearful expression on her face, a bandit standing in her way. The
“bandit” image was a brown man wearing a large sombrero, a serape,
and ­sandals—a stereotypical image of the “Mexican bandit.” The image
stunned me and I stopped reading, until Layla asked, “What happened,
Origin Stories 15

Mommy?” Through a series of questions, I asked her about what she

thought the image conveyed. She replied, “It’s telling us that Latinos are
bandits!” A few minutes later, she began crying, telling me, “I’m Latino,
so they are saying I’m a bandit,” feeling personally hurt by the image and
the message that was conveyed to us that night in the book.
Soon after that night, I related this experience to my coauthor, Danny,
during a research meeting. Danny encouraged me to include this story in
our work and involve Layla as a research assistant. We eventually told this
story as an example of a visual microaggression and further theorized the
concept in an article titled “Visualizing Everyday Racism: Critical Race
Theory, Visual Microaggressions, and the Historical Image of Mexican
Banditry,” that was published in the journal Qualitative Inquiry (Pérez
Huber & Solórzano, 2015a). We used this experience to further build on
the racial microaggressions analytical framework that we were writing
about at the time (described previously). Shaped (in part) by this story
with Layla, we added new dimensions to the framework to show how
People of Color experience microaggressions through examining types of
microaggressions, the contexts in which they occur, the effects they have
on psychological and physiological well-being, and the ways in which
People of Color respond to them.
Shortly after we began writing these papers, in October 2013, UCLA
Chancellor Gene Block announced the release of an investigative report doc-
umenting the Faculty of Color’s experiences with racial microaggressions on
campus. The report was titled “Independent Investigative Report on Acts of
Bias and Discrimination Involving Faculty at the University of California,
Los Angeles,” and became known as the Moreno Report—named after the
chair of the committee, retired California Supreme Court Justice Carlos
Moreno (Moreno, Jackson-Triche, Nash, Rice, & Suzuki, 2013). Chancellor
Block mentioned the Moreno Report contained some sobering and disturb-
ing accounts of bias and discrimination that some faculty had experienced
at UCLA. The report references some of our work on microaggressions. It
stated:

Several faculty members referenced the notion of “microaggressions,” which re-

searchers have defined as “subtle verbal and nonverbal insults directed toward
non-Whites, often done automatically and unconsciously. They are layered in-
sults based on one’s race, gender, class, sexuality, language, immigration status,
phenotype, accent, or surname.” It is not clear to us whether any workable
definition of discriminatory conduct is capable of capturing every such micro-
aggression experienced by a minority faculty member . . . Heightened awareness
of the issue of racially insensitive conduct may help to reduce microaggressions
or other subtle behaviors that degrade the work environment for faculty of
color. (Moreno et al., 2013, pp. 20–21)
16 Racial Microaggressions

In response to the Moreno Report, the University of California Office

of the President (UCOP) established a committee and issued their report in
late December 2013 called the “UC Senate-Administration Work Group
on the Moreno Report: Report to the President, Academic Council, and
Chancellors” (UC Senate-Administration Work Group, 2013). Their report
stated that “Systemwide P&T [Promotion and Tenure] has been concerned
about low level discriminatory actions that occur over a long period of
time—things such as undervaluation, microaggression, and marginaliza-
tion—that never as a single instance reach the threshold for filing a formal
grievance” (UC Senate-Administration Work Group, 2013, p. 10, empha-
sis added). One of the UCOP responses was to initiate a UC system–wide
seminar for university leaders at each of the 10 campuses. The UC created
the Faculty Leadership Seminar Series titled “Fostering Inclusive Excellence:
Strategies and Tools for Department Chairs and Deans.” The stated goals of
the 4-hour seminar were to: (1) help participants gain a better understand-
ing of implicit bias and microaggressions and their impact on departmental/
school climate; (2) increase participants’ effectiveness at recognizing and
interrupting/addressing microaggressions when they occur; and (3) discuss
tools and strategies for developing an inclusive departmental/school climate.
I (Danny) was invited to give the seminar lecture on microaggressions titled,
“Using the Critical Race Tools of Racial and Gender Microaggressions to
Examine Everyday Racism in Academic Spaces” at the first UCOP semi-
nar series, which took place at the University of California, San Diego, in
December 2014. These seminars took place at 10 UC campuses for depart-
mental chairs, deans, and other campus senior leadership throughout the
2014–2015 academic year. I participated in the UCOP seminar series at five
of the campuses, while Lindsay participated in the remaining four.24
As we traveled throughout California to participate in these seminars at
the UC campuses, we noticed something happening. Racial microaggressions
began to gain traction in public discourse. One hopeful example during that
time was the 2014 multimedia campaign titled “I, Too, Am Harvard” led
by Harvard University student Kimiko Matsuda-Lawrence. The campaign
documented the experiences of Students of Color with racism at Harvard,
and specifically racial microaggressions (see Bernhard & Delwiche, 2014).
The campaign drew national attention to the concept and sparked similar
campaigns in universities across the country. However, with this national at-
tention also came criticism. During the same time, a series of opinion edito-
rials were published in the Los Angeles Times (Volokh, 2015a), Chronicle of
Higher Education (Gitlin, 2015), The Atlantic (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2015),
and the Washington Post (Volokh, 2015b). Nearly all of these editorials
(authored by white males) mentioned the UCOP faculty seminar series,
making ill-informed and misconstrued arguments questioning the concept
of racial microaggressions and, in some cases, attacking UCOP for creating
the seminars. For example, UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh (2015a)
Origin Stories 17

used the name “UC’s PC Police” to describe UCOP efforts to raise aware-
ness about racial microaggressions. Columbia University communications
professor Todd Gitlin (2015) argued that making faculty aware of racial
microaggressions was fueling “a plague of hypersensitivity” on college cam-
puses. In 2015, we wrote the first policy brief on racial microaggressions
for the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center (Pérez Huber & Solórzano,
2015c). We chose to publish in a policy brief format—similar to that of an
opinion editorial—to reach an audience beyond academicians. In the brief
we addressed some of these critiques by explaining what racial microaggres-
sions are, and why they matter in the lives of People of Color.
To date, we have given more than 150 public lectures, presentations,
and workshops at public and private universities and in professional and
community settings. We have spoken to high school students, undergrad-
uate, graduate, and professional students (from various departments/
schools), teachers and teacher candidates, principals and principal candi-
dates, counselors, university leaders, civic leaders and community activists.
In these spaces, we have engaged in critical dialogues about racial micro-
aggressions, and grappled with important questions that have pushed our
thinking about the concept. Our initial conversations about this book began
because we believed there was a need for a book explicitly theorizing racial
microaggressions that could be used as a conceptual tool located within the
broader theoretical framework of CRT in education. However, we believe
that this book will prove useful for audiences across disciplines and spaces
outside of education, because of our interdisciplinary approach (one tenet
of CRT). The conversations, questions, and critiques we have engaged in
collectively across these multiple audiences have shaped the way we decided
to write this book.

OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK

We have organized this book into seven chapters. Our introduction chapter
tells our stories about how each of us came to this work on everyday racism in
the form of racial microaggressions. The first chapter presents stories of racial
microaggressions from the perspectives of People of Color to center the lived
experiences of Communities of Color with everyday racism. This chapter also
outlines majoritarian stories of racial microaggressions—the dominant dis-
courses that attempt to dismiss everyday racism. We provide a brief history to
illustrate the significance of race and racism in the United States, our working
definitions of these concepts, as well as our theoretical perspective, Critical
Race Theory (CRT) in education, which guides this book.
In Chapter 2, we use critical race hypos as a pedagogical tool to ex-
plain the types, contexts, effects, and responses to racial microaggressions
that are experienced by People of Color, and how racial microaggressions
18 Racial Microaggressions

are connected to institutional racism. Chapter 3 continues this discussion,

engaging an in-depth analysis of the role of systemic racism in racial micro-
aggressions that operate within our social institutions. We use examples to
illustrate our analysis.
Chapter 4 examines everyday racism that can occur within (intragroup)
and between (intergroup) Communities of Color through forms of inter-
nalized racism. We provide models and examples to show how internalized
racism can create intragroup and intergroup conflict, which functions to
maintain racial hierarchies and (re)produce institutional forms of racism
and white supremacy.
Chapter 5 shifts our analysis to the strategies Communities of Color can
use to challenge everyday racism through the concept of racial microaffirma-
tions—those everyday forms of affirmation and validation used by People of
Color in a variety of public and private settings to express acknowledgment,
respect, and self-worth, and to affirm a shared humanity. Chapter 6 is our
conclusion chapter, where we summarize our analyses and offer recommen-
dations for future research and praxis for racial microaggressions and racial
microaffirmations.
 CHAPTER 1

Laying the Conceptual Groundwork

for Understanding Racial
Microaggressions

COUNTERSTORIES OF EVERYDAY RACISM

We begin this chapter with the stories of People of Color. These stories
provide a window into the realities of everyday racism that People of Color
frequently experience in their daily lives in schools, universities, profession-
al settings, and other public spaces. Richard Delgado (1989) writes, “For
stories create their own bonds, represent cohesion, shared understandings,
and meaning” (p. 2412). These stories reflect experiences with racial micro-
aggressions, the language we use and have theorized to describe this form
of everyday racism (see Essed, 1991). Over the course of this book, we will
explain the concept of racial microaggressions, our related research, and
the analytical models we have developed to better understand this everyday
phenomenon. But first, we begin with the stories that give meaning to this
work.
Esmeralda Bermudez is a journalist for the Los Angeles Times, writ-
ing narratives of Latinas/os in Los Angeles, California. She was born in El
Salvador and raised in Los Angeles. This excerpt is from her personal story
for the Los Angeles Times recounting her experience one day while speaking
Spanish to her daughter as they played in the park (Bermudez, 2018).

I felt her staring at me on the playground as I called out to my daughter. She

must be someone’s grandmother, I thought. She must be curious, as people
often are. Then she took one step toward me—pink fingernails, dark blond
hair—and opened her mouth, e-nun-ci-a-ting each word.
“Speak English,” she commanded. “You’re confusing the poor girl.”
My stomach dropped. I rose from the grass and braced myself to respond.
And I did. But not before an old, familiar feeling washed over me, a mix of fear
and shame I used to carry like a knapsack in grade school. I was 7 years old,
just two years older than my daughter is now.
You wetback. Dirty beaner. Go back to Tijuana. You sound like Ricky Ricardo.

19
20 Racial Microaggressions

So many days at Lake Marie Elementary School ended the same way for me:
angry and broken, waiting by the rosebushes for my mom’s beat-up blue
Datsun, wearing my knockoff sneakers and cheap, ruffled dresses from the
swap meet. I thought I would never catch up.
—Esmeralda Bermudez, 2018

Grace Lin is a children’s book author and illustrator. She is the daughter
of Taiwanese immigrant parents. She was born and raised in upstate New
York. Her story is transcribed from an independently organized 2016 TEDx
talk, in Natick, Massachusetts (Lin, 2016).

In 5th grade, my class decided to put on the play Return to Oz, and all the
girls wanted to be Dorothy, me included. So every day at recess, all the girls
that wanted to be Dorothy, we would stand in a circle, and we would all
sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” over and over again, practicing for the
audition. Until the day of the audition, I turned to the girl next to me and I said,
“Today’s the audition! Do you think they might choose me to be Dorothy?”
And she looked at me, and she said, “But you can’t be Dorothy! Dorothy is
not Chinese!” And when she said this, I felt so stupid. It was that horrible
embarrassment where you get hot, and red, and sticky, as if your skin is crying
tiny, boiling tears. It’s that feeling when someone says to you, “Who do you
think you are?” And you feel like you’re nobody. I felt like I was nobody.
—Grace Lin, 2016

Claudia Rankine is an African American poet, playwright, and pro-

fessor. She was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and is the Frederick Iseman
Professor of Poetry at Yale University. This story is from Rankine’s (2014)
book of poetry, Citizen: An American Lyric.

Certain moments send adrenaline to the heart, dry out the tongue, and clog
the lungs. Like thunder they drown you in sound, no, like lightning they strike
you across the larynx. Cough. After it happened I was at a loss for words.
Haven’t you said this yourself? Haven’t you said this to a close friend who
early in your friendship, when distracted, would call you by the name of her
black housekeeper? You assumed you two were the only black people in her
life. Eventually she stopped doing this, though she never acknowledged her
slippage. And you never called her on it (why not?) and yet, you don’t forget.
—Claudia Rankine, 2014, p. 7

Stephanie Zywicki Masta is an assistant professor in curriculum at

Purdue University. She is an Indigenous scholar who specializes in critical
Laying the Conceptual Groundwork 21

qualitative and Indigenous methodologies, experiences of racialized youth

in schools, and the influence of colonialism in educational spaces. In her
study titled, “‘I am Exhausted:’ Everyday Occurrences of Being Native
American,” Masta (2018) includes this experience from a Native American
graduate student, Robert. Robert is studying in a STEM field at a predomi-
nantly white institution in the Pacific Northwest:

I wasn’t really aware that I was [a] minority, until I got here. . . . It’s weird
sometimes, because I get things called at me . . . just those little things that
add up after a while . . . sometimes, if I’m waiting for the bus at night, people
will yell racist things, like “Go back to your country.” One time I engaged them,
I was like, “I’m already here, man!” Someone said that to me, like, really close
to me, and they’re like, “Go back to where you’re from,” and I was just like,
“Phoenix?” You get those people constantly asking what you are. Once they’re
finding out you are Indian, the jokes about blankets and canoes, and just about
anything they can think. The nickname Chief . . . It’s just ha ha ha. Don’t get me
wrong, I have very thick skin, and I can take a joke as well as anyone else, but
it’s just, when it’s a consistent thing with a lot of people here, even with fellow
grad students. Like sometimes I don’t want to be just a stereotype. It’s a reality
that I’ve come to accept, that that’s just the way things work here. I’m what
you would call a cultural oddity. I mean, how many Indians are really here in
the sciences?
—Stephanie Zywicki Masta, 2018, p. 829

Through these stories, we see the “cohesion” that Delgado (1989) de-
scribes in storytelling. Across these four accounts, we read the experiences
of four different People of Color whose stories are joined by the pain of
everyday racism. These stories can be considered a specific form of story-
telling in Critical Race Theory (CRT), what Delgado (1998) calls counter-
stories (see Solórzano & Yosso, 2002). The counterstories of Communities
of Color open a discursive space to disrupt the normativity of whiteness
and allow for the recognition of race and racism, when in so many s­ paces,
racism is often dismissed. Delgado (1989) states that counterstories can
“shatter complacency and challenge the status quo” (p. 2414). We be-
lieve that these stories speak directly to the ways People of Color expe-
rience racial microaggressions that have instant and lasting effects on the
body, mind, and spirit. This chapter begins with the majoritarian stories
of everyday racism. We respond to these ahistorical and aracial (raceless)
stories with a short history of racism along with an historical narrative
to document everyday racism. We then show the history of how Chester
Pierce developed the concept of racial microaggressions over a 30-year pe-
riod. We conclude with our use of CRT to understand and examine racial
microaggressions.
22 Racial Microaggressions

MAJORITARIAN STORIES OF EVERYDAY RACISM

Dominant groups have their own stories (Delgado, 1989). These stories,
what Solórzano and Yosso (2002) (and others) call the “majoritarian sto-
ries,” function to maintain dominant group status over People of Color.
Majoritarian stories (re)construct and justify systems of subordination that
lead to inequitable social arrangements and, consequently, disparate out-
comes for Communities of Color in nearly every sphere of social life, includ-
ing education, health, wealth, and politics. There are countless majoritarian
stories of racism. We have found majoritarian stories directly related to ra-
cial microaggressions. The stories that follow emerged during and after the
2014–2015 University of California Office of the President (UCOP) Faculty
Leadership Seminar Series (discussed in the Introduction), which provided
UC administrators training on racial microaggressions and implicit bias in
academia. Those majoritarian stories went something like this:

This concept [microaggressions] is now being used to suppress not just, say,
personal insults or discrimination in hiring or grading, but also ideas that the
UC wants to exclude from university classrooms. . . . Well, I’m happy to say
that I’m just going to keep on microaggressing. . . . It’s about suppressing
particular viewpoints.
—Eugene Volokh, 2015

Eugene Volokh is a professor at the UCLA Law School. He outwardly

expressed his opposition to the UCOP Faculty Leadership Seminar Series in
several opinion editorials, including the Washington Post editorial we have
excerpted here. His argument hinged on the claim that training students,
faculty, and administrators on racial microaggressions was a form of cen-
sorship, and a threat to academic freedom.
A similar argument came from Todd Gitlin, professor of communica-
tions at Columbia University, who also expressed his opposing views on
the UCOP seminar series. He began his piece in the Chronicle of Higher
Education (2015) with the question, “Are we living through a plague of
hypersensitivity?” He states:

Most readers will be aware of campaigns to dampen hateful speech, to stop

“microaggressions,” and to get professors to supply students with “trigger
warnings” . . . when anticipating visual and verbal disturbances. . . . Insofar as
arguments about the need for trigger warnings, speech-muffling, and runaway
squeamishness rest on beliefs about the practical consequences of speech, they
fail. No one knows the effects of nasty talk. Slurs can be denounced as disgust-
ing without requiring censorious policy. Cherry-picked surveys and anecdotes
Laying the Conceptual Groundwork 23

cannot overcome the principle that liberty of speech is too precious to cancel,
most especially on campus. . . . Discomfort drives education.

Gitlin attempts to frame everyday racism as a form of “hypersensitiv-

ity” of “vulnerable people who need to be protected from upset.” Here,
Gitlin uses racially coded language of “hypersensitivity” and “vulnerabil-
ity” to distance his argument from his central claim—that no institutional
protections (policies or practices) should be afforded to “hypersensitive”
People of Color who experience everyday racism. He implies that 50
years of racial microaggressions research (what he calls “surveys and an-
ecdotes”) is not enough to “overcome the principle” of free speech.1 He
concludes with a somewhat puzzling statement about discomfort driving
education. It is unclear whether Gitlin’s assertion refers to the discomfort
of whites caused by engaging discussions of racism and white supremacy,
because this would contradict his central argument of censorship and free
speech. Or, could he mean that the discomfort experienced by People of
Color who are targeted by everyday racism will somehow enhance their
education? Majoritarian stories can be difficult to interpret because race
is often discussed through linguistic proxies and codes that attempt to veil
racist claims.
This line of argument becomes clearer with Greg Lukianoff and
Jonathan Haidt’s (2018) book The Coddling of the American Mind, which
they explain emerged from the same concerns Volokh (2015a, 2015b) and
Gitlin (2015) held about censorship and free speech. The majoritarian
story of everyday racism they construct continues where Gitlin leaves off.
They argue that increasing awareness of racial microaggressions contrib-
utes to a larger psychological phenomenon among youth in the United
States that causes “cognitive distortions” that can lead to anxiety, depres-
sion, and even suicide. Their claim rests upon three “untruths” that youth
are supposedly learning on college campuses. These “untruths” are: (1)
“Fragility”—employing the “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”
dictum; (2) “Emotional reasoning”—that the offended are overly emo-
tional and let those feelings guide their perceptions, and (3) “Us versus
them”—that some young people construct “a battle between good people
and bad people” (p. 4). These “cognitive distortions” lead to “safetyism.”
They state:

Safetyism is the cult of safety—an obsession with eliminating threats (both real
and imagined) to the point at which people become unwilling to make reason-
able trade-offs demanded by other practical and moral concerns. Safetyism de-
prives young people of the experiences that their antifragile minds need, thereby
making them more fragile, anxious, and prone to seeing themselves as victims.
(Lukianoff & Haidt, 2018, p. 32)
24 Racial Microaggressions

Of course, the “victimhood” mentality that Lukianoff and Haidt (2018)

imply here in their concept of “safetyism” is not a new idea when it comes to
racism. The same deficit construct serves as the foundation for other white
majoritarian stories about race and education, including affirmative action,
which was also viewed as “spawning a victim mentality” (Woodson, 1996,
p. 115). To trace this argument even further, it is connected to the myth of
meritocracy, or the “bootstraps” myth, which predicates the belief that any-
one who demonstrates intellect and hard work, no matter their social posi-
tion, will overcome all barriers to success (Guinier, 2015). Years of research
on systemic oppression generally, and on U.S. institutional racism in partic-
ular, has proved this idea indeed a myth (Kendi, 2016). Going back further,
the concept of meritocracy is supported by cultural deficit theory, which
places blame on people, families, and communities who cannot overcome
structural barriers to achieve educational success (Valencia & Solórzano,
1997). Cultural deficit theory has historically been used to explain academ-
ic underperformance, and low educational outcomes among Students of
Color in the United States (Solórzano & Solórzano, 1995; Valencia, 2010).
According to this theory, African American, Native American, Latina/o, and
certain Asian American parents are often framed as apathetic toward, or not
valuing education. In turn, their families are assumed to have values and
cultures that contrast with those necessary for academic success (Solórzano
& Solórzano, 1995; Valencia & Solórzano, 1997). So, what is important
about Lukianoff and Haidt’s (2019) work is not so much what they say, but
what they don’t say. We can see cultural deficit theory playing out in their
attempt to center the student as the “problem,” that is, those people with
their “cognitive distortions” about race that make them so fragile as to not
be able to withstand everyday racism.
What these arguments also say, without saying it, is that the “problem”
of racism is one that is not theirs (whites’). Lukianoff and Haidt (2019)
state, “Wouldn’t our relationships be better if we all did a little less blaming
and dichotomous thinking, and recognized that we usually share responsi-
bility for conflicts?” (p. 39). The authors believe that People of Color share
in the responsibility of microaggressions because, after all:

If you accidentally say or do something that a member of the group finds offen-
sive, but harbor no dislike or ill will on the basis of group membership, then you
are not a bigot, even if you have said something clumsy or insensitive for which
an apology is appropriate. A faux pas does not make someone an evil person
or an aggressor. (p. 44)

Lukianoff and Haidt (2019) seem to arrive at the same conclusion as

Volokh (2015a, 2015b) in their majoritarian story, that racial microaggres-
sions should be dismissed, and that they are going to keep on “microag-
gressing.” In effect, they claim that we should avoid teaching about racial
Laying the Conceptual Groundwork 25

microaggressions in higher education because it would “create an environ-

ment of perpetual anger and intergroup conflict” (p. 46). To which, we
believe, James Baldwin (in Baldwin et al., 1961) would have responded,
“to be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a
rage almost all the time” (p. 205).2 The majoritarian stories of these authors
about racial microaggressions are in stark contradiction to the countersto-
ries of People of Color we presented at the beginning of this chapter. These
majoritarian storytellers dismiss and/or ignore the research on racial micro-
aggressions that we present throughout this book. The majoritarian stories
of Volokh, Gitlin, Lukianoff, and Haidt are also problematic because they
are presented as ahistorical—problems of today’s “hyper-sensitive” young
people—with no connection to the history that got us to where we are. Here
is a brief reminder of that history.

RECOGNIZING HISTORY TO NAME EVERYDAY RACISM

When studying both everyday and institutional racism, we need to recog-

nize how these forms of racism have played out in history (Pérez Huber &
Solórzano, 2015b). To tell the counterstory of everyday racism, we begin
by sharing a short history of racism in the United States (see Figure 1.1).
As one historical starting point, we could begin in 1619 when the first en-
slaved Africans were brought to the shores of what is now the United States
at Jamestown—156 years before U.S. independence.3 From 1619 to 1865
African Americans were “legally” held in bondage and served as chattel
or property for slaveowners. That period represents 246 years of “legal”
slavery in what is now the United States—about 62% of U.S. history.4 From
1865 to 1965 African Americans lived in an era of Jim Crow.5 This period
represented the “legal” separation and subsequent disenfranchisement of
African Americans in all walks of social life—representing 25% of histo-
ry and, combined with legal enslavement, 87% of U.S. history. Under Jim
Crow, by law or by custom, African Americans were barred from living in
the same neighborhoods as whites, attending the same schools as whites,
working in the same jobs and factories as whites, going to the same c­ hurches
as whites, going to the same restaurants as whites, participating in the ev-
eryday political, civic, or social life as whites, or even being buried in the
same cemeteries as whites. The period from 1965 to the present represents
the “modern” era of civil rights in the United States—this 55-year period
is sometimes referred to as the New Jim Crow, and covers about 13% of
U.S. history (see Alexander, 2010). In this period, we have civil rights laws
which decree that People of Color cannot be legally segregated in schools,
at the workplace, or in other parts of social and political life. However,
because of housing segregation and discriminatory social policies and prac-
tices, the vast majority of People of Color attend schools that have fewer
26 Racial Microaggressions

resources, are kept out of the highest-paid and most secure occupations,
and have less access to quality health and wellness opportunities (Jones,
2000; Williams & Purdie-Vaughns, 2016; Williams, Priest, & Anderson,
2016). While education and economic indicators for People of Color are
improving, the opportunity and outcome gaps with whites remain very wide
(Pérez Huber, Vélez, & Solórzano, 2018). When we begin to talk about in-
stitutional or everyday racism, we need to acknowledge this 400-plus–year
history of racism—both structural and everyday. We need to show that for
African Americans, 87% of that history was spent in “legal” bondage or
“legal” separation. We need to show how the accumulation of that history
still impacts the everyvday lives of African Americans and other People of
Color.6 In order to maintain these conditions over these four centuries you
need an ideology that justifies this arrangement—first as slave, then as de
jure—and now as de facto—second-class citizens. That ideology is white
supremacy. We define white supremacy as the assigning of values to real or
imagined differences in order to justify the perceived inherent superiority of
whites over People of Color that defines the right and power of whites to
dominance. The short history we have laid out is the evidence that Volokh
(2016a, 2016b), Gitlin (2015), Lukianoff and Haidt (2018), and others are
unaware of, ignore, or erase in their majoritarian stories of everyday racism.
To continue to tell the counterstory, we examine the historical texts,
looking for examples of everyday racism or racial microaggressions in the
lives of People of Color. Here we center on the lived experiences of African
Americans during the Jim Crow era in the early 20th century using the writ-
ings of W. E. B. Du Bois (1920, 1940): the books Darkwater: Voices from
Within the Veil and Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of
a Race Concept.

Figure 1.1. An Abridged History of Racism in the United States

First Enslaved
Africans Arrive in Post-Enslavement
Centuries of
Indigenous History North America
in the Americas

1619 to 1865 1865 to 1965 1965 to

2020
1619
62% 25% 13%

246 Years of “Legal” 100 Years of 55 Years of

Enslavement Jim Crow New Jim Crow
Laying the Conceptual Groundwork 27

Everyday Racism in a White World: Circa 1920

The problem of being Black in the early 20th century and navigating a
world in which one is subjected to a myriad of slights and dangers due
to racism was critical to early race scholars (Lacy, 2007). Du Bois and his
contemporaries documented and challenged the manifestations of these
slights throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Du Bois, 1899,
1920/2004, 1940/1984). During this period, the formal instruments of insti-
tutionalized white supremacy began to evolve and expand (Roediger, 1999).
De jure segregation and the restrictive Black Codes characterized the South,
while de facto rules of racial separation typified the North. There was also a
simultaneous growth in white supremacist violence (Kendi, 2016).
Although Du Bois and other Black leaders worked to document and
denounce these brazen practices of white terror, Du Bois also spoke el-
oquently about the more innocuous, mundane slights against African
Americans living along the color-line (Du Bois, 1920/2004, 1940/1984).
For instance, despite the hostile racial climate, African Americans sought
out entertainment venues where they might gain some reprieve. Through
a Black male protagonist in his book Darkwater: Voices from within the
Veil, Du Bois (1920/2004) takes us to an encounter that leads eventually
to a movie theater:

My friend, who is pale and positive, said to me yesterday, as the tired sun was
nodding:
“You are too sensitive.”
I admit, I am—sensitive. I am artificial. I cringe or am bumptious or im-
mobile. I am intellectually dishonest, artblind, and I lack humor.
“Why don’t you stop all this?” she retorts triumphantly.
You will not let us.
“There you go, again. You know that I—”
Wait! I answer. Wait! (p. 171)

Du Bois then describes his character’s everyday experiences of racism—

on the streetcar, with the milkman, his white neighbor, children on the street,
women on the streetcar, the policeman, the elevator man, the labor union,
the lunch counter, at church, the science laboratory, the arts, in literature.
The man’s friend asks if this happens each day. The man replies:

They do happen. Not all each day,—surely not. But now and then—now sel-
dom, now, sudden; now after a week, now in a chain of awful minutes; not
everywhere, but anywhere—in Boston, in Atlanta. That’s the hell of it. Imagine
spending your life looking for insults or for hiding places from them—shrinking
(instinctively and despite desperate bolsterings of courage) from blows that are
not always but ever; not each day, but each week, each month, each year. Just,
28 Racial Microaggressions

perhaps, as you have choked back the craven fear and cried, “I am and will be
the master of my—”
“No more tickets downstairs; here’s one to the smoking gallery.”
You hesitate. You beat back your suspicions. After all, a cigarette with
Charlie Chaplin—then a white man pushes by—
“Three in the orchestra.”
“Yes, sir.” And in he goes.
Suddenly your heart chills. You turn yourself away toward the golden
twinkle of the purple night and hesitate again. What’s the use? Why not al-
ways yield—always take what’s offered,—always bow to force, whether of
cannon or dislike? Then the great fear surges in your soul, the real fear—the
fear beside which other fears are vain imaginings; the fear lest right there and
then you are losing your own soul; that you are losing your own soul and the
soul of a people;
That millions of unborn children, black and gold and mauve, are being
there and then despoiled by you because you are a coward and dare not fight!
Suddenly that silly orchestra seat and the cavorting of a comedian with
funny feet become matters of life, death, and immortality; you grasp the pil-
lars of the universe and strain as you sway back to that befrilled ticket girl.
You grip your soul for riot and murder. You choke and sputter, and she seeing
that you are about to make a “fuss” obeys her orders and throws the tickets
at you in contempt. Then you slink to your seat and crouch in the darkness
before the film, with every tissue burning! The miserable wave of reaction
engulfs you. To think of compelling puppies to take your hard-earned money;
fattening hogs to hate you and yours; forcing your way among cheap and
tawdry idiots—God! What a night of pleasure! (pp. 172–173).

In the excerpt above from Du Bois’s (1920/2004) Darkwater, the cen-

tral character provides a powerful narrative illuminating the mundane or
everyday racism and stress endured by Blacks living their everyday lives, re-
sponding to whites, and seeking entertainment in 1920. Like other commer-
cial venues (e.g., streetcars, department stores, restaurants, transportation
centers), the movie theater was a unique geopolitical space that eluded com-
plete racial segregation due to practical and fiscal constraints (Weyeneth,
2005). Hence, Du Bois’s tormented, Black male protagonist, after all that he
has experienced in the everyday, is permitted to purchase admission tickets
for the same show as his white peers. However, his money was acceptable
only to a certain point, as the attendant immediately offers the balcony as
the only available seating option. Such Jim Crow or separate accommoda-
tions were typical for Blacks in movie theaters, athletic gymnasiums, public
swimming pools, and municipal auditoriums across the country throughout
the Jim Crow era (Weyeneth, 2005).
These malleable spaces were marked by impermanent and improvised
partitions (sometimes no more than a single rope) in order to maintain
Laying the Conceptual Groundwork 29

racial inequity (Solórzano, 2016; Weyeneth, 2005). For example, where

segregation was mandated, Blacks were allowed to shop at certain white-
owned convenience stores but could not eat at the conjoined restaurant.
In Northeast cities and Midwest regions, Black consumers experienced ev-
eryday racism through ill-defined, geographically specific, and ambiguous
white supremacists’ social customs (Larsen, 1928; Pierce, 1970). Thus, al-
though shopping and entertainment were less (formally) racialized7 in places
such as New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles, Blacks faced potentially grave
consequences in the event that they initiated conversation with whites or
attempted to purchase items ahead of them. Additionally, as Du Bois’s story
illustrates, African Americans in Northern cities in the 1920s were often tar-
gets of random, spontaneous, coded, dehumanizing, and everyday racialized
practices, as shown in the movie theater example (Weyeneth, 2005).
Although the movie theater in Du Bois’s story is clearly operating with-
in a white supremacist framework, the organization accepts money from
African American community members and begrudgingly accommodates
Black agitators who may undermine its carefully constructed semblance
of order. Conversely, Blacks are permitted to “enjoy” their night out on
the town and access “good seats” within a popular entertainment venue.
Unfortunately, the steep cost of this convergence falls squarely on the cu-
mulative tab of the African American male who endures yet another painful
form of everyday racism. Consistent with contemporary research on mun-
dane and extreme environmental stress (Carroll, 1998; S. Smith, 2004),
Black people seeking entertainment in the early 20th century navigated
deceivingly innocuous, as well as cumulative and racially hostile, climates
during their leisure time.

Everyday Racism in a White World: Circa 1940

Twenty years after Darkwater, Du Bois (1940/1984) wrote Dusk of Dawn:

An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept. In “Chapter 6: The
White World,” Du Bois speaks personally to the experiences of racism he
encountered in everyday life. We, however, interpret the narrative below as
Du Bois speaking of the everyday racism he was forced to endure. Indeed,
he speaks to the types, contexts, effects, and responses to these forms of
everyday racism. He tells this story:

I lived in an environment which I came to call the white world. I was not an
American; I was not a man; I was by long education and continual compulsion
and daily reminder, a colored man in a white world; and that white world of-
ten existed primarily, so far as I was concerned, to see with sleepless vigilance
that I was kept within bound. All this made me limited in physical movement
and provincial in thought and dream. I could not stir, I could not act, I could
not live, without taking into careful daily account the reaction of my white
30 Racial Microaggressions

environing world. How I traveled and where, what work I did, what income
I received, where I ate, where I slept, with whom I talked, where I sought rec-
reation, where I studied, what I wrote and what I could get published—all
this depended and depended primarily on an overwhelming mass of my fellow
citizens in the United States from whose society I was excluded. (pp. 135–136)

In the same chapter, Du Bois tells another story of everyday racism:

. . .[A] lady in a Pullman car ordered me to bring her a glass of water, mistaking
me for a porter, the incident in its essence was a joke to be chuckled over; but in
its hard, cruel significance and its unending inescapable sign of slavery, it was
something to drive a man mad. (pp. 136–37)

In these stories, Du Bois is speaking personally of the everyday racism

he encounters and how it affects him, how it controls his everyday life,
how it affects his physical and psychological well-being. Indeed, how it was
“something to drive a man mad.” We need a concept to understand every-
day racism in both history and in the contemporary context. That concept
is racial microaggressions, and the scholar who brought it to us was Chester
Pierce.

CHESTER PIERCE AND THE CONCEPTUAL

DEVELOPMENT OF RACIAL MICROAGGRESSIONS

What is needed for example is a sweeping new theoretical concept. . . . The

poor black may need care based on other models such as the negotiation of
“offensive mechanisms.” (Pierce, 1969, p. 308)

Pierce first described the subtle forms of everyday racism experienced by

African Americans as “offensive mechanisms” in a 1969 book chapter titled
“Is Bigotry the Basis of the Medical Problem of the Ghetto?” As a medical
doctor and psychiatrist, he explored tools to support the psychiatric needs
of African American communities. In this 1969 chapter Pierce suggested
that existing theories used to address these needs were inefficient and that
new frameworks be developed to consider the role of race and racism in the
everyday lives of African Americans. As a result, Pierce (1969) develops the
concept of offensive mechanisms. He explained:

To be black in the United States today means to be socially minimized. For

each day blacks are victims of white “offensive mechanisms” which are de-
signed to reduce, dilute, atomize, and encase the hapless into his “place.” The
incessant lesson the black must hear is that he is insignificant and irrelevant.
(p. 303)
Laying the Conceptual Groundwork 31

In the 1970 book chapter “Offensive Mechanisms,” Pierce extends this

concept and first introduces the term microaggression to explain these “sub-
tle and stunning” forms of racism. He states:

Most offensive actions are not gross and crippling. They are subtle and stun-
ning. The enormity of the complications they cause can be appreciated only
when one considers that these subtle blows are delivered incessantly. Even
though any single negotiation of offense can in justice be considered of itself to
be relatively innocuous, the cumulative effect to the victim and to the victimizer
is of an unimaginable magnitude. Hence, the therapist is obliged to pose the
idea that offensive mechanisms are usually a micro-aggression. (pp. 265–266,
emphasis in original)

Here we see Pierce begin to extend and transition from the term “offen-
sive mechanisms” he uses in earlier work, to the concept he names “micro-­
aggressions.” Although all his work was on African Americans, it is not
until 1980 that Pierce explicitly uses the term “racial microaggression.” In
the chapter, “Social Trace Contaminants: Subtle Indicators of Racism in
TV,” Pierce (1980) tells us:

The subtle, stunning, repetitive event that many whites initiate and control in
their dealings with blacks can be termed a racial microaggression [emphasis
added]. Any single microaggression from an offender to a defender (or victim-
izer to victim) in itself is minor and inconsequential. However, the relentless
omnipresence of these noxious stimuli is the fabric of black-white relations in
America. (p. 251)

Pierce doesn’t use the term again in his writing until 2000, when he and
his colleagues explicitly use race and microaggression in an encyclopedia
entry on “Blacks, Stress in” (Profit, Mino, & Pierce, 2000). Pierce and his
colleagues explain:

The chief energy demand on Blacks is how to recognize, evaluate, anticipate,

and dispose of race-inspired microaggressions [emphasis added]. These are
automatic, subtle, stunning, seemingly innocuous messages, often non-verbal,
which devaluate the Blacks; e.g. a Black man and a White man enter an eleva-
tor whereupon the single White female passenger clutches her handbag as she
moves as close as possible to the White man. Microaggressions, the major and
inescapable expression of racism in the United States, take a cumulative toll on
Black individuals. As such they enter into the formation of Black group stress.
What may be more important is that these cumulative, minor but incessant
put-downs often remain as psychopollutants in the social environment. Their
lingering intractability is a major contributor to the continuing traumatic stress
suffered by Blacks as individuals and as a group. (pp. 327–328)
32 Racial Microaggressions

We borrow from and extend this rich conceptual history provided by

Chester Pierce to develop the framework for understanding and analyzing
racial microaggressions. First however, we define race and racism as central
concepts to our theorizing.

DEFINING RACE AND RACISM

Over the course of 4 decades as educators and researchers, we have been

searching for ways racism manifests in the everyday lives of People of
Color. Before we explain the theoretical approach we take to do this, it is
first necessary to explain how we define race and racism. Most agree that
race is a socially constructed and contested term, fluid in meaning across
time and space (Gillborn, 2006; Marable, 2002; Omi & Winant, 1994;
Solórzano, 1997). Race as a social construction should not detract from its
saliency in the daily realities of People of Color. Omi and Winant explain,
“we consider race to be real because it is real in its consequences” (Omi &
Winant, 2013, p. 963). Indeed, race has been used as a social marker on
the bodies of People of Color today and historically to justify structures
of domination in the United States and abroad (Gómez, 2018; Omi &
Winant, 1994; Pérez, 1999). In the United States, race has been strategi-
cally used to create racial hierarchies where whites are placed above non-
whites, according to their perceived alignment to whiteness (Harris, 1993;
Roediger, 1999). In turn, these hierarchies are maintained by ideologies
of white supremacy that reproduce a perceived superiority of whites over
People of Color that over time becomes a normalized social fact (Bonilla-
Silva, 2001; Gillborn, 2006).
Racism is a concept that is separate from but inextricably linked to the
concept of race. Without race, racism could not exist. Albert Memmi (1968)
states that a key element of racism is that it is based on perceptions. Memmi
argues that perceived real and “imagined” differences between racial groups
assign values that benefit one group at the expense of others. Thus, power
is distributed according to real and/or perceived racial differences, creat-
ing structural inequities that benefit the perceived superior group. Similarly,
Audre Lorde (1992) explains that racism is the belief in the “inherent su-
periority” of one group over another that justifies power and the “right
to dominance” (p. 496). In previous work, we have used these scholars to
identify three elements central to an understanding of racism: There is a
perceived superiority of one group over others; the perceived superior group
has the power to carry out racist acts; and various racial/ethnic groups are
affected by those acts (Solórzano, 1998a). This definition of racism under-
lines the power of the “superior” group to maintain their domination over
others. In the United States, historically, whites have occupied this perceived
superior status within a racial hierarchy that is justified by ideologies of
Laying the Conceptual Groundwork 33

white supremacy and have, over time, distributed power and resources ineq-
uitably to People of Color (Du Bois, 1920/2004; Gillborn, 2008).

USING CRITICAL RACE THEORY

TO THEORIZE RACIAL MICROAGGRESSIONS

We define CRT as the work of scholars and practitioners who are attempt-
ing to develop an explanatory framework that accounts for the role of race
and racism in education and that works toward identifying and challenging
racism as part of a larger goal of recognizing and disrupting all forms of
subordination (Solórzano, 1997, 1998a).8 The following five tenets of CRT
help guide the research, teaching, and policymaking in education and other
fields:

1. CRT foregrounds race and racism and challenges separate

discourses on race, gender, and class by demonstrating how racism
intersects with these and other forms of subordination (e.g.,
sexism, classism, eurocentrism, monolingualism, ableism, and
heteropatriarchy), and how they impact People of Color.
2. CRT challenges traditional research paradigms and theories,
thereby exposing deficit notions about People and Communities
of Color and educational practices that assume “neutrality” and
“objectivity.”
3. CRT focuses research and practice on experiences of People and
Communities of Color and views these experiences as assets and
sources of strength.
4. CRT offers a transformative response to racial, gender, class and
other forms of discrimination by linking theory with practice,
scholarship with teaching, and the academy with Communities of
Color.
5. CRT challenges ahistoricism, acontextualism, and aracialism,9
expanding the boundaries of the analysis of race and racism in
education by using contextual, historical, and interdisciplinary
perspectives to inform praxis.

These five tenets are not new in and of themselves, but together they
represent a challenge to traditional modes of scholarship and practice. These
five tenets form the basic perspectives, research methods, and pedagogy of
CRT in education (see Solórzano, 1997, 1998a).
Using the tools of CRT, our search led us again to the work of
W. E. B. Du Bois (1903) and what he called the “color-line.” In 1897, Du
Bois wrote an article in the Atlantic Monthly called “Strivings of the Negro
People,” in which he first introduced the early elements that would help us
34 Racial Microaggressions

understand the concept of the color-line (i.e., the veil, second-sight, double-­
consciousness, and twoness).10 Three years later, at the 1900 World’s Fair
in Paris, France, Du Bois curated a collection of photos and other artifacts
in an exhibit called “The American Negro” (see Battle-Baptiste & Rusert,
2018; S. Smith, 2004). One of these artifacts—a social study—was called
“The Georgia Negro.” In this multimedia installation, Du Bois first used
the phrase “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the col-
or-line.” In 1903, Du Bois, in The Souls of Black Folk, once again reminded
his readers that the single greatest problem of the 20th century would be
the problem of the color-line. Perhaps inspired by the article The Color
Line, written by Frederick Douglass in 1881, Du Bois (1910) often reflect-
ed on the color-line in “Along the Color Line,” a regular feature in The
Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP (National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People), which was established in 1910. Du Bois
observed the growing mountain of evidence surfacing both within and be-
yond the United States and constructed the following, now-famous question
through which the Black experience had come to be defined: “How does it
feel to be a problem?” (Du Bois, 1903, p. 7). We extend Du Bois’s question
to ask: “How does it feel for People of Color to experience and respond to
the color-line in their everyday lives?”11
In order to address these questions, we return to Chester Pierce in defin-
ing racial microaggressions. Borrowing from, and extending Pierce’s work
(1969, 1970), we define racial microaggressions as one form of systemic,
everyday racism used to keep those at the racial margins in their place.
Racial microaggressions are (1) verbal and nonverbal assaults directed to-
ward People of Color, often carried out in subtle, automatic, or unconscious
forms; (2) layered assaults, based on a Person of Color’s race, gender, class,
sexuality, language, immigration status, phenotype, accent, or surname; and
(3) cumulative assaults that take a psychological and physiological toll on
People of Color (Pérez Huber & Solórzano, 2015a, 2015b). Throughout
this book, we will provide examples of each of these elements of microag-
gressions to illustrate our definition.
We use the model provided in Figure 1.2 to illustrate how the five guid-
ing tenets of CRT can help us understand the everyday racism that People of
Color experience in the form of racial microaggressions. CRT is the frame-
work, and its five tenets are the tools to examine and understand everyday
racism in the form of racial microaggressions.
Another colleague who has advanced Pierce’s work on racial micro-
aggressions is Derald Wing Sue (and colleagues). Sue’s work on micro-
aggressions is widely cited in the fields of psychology and education and
beyond. In this work, Sue and his colleagues (2010) provide a “taxonomy”
of microaggressions that articulates how they are delivered (verbal, behav-
ioral, environmental) and the various forms they take (i.e., microassaults,
microinsults, and microinvalidation; Constantine, 2007; Constantine &
Laying the Conceptual Groundwork 35

Figure 1.2. A Critical Race Theory Model to Understand Racial Microaggressions

Critical Race Theory

Centers Race
and Racism

Centers Lived
Social Justice
Experience
Commitment
Racial
Microaggressions

Challenges
Challenges
Dominant
Ahistoricism
Frameworks

Sue, 2007; Sue, Bucceri, et al., 2007; Sue, Capodilupo, et al., 2007; Sue &
Constantine, 2007; Sue, 2010). Sue (2010) argues that white supremacy
serves as the foundation for the individual and institutional racism People of
Color experience, and thus examines how the unconscious participation in
microaggressions is harmful to all, including whites.12 Theorizing microag-
gressions from a CRT perspective does not focus the analyses on how whites
experience racial microaggressions. Rather, a CRT analysis centers on the
lived experiences of People of Color, those targeted by microaggressions.
Moreover, we challenge dominant ideologies of meritocracy and colorblind-
ness prevalent in education by acknowledging how white supremacy has
historically mediated, and continues to mediate, the everyday experiences
of People of Color. Finally, our approach is interdisciplinary, building from
Chester Pierce’s work in the health sciences. Moreover, we do this to honor
the Scholars of Color, like Pierce, who had the courage and took the risks to
engage this research, particularly at times when critical perspectives on race
were unpopular and delegitimized (Griffith, 1998).
As Paulo Freire (2000) argues, the ability to name oppression is a
powerful tool, and is one of the first steps toward liberation for oppressed
groups. Indeed, we believe also that the practice of naming racial microag-
gressions disrupts the normalized existence of racism and white supremacy
36 Racial Microaggressions

in everyday life and calls attention to the structural inequities and individual
pain they cause. This is a central reason we have dedicated our careers—and
now, this book—to naming racial microaggressions. In line with CRT, we
began this chapter with stories of everyday racism in the lives of People of
Color to centralize their lived experiences as the springboard for our the-
orizing and for the discussions we will undertake in the remainder of this
book. These stories are, in fact, counterstories—those stories that challenge
dominant majoritarian narratives about the role of race and racism in U.S.
society. Majoritarian stories of race and racism (such as those we shared
here) are often dismissive and paternalistic, created to shift the responsibili-
ty of racial inequities to People of Color and away from whites and the ide-
ologies and structures of white supremacy. However, knowing the history
of People of Color is critical. We use history to confirm our position on the
pervasiveness of racism across time—a history that most certainly shapes
the everyday experiences of People of Color today.
 CHAPTER 2

Understanding the Types, Contexts,

Effects, and Responses to Racial
Microaggressions Using Critical Race
Hypos

Derrick Bell (1999) once used the pedagogical tool he termed “racism hy-
pos,” or racism hypotheticals, to engage law school students in the “con-
tradictions and dilemmas faced by those attempting to apply legal rules
to the many forms of racial discrimination” that exist in U.S. society (p.
316). Like Bell, we are concerned with effective pedagogical strategies to
teach race and racism. Honoring Bell’s work in this area, we extend his
pedagogical tool to what we call critical race hypos, to show the ways rac-
ism emerges in the everyday experiences of People of Color. In past work
together we have theorized critical race hypos to build a bridge between
theory and practice—the conceptual framework of racial microaggres-
sions and the realities of People of Color—to teach about everyday racism
(Pérez Huber & Solórzano, 2018). This hypo is different from the coun-
terstories we presented in the last chapter. Our counterstories in Chapter 1
were first-person accounts of experiences with racial microaggressions.
Our critical race hypos are composite hypotheticals based on our research.

A CRITICAL RACE HYPO

Melinda is a Latina PhD student in sociology of education at a major research

university in New York. She is a 1st-year student taking the seminar course
Introduction to Sociology of Education, which is taught by a white female
instructor. The class is engaged in a discussion about how teachers and
administrators often hold deficit perspectives of their Students of Color—
perspectives that lead to the belief that low educational attainment is a
consequence of the “cultural apathy” Students of Color and their families
have toward education. The class is discussing the prevailing discourses that
support those deficit views. During the discussion, Melinda makes a comment

37
38 Racial Microaggressions

in which she cites political theorists Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe.1
The instructor comments to Melinda with surprise, “You’ve read Laclau and
Mouffe?” Melinda’s face becomes flushed with embarrassment, and she
suddenly feels hot. Her stomach drops. She holds her breath for a moment,
until she is able to find her words. With her heart pounding, she quickly
responds, “Yes, I have read them.” Her peers stare at her, then each other,
uncomfortably. The class ends and she approaches the instructor outside the
room, after class. Melinda tells her that she did not appreciate her comment
and how she seemed so surprised that she had read such a theoretically dense
text. The instructor tells her, “Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it. Good for you
for being able to get through a dense text like that. See you next week!” The
instructor turns away. Melinda walks away feeling angry and frustrated. For
the next week, she relives the moment over and over again, thinking about the
things she should have said to the instructor.
The next week, the assigned readings are on racial microaggressions,
and a group of Melinda’s peers are facilitating a discussion. Melinda
arrives to class with her stomach in knots, knowing that this is exactly
what happened to her last week, and angry with the instructor’s inability
to recognize how she perpetrated a microaggression against her. With her
heart racing and slightly out of breath, she shares with the group that she
believes the interaction that happened between herself and the instructor
was a racial microaggression. She looks at the instructor as she makes the
comment. The instructor looks at her with another surprised expression,
and responds, “No, no, I told you that I didn’t mean anything by it. That’s
not what I meant.” Melinda continues to challenge her dismissal. “Would
you have made that comment to Paul if he told you he had read Laclau and
Moufee?” [Paul was a white male peer in the class.] She looks at Paul, who
remains silent. Melinda continues to share the numerous other interactions
she has had on campus with her instructors, peers, and staff who have
made similar comments, and begins to cry and says, “This really hurts.”
The instructor becomes flustered and continues to maintain that she did
not mean anything by her comment; she begins to get emotional, also
near tears. The class becomes silent. Angela (an African American female
peer) says, “I’ve been thinking about that exchange all week, and wished
I would have said something; I did feel like that was a microaggression.”
Several other students agree. Some remain silent. The instructor struggles
to explain, reiterating the claim, “That’s not what I meant, I would never . . . ”
Melinda interrupts her. “All you had to do was apologize.”

We use this hypo to explain two models we have developed to understand

and analyze the racial microaggressions that Melinda experienced in her
classroom. Figure 2.1 is the first model. This figure shows that there are (1)
Types of racial microaggressions, or how one is targeted by a microaggres-
sion; (2) Contexts where and how the microaggressions occur; (3) Effects
Types, Contexts, Effects, and Responses to Racial Microaggressions 39

Figure 2.1. A Model for Understanding the Types, Contexts, Effects, and Responses to
Racial Microaggressions

Types of Racial
Microaggressions
Effects of Racial Responses to Racial
Microaggressions Microaggressions

Contexts of Racial
Microaggressions

of microaggressions on the body, mind, and spirit of People of Color; and

(4) Responses to racial microaggressions when they occur (Pérez Huber &
Solórzano, 2015a). Here, we explain each of these components of the mod-
el and how Melinda’s experience with microaggressions can be explained
using it.

TYPES OF MICROAGGRESSIONS

There are various types of microaggressions People of Color experience

based on race and/or ethnicity, gender, class, language, sexuality, immigra-
tion status, phenotype, accent, surname, and culture (Kohli & Solórzano,
2012). From a CRT perspective, we know that racism often occurs at in-
tersections with other forms of oppression. Thus, in analyzing “types” it is
important to acknowledge that a microaggression may be based on multiple
characteristics and positionalities that define the identities and experiences
of People of Color.2 In the critical race hypo above, the type of microaggres-
sion was Melinda’s perceived intellectual ability.3 We see this perception
enacted when the instructor expressed her surprised that Melinda had read
such a theoretically complex text. Indeed, our research has found that low-
er academic expectations of Students of Color is a common type of racial
microaggression (Pérez Huber, Johnson, & Kohli, 2006; Pérez Huber, 2011;
Solórzano, 1998a; Solórzano et al., 2000; Yosso et al., 2009).
There are other types of microaggressions we have found. For example,
we have found visual imagery that conveys racist stereotypes, perceptions,
and/or beliefs about People of Color and can be described as one type of ra-
cial microaggression, what we call visual microaggressions (Pérez Huber &
Solórzano, 2015a). Visual racial microaggressions have the same fundamen-
tal elements as racial microaggressions in general: They are layered, often
40 Racial Microaggressions

subtle and unconscious, and cumulative. Visual microaggressions are often

nonverbal, visual representations of racist ideas and beliefs about People of
Color. These visual assaults can emerge in various mediums such as text-
books, children’s books, advertisements, photos, film and television, dance
and theater performance, and public signage and statuary.4 Visual micro-
aggressions reinforce institutional racism and perpetuate the ideologies of
white supremacy that justify the subordination of People of Color by whites
(Pérez Huber & Solórzano, 2015b).
Scholars have identified other types of racial microaggressions in ed-
ucation. For example, in 2009, Yosso and colleagues found that Latina/o
college students frequently encountered racial joke-telling on predominately
white campuses as “offensive verbal remarks with questionably humorous
intentions” (p. 669). Race-themed college parties—those that encourage at-
tendees to wear racist, stereotypical attire—represent another type of mi-
croaggression that is not uncommon in higher education, particularly at
predominately white institutions (PWIs; Garcia, Johnston, Garibay, Herrera,
& Giraldo, 2011). Vega (2019) names maternal microaggressions as those
that target Women of Color mothers in higher education. Finally, Pérez
Huber has explored racist nativist microaggressions as a type. She found
Latina/o students are often targeted by these types of microaggressions, a
form of racist xenophobic discourse that influences educational practice and
policies, assigning a non-native status to Latina/o students (Pérez Huber,
2011; Gomez & Pérez Huber, 2019).
Related to race and higher education, Supreme Court Justice Sonia
Sotomayor describes types of racial microaggressions in her dissenting
opinion in the Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action BAMN
case (2014). The ruling upheld a state ballot initiative, named Proposal
2, that Michigan voters passed in 2006 banning consideration of race in
higher education admissions. In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor empha-
sized the importance of race (and racism) in the lives of People of Color,
despite the majority opinion of the court. She starts by telling us why race
matters:

Race matters in part because of the long history of racial minorities’ being de-
nied access to the political process . . . Race also matters because of persistent
racial inequality in society—inequality that cannot be ignored and that has pro-
duced stark socioeconomic disparities . . . Race matters for reasons that really
are only skin deep, that cannot be discussed any other way, and that cannot be
wished away. Race matters to a young man’s view of society when he spends
his teenage years watching others tense up as he passes, no matter the neigh-
borhood where he grew up. Race matters to a young woman’s sense of self
when she states her hometown, and then is pressed, “No, where are you really
from?”, regardless of how many generations her family has been in the country
. . . Race matters because of the slights, the snickers, the silent judgments that
Types, Contexts, Effects, and Responses to Racial Microaggressions 41

reinforce that most crippling of thoughts: “I do not belong here” [emphasis

added]. (pp. 45–46)

Here, Sotomayor (Schuette v. BAMN, 2014) gives other examples of

everyday racism—the change in body language when young Men of Color
pass whites in public spaces, the questions about country of origin, or
the “slights,” “snickers,” and “silent judgments” that insinuate People
of Color do not belong in this country. In these last two examples, we
would argue that the type of racial microaggression Sotomayor refers to
are racist nativist microaggressions, underlined by both racist and nativ-
ist assumptions about People of Color (Pérez Huber, 2011). It is ironic
that in the moment we write this chapter (July 2019) the same type of
racial microaggression is being used by President Donald Trump to target
four Democratic Congresswomen of Color—Representatives Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ayanna S. Pressley (MA), Ilhan Omar (MN), and
Rashida Tlaib (MI)—all U.S. citizens. He tweeted that the Congresswomen
should “go back” to the “crime infested places from which they came.”
To respond, Congresswoman Pressley (2019) retweeted Trump’s post with
her own tweet: “THIS is what racism looks like. WE are what democracy
looks like. And we’re not going anywhere. Except back to DC to fight for
families you marginalize and vilify everyday” (Pressley, 2019). Since then,
the New York Times has collected the stories of 16,000 readers who say
they have been targeted by a similar verbal assault (Takenaga & Gardiner,
2019).5 Indeed, all 16,000 stories are powerful examples of types of racial
microaggressions.

CONTEXTS OF MICROAGGRESSIONS

There are contexts of racial microaggressions—where and how they occur.

The context of the racial microaggression in Melinda’s case was her gradu-
ate school seminar, with her instructor, and with her peers. Microaggressions
can often occur in schools, classrooms, on the play yard, in laboratories, at
meetings, and on college campuses.6 The context of the microaggression
refers not only to the location or space where the microaggression occurred
but also to the larger circumstances and conditions present that allowed it
to happen. In 1970, Chester Pierce explained a powerful example of how
context is important to understand one type of racial microaggression he
experienced while a professor at Harvard. Pierce stated:

I notice in a class I teach, after each session a white, not a black, will come up to
me and tell me how the class should be structured, or how the chairs should be
placed, or how there should be extra meetings outside the classroom, etc. The stu-
dent is on the initiative and sees as his usual prerogative with a black, that he must
42 Racial Microaggressions

instruct me and order me about and curb my own inclinations and independence.
One could argue that I am hypersensitive, if not paranoid, about what I know
every black will understand, that it is not what the student says in this dialogue, it
is how he approaches me, how he talks to me, how he seems to regard me. I was
patronized. I was told, by my own perceptual distortions perhaps, that although
I am a full professor on two faculties at a prestigious university, to him I was no
more than a big black n . . . .r [changed from original]. I had to be instructed and
directed as to how to render him more pleasure! (p. 277)

Here, Pierce points to the important contextual clues that allow a read-
er to better understand how this experience is a racial microaggression. He
explains that it was not so much what the white student said, but how he
said it—the patronizing tone, the unapologetic stance, the demanding de-
meanor—all important subtextual context to understanding how the white
student attempts to diminish the status of Pierce’s position as a Harvard
professor. This example shows the complexity of understanding context:
Context encompasses much more than a physical or spatial location, but
also important subtexts—what is understood, but remains unsaid.
Returning to the context of the hypo, the political theorists that Melinda
referred to, and the space of her graduate seminar, were both contextual
pieces important to understanding the racial microaggression that targeted
her. The instructor was surprised that Melinda had read a particular kind
of dense academic text. The context also prompts us to ask questions about
others in the space that may have been targeted or affected by the microag-
gression. For example, we would argue that Melinda’s peer, Angela, was a
secondary target in the microaggression that occurred in the hypo—she was
affected by the microaggression although she was not the primary target (we
further describe the effects Angela experienced in the next sections).7

EFFECTS OF MICROAGGRESSIONS

Through years of research, Chester Pierce (1970, 1974, 1988) found that
there are negative psychological and physiological effects of microaggres-
sions. Moreover, the effects can be cumulative and take a toll on the bodies,
minds, and spirits of People of Color over time. For example, those targeted
by everyday racism can become angry or frustrated and develop feelings of
self-doubt; their blood pressure may rise and their heart rate may increase
(Clark, Anderson, Clark, & Williams, 1999; Gravlee, Dressler, & Bernard
2005; Smith 2004; Watson, 2019). Over time, they may develop more seri-
ous symptomatic conditions such as hypertension, depression, and anxiety
(Hill, Kobayashi, & Hughes 2007; Pérez Huber & Cueva 2012; Williams
& Purdie-Vaughns, 2016; Williams, Priest, & Anderson, 2016). Mundane
extreme environmental stress, or MEES (Carroll, 1998), racial battle fatigue
Types, Contexts, Effects, and Responses to Racial Microaggressions 43

(Franklin, Smith & Hung, 2014; Smith 2004; Smith et al., 2006; Smith,
Allen, & Danley, 2007), and racial trauma (Truong & Museus, 2012) are
conditions researchers use to describe such race-related health consequen­
ces. Some studies have attributed more fatal conditions such as cardiovas-
cular disease and even increased morbidity to race-related stressors such as
microaggressions (Adelman 2008; Gee, Ro, Shariff-Marco, & Chae, 2009;
Geronimus, Hicken, Keene, & Bound, 2006; Pierce 1969). In the critical
race hypo, Melinda experiences some of these effects. She physically feels
her face become flush from embarrassment, her heart rate increases, and she
feels her stomach “drop.” According to the research we discuss here, these
effects, when experienced persistently and over time, can lead to self-doubt,
imposter syndrome, and negative health outcomes.
While most of the research on effects of racial microaggressions exam-
ines the psychological impact of everyday racism, the work of education
scholar Kenjus Watson (2019) has examined the physiological. Biospecimens
as well as data from surveys and focus groups with Black male college stu-
dents were collected to examine the ways everyday racism impacted their
physiological health. Using DNA samples from his participants, Watson ex-
amined the length of participants’ telomeres, which are coverings at each
end of a human chromosome that protect the chromosome from deteriora-
tion. Telomere length is an indicator of chronological aging; the longer the
telomere length of the human chromosome, the longer the lifespan of the
human body. Those with shorter telomere lengths have shorter lifespans.
Watson (2019) found that 30% of Black male students in his study, all
whose ages ranged from 18–26, had telomere lengths similar to or shorter
than those of middle-aged female stage 4 breast cancer survivors twice their
age.8 Indeed, his study highlights the negative physiological consequences
racial microaggressions can have on young Black men, consequences that
will last throughout their lifetimes. These findings align with those of public
health researchers who examine race-related stress, although these research-
ers do not explicitly use the term racial microaggressions (Jones, 2000;
Williams & Purdie-Vaughns, 2016; Williams, Priest, & Anderson, 2016).
In previous work, Pérez Huber examined the effects of racist nativist
microaggressions on undocumented Latina college students (Pérez Huber &
Cueva, 2012). She found that these students experienced negative psycho-
logical effects of microaggressions they had encountered throughout their
educational trajectories, many tracing back to early childhood. For exam-
ple, one Latina participant, Alicia, discussed the academic self-doubt she
experienced as an undergraduate political science major. It is important to
note that Alicia could recount the racist nativist microaggressions she expe-
rienced in school beginning in preschool, shortly following her arrival in the
United States. These microaggressions persisted throughout her education.
Alicia shared:
44 Racial Microaggressions

Poli Sci classes can be intimidating sometimes because I would say 90 percent
are male, white students. It’s really intimidating when the professor asks you a
question, and you’re expected to know, and you’re supposed to be really artic-
ulate. For me, I was actually a little bit sad this week because I don’t feel like
I’m very, I don’t know, it’s kinda sad to say, but I think I have problems with
my speech. Sometimes [the professor] wants us to argue in class and make good
points and like this girl that was sitting in back of me . . . she was bringing some
good arguments, I mean, words I never even heard of, like from a Poli Sci dictio-
nary. And I was like, “Damn, why can’t I do that?” I can’t be argumentative like
that and articulate. And I got really sad . . . like, “Why can’t I have good speech
like that?” I don’t know if you understand [what] I’m trying to tell you . . . They
bring out these smart words in like every sentence, and I’m like, “Wow! I don’t
even know what that word was.” So I feel intimidated a lot.

As Alicia shared this experience, she became very emotional. It was clear
that the re-telling of this story caused her emotional pain. She described feel-
ing as if something was psychologically “wrong” with her ability to express
her thoughts and ideas in class. Following the interview, Alicia shared with
me that she was planning to make an appointment at the university student
disability services office to get tested for a possible learning disability.
Alicia’s story illustrates the long-term and cumulative effects of racist
nativist microaggressions when undocumented students experience lower
academic expectations, when their home language is not valued, and when
they are not expected to attend college, nor prepared by their educators and
schools to attend (Pérez Huber, 2009a, 2011; Pérez Huber & Cueva, 2012).
She describes a common effect many People of Color experience when faced
with persistent racial microaggressions. That is, the internalization of the neg-
ative perceptions they are consistently targeted with through various types of
racial microaggressions pervading everyday life. Today, Alicia has moved well
beyond this difficult moment, has graduated from college, earned a master’s
degree in social work and continues to be active in improving the conditions
of undocumented communities. Her story teaches us about the negative ef-
fects of microaggressions, both psychological and physiological. However, it
also teaches us about Alicia’s resistance and resiliency, the ways that she has
responded to microaggressions. We discuss responses in the next section.
This research on racist nativism and Latina college students, document-
ed prior to the 2016 election of Donald Trump, indicates that anti-­Latina/o
racism was a serious problem then, and continues today (Gomez & Pérez
Huber, 2019; Pérez Huber, 2016). Indeed, as we discussed in Chapter 1,
the forms of racism that we see today are a consequence of the racism that
has existed in the United States for centuries. As we witness a more potent
form of racist nativism targeting Latina/o communities, and Latina/o im-
migrants in particular, research is beginning to document its effects. For
example, the Kaiser Family Foundation (2018) has found that Latina/o
Types, Contexts, Effects, and Responses to Racial Microaggressions 45

immigrant families experience increased levels of fear and uncertainty re-

lated to President Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, as well as increased lev-
els of racism and discrimination. These experiences are shaping unhealthy
psychological and physiological changes, particularly in children, such as
sleeping and eating problems, headaches, stomach aches, depression, and
anxiety. Doctors in this study note a concern about long-term health con-
sequences for children who are currently experiencing these symptoms, as
research has found the effects of “toxic stress” to have physical and mental
health consequences throughout one’s lifetime.

RESPONSES TO MICROAGGRESSIONS

Pierce (1995) explained, “The most baffling task for victims of racism and
sexism is to defend against microaggressions. Knowing how and when to
defend requires time and energy that oppressors cannot appreciate” (p.
282). Pierce highlights the significance of developing responses to racial
microaggressions. Such responses can vary, according to the type and con-
text of the microaggression, as well as the effect it had on the individual.
Moreover, one’s response can be influenced by the effect, and vice versa.
These responses can include engaging in counterspaces, or places located
within or outside of educational institutions where People of Color devel-
op strategies for healing, empowerment, and building a sense of commu-
nity (Grier-Reed, 2010; Morales, 2017; Solórzano & Villalpando, 1998;
Solórzano et al., 2000; Yosso et al., 2009). In the hypo, Melinda responds
in several ways.9 She informs her instructor that she indeed has read com-
plex theoretical material. She responds again after class by confronting the
instructor and bringing the incident up at the next class meeting.
However, there was another response in the hypo by Melinda’s peer,
Angela, an African American student in the class. In the hypo, Angela shares
that she was also affected by the microaggression because it had also both-
ered her, and she had thought about the exchange during the week that
followed. Angela shared she felt she should have responded. We have devel-
oped another model to better understand how this racial microaggression
occurred, and how it impacted both Melinda and Angela.
In Figure 2.2 we continue to draw from the hypo and show how it pro-
vides deeper insight into racial microaggressions. The racial microaggres-
sion is positioned at the center, as the focus of the model. This would be the
exchange Melinda had with her instructor, where the instructor was the per-
petrator of the microaggression and Melinda was the target. When Melinda
responded to this racial microaggression by confronting her instructor, her
instructor claimed that she “didn’t mean anything by it.” This response
meant that the instructor did not intend to perpetrate the microaggression.
There are other theories used to explain unconscious or automatic forms of
46 Racial Microaggressions

discriminatory behaviors. For example, implicit bias is a concept that ex-

plains the “unconscious mental processes” that can influence discriminatory
biases a perpetrator unknowingly acts out (Greenwald & Krieger, 2006;
Kang et al., 2012). Implicit bias seeks to understand the intent of the per-
petrator, which is no doubt significant. However, as critical race theorists,
our theorizing of racial microaggressions does not focus on the intent of
the perpetrator, but on its impact or effects on the Person of Color targeted
by them. Thus, we study the effects that racial microaggressions have on
People of Color. In the hypo, we focus on Melinda as the primary target.
However, there was also a secondary target, Angela. Angela explained that
she was also troubled by the microaggression as someone who was in the
room. The microaggression was not directed toward Angela, yet Angela
also experienced effects.
The final components of the model are “institutional racism” and “white
supremacy.” In our definition we explain microaggressions to be a systemic
form of racism. In this model, we illustrate racial microaggressions as in-
extricably linked to a system of institutional racism and white supremacy
(see definition in Chapter 1) that has historically marginalized and excluded
People of Color in the United States. We define institutional racism as “formal

Figure 2.2. A Model of Intent vs. Impact on Primary and Secondary Targets of Racial
Microaggressions

white supremacy

Institutional Racism
Secondary
Target

Perpetrator Racial Primary

Microaggression Target

INTENT IMPACT
Types, Contexts, Effects, and Responses to Racial Microaggressions 47

or informal structural mechanisms, such as policies and processes that sys-

tematically subordinate, marginalize, and exclude nondominant groups and
mediate their experiences with racial microaggressions” (Pérez Huber &
Solórzano, 2015b, p. 303). In the hypo, institutional racism is what leads
to Melinda’s and Angela’s being the only People of Color in a cohort of 20
doctoral students. Institutional racism is also what leads to Melinda’s having
no structured recourse in her department for the racial microaggression she
experienced. As in many departments and other academic units in U.S. higher
education institutions, there is a lack of institutional policies addressing in-
cidents of racism. In fact, many campus administrators have dismissed, and
continue to dismiss, even blatant acts of racism (e.g., white nationalist posters
and propaganda) as “free speech” (Lawrence, 1993).10 However, this does not
need to be so. There are clear policies implemented in educational institutions
to protect against gender-based discrimination, namely the federal law known
as Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972. Title IX explicitly pro-
hibits gender-based discrimination in any educational institution that receives
federal funding. Title IX also requires all public school districts and higher
education institutions to hire someone to oversee Title IX complaints and the
investigation process. To date, no such policies exist to protect against race-
based discrimination, despite the model Title IX has provided since it was first
introduced as law in 1972. Thus, People of Color in educational institutions
who are targeted by racism are left with no formal complaint process, let
alone the ability to pursue an investigation into racist incidents. We argue
that the absence of a policy to provide some protections against racism is an
example of institutional racism. This absence only further perpetuates racism.
We articulate the relationship between racial microaggressions and systemic
racism in the following chapter. However, before moving on to this discussion
we wish to offer an alternative critical race hypo. This hypo begins the same,
but ends differently, to show how Melinda’s experience could have had a
different outcome:

Melinda is a Latina PhD student in sociology of education at a major research

university in New York. She is a 1st-year student taking the seminar course,
Introduction to Sociology of Education, which is taught by a white female
instructor. The class is engaged in a discussion about how teachers and
administrators often hold deficit perspectives of their Students of Color—
perspectives that lead to the belief that low educational attainment is a
consequence of the “cultural apathy” Students of Color and their families
have toward education. The class is discussing the prevailing discourses that
support those deficit views. During the discussion, Melinda makes a comment
in which she cites political theorists Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe.
The instructor comments to Melinda with surprise, “You’ve read Laclau and
Mouffe?” Melinda’s face becomes flushed with embarrassment, and she
suddenly feels hot. Her stomach drops. She holds her breath for a moment,
48 Racial Microaggressions

until she is able to find her words. With her heart pounding, she quickly
responds, “Yes, I have read them.” Her peers stare at her, then each other,
uncomfortably. The class ends and she approaches the instructor outside the
room, after class. Melinda tells her that she did not appreciate her comment
and how she seemed so surprised that she had read such a theoretically dense
text. The instructor tells her, “Oh, I didn’t mean anything by—”(pause). The
instructor stops for a moment and looks off into the distance as she thinks
about the comment that she made to Melinda in class. Her eyes come back
into contact with Melinda, who is visibly shaken and nervous. The instructor
suddenly realizes that her comment has produced these feelings in Melinda.
The instructor tries to find her words, and says, “You know what, I’m not going
to tell you that I didn’t mean anything by my comment because that would be
dismissive.” She continues. “I am sorry that my words made you feel that way.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention.” Melinda suddenly feels some
relief and acknowledgment from the apology. Melinda replies, “Well, I thought
you should know, considering our readings next week will focus on racial
microaggressions. I felt like that comment was a microaggression.” This time,
it was the instructor whose face flushed red with embarrassment. Melinda
noticed this and began to get nervous again waiting for the instructor’s
response. “I think you are right, Melinda. My comment was wrong and I am
sorry. I will use the readings for next week as an opportunity to educate myself
about racial microaggressions and hope that I can understand how I can avoid
doing this again to my students in the future.” Melinda thanks the instructor
and tells her that she looks forward to the discussion next week. She leaves
the interaction feeling some relief again, but also wishing that the instructor’s
comment had never been made.

We realize that this alternative hypo presents an ideal outcome not of-
ten experienced by People of Color when challenging perpetrators of racial
microaggressions. However, the hypo represents four strategies discussed
by Dr. Melanie Domenech Rodríguez (2014) for addressing everyday rac-
ism—acknowledge, apologize, thank, and offer amends. In this version of
the hypo, the instructor stops herself from telling Melinda that she “didn’t
mean anything” by her comment. The instructor realizes that in doing so,
she would be dismissing Melinda and her concerns. Instead, the instructor
chooses to acknowledge Melinda by taking a moment to listen and think
about what she had said in class to make Melinda feel this way. She then
realized that her comment was the reason that Melinda seemed shaken—
that she was indeed harmed by the instructor’s words. Legal scholars use the
term “racial harm” to describe the psychological and physiological injuries
incurred by People of Color who face racial stigmatization, stereotypes, in-
sults, and other forms of racial microaggressions (Delgado, 1982; Matsuda,
Lawrence, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993). Here, we would extend Domenech
Rodríguez’s (2014) strategy of acknowledgment to be even more specific in
Types, Contexts, Effects, and Responses to Racial Microaggressions 49

recognizing the harm caused by racial microaggressions. Perpetrators may

not be able to acknowledge a racial microaggression, even when a Person
of Color names it. For example, in the hypo above, the instructor begins to
tell Melinda that she didn’t mean anything by her comment, but then real-
izes that Melinda was hurt by what she said. In this case, the instructor was
not necessarily acknowledging the racial microaggression, but the way her
words had harmed Melinda. For this, she was sorry, and she apologized.
Unfortunately, perpetrators more often respond in other ways. In our re-
search, we have found these comments (or some similar version of them) to
be frequent responses from perpetrators when their racial microaggressions
are challenged:

• “That’s not what I meant.”

• “It was just a joke.”
• “You’re taking this too seriously.”
• “You’re being too sensitive.”
• “Don’t act like a victim.”
• “But I meant it as a compliment.”

These responses function to dismiss the racial microaggression commit-

ted by perpetrators. In doing so, the perpetrator also dismisses the effects the
Person of Color experienced as a result of the racial assault. In the critical
race hypo that opened this chapter, this is exactly what the instructor did to
Melinda. In the alternative hypo, the instructor acknowledged the harm she
caused Melinda, apologized, and thanked her.
When Melinda called out the instructor’s comment as a racial microag-
gression, the instructor responded by turning the situation into a learning
opportunity.11 She hoped that educating herself would prevent her from
making the same mistake again. This strategy can be understood as the
instructor’s attempt to make amends with Melinda, and to demonstrate the
sincerity of her apology. In this hypo, the amends the instructor attempt-
ed to make would have been an appropriate strategy. However, making
amends can take on different meanings for different perpetrators. Making
amends could be construed by some as shaking a hand, offering to take
someone to coffee, or some other superficial gesture that would not address
the microaggression. In other cases, well-intentioned perpetrators may per-
ceive making amends as, for instance, asking questions like “What can I
do?” or “How can I make this right?,” relying on People of Color to advise
them in remediating their racial assaults and seeking to make amends. It is
important for perpetrators to understand that in asking these questions (and
others like them) they discursively shift the responsibility of remediation to
People of Color, rather than keeping that responsibility where it belongs,
with themselves (Domenech Rodríguez, 2014). Such questions may make
the perpetrator feel better about themselves, but most likely will have no
50 Racial Microaggressions

effect on the Person of Color who was targeted by the racial assault. People
who are the targets of racial microaggressions want to see that something is
being done for themselves and for others. More productive questions that
could be asked by perpetrators could be, “How did I come to consciously
or unconsciously hold deficit beliefs about _______?” This question opens
the opportunity to reflect on how institutional racism and white suprema-
cy have shaped our socialization processes and influenced our beliefs and
­behaviors (see Figure 2.2).
Too often in educational institutions, white people look to People of
Color for solutions, answers, and strategies to address issues of racism, and
other racially coded issues such as “diversity,” and “equity.” Oftentimes,
this type of work exceeds the workload of white colleagues, and is typically
undervalued by the institution itself (Flores Niemann, 2012). Perpetrators
of racial microaggressions should own the responsibility of dismantling ev-
eryday racism, whether it be the racism that they carry out themselves or the
racism perpetuated by institutions. For this reason, we would argue that the
final step in this process calls for perpetrators to take more specific action
in addressing everyday racism—to educate themselves. To do this, perpetra-
tors of racial assaults must do the work necessary for them to understand
why their words and/or actions are microaggressive. This work could in-
clude reading and researching, but could also mean engaging in anti­racist
praxis. We discuss examples of this work in the conclusion chapter.
These four strategies we mention here—acknowledge harm, apologize,
thank, and educate—do not erase the effects of racial microaggressions. At
the end of this alternative hypo, Melinda no doubt remains disappointed
and hurt by the instructor’s comments. However, the instructor’s strategies
for acknowledging Melinda and the racial microaggression she perpetrated
offer some relief. Moreover, the hypo does not allow us to see the long-term
effects that these comments have on Melinda. What we hope both of these
hypos demonstrate is how perpetrators can take a proactive role in taking
responsibility for the racial microaggressions that they may unconsciously
engage with People of Color. We also hope our discussion facilitates an un-
derstanding of how targets and perpetrators are impacted by structures of
institutional racism and white supremacy.
 CHAPTER 3

Examining the “Micro” Versus

the “Macro” in Researching
Racial Microaggressions

White supremacy is a crime and a lie, but it’s also a machine that generates
meaning.

—Ta-Nehisi Coates, 2017, p. 215

Racial microaggressions could not exist without the policies and processes
that allow them to happen, or the ideological beliefs in white supremacy
that justify them. In this chapter, we dedicate further attention to the ways
racial microaggressions are intricately tied to institutional racism, and to
the ideologies of white supremacy that justify and (re)produce microaggres-
sions—a term we call the macroaggression. In the epigraph above, African
American journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates (2017) describes white supremacy as
an unending and persistent “machine” that has created meanings of race
throughout U.S. history to justify racism. Indeed, white supremacy is “a
crime” and “a lie,” a violation of humanity that is based on nothing but
abstractions of socially constructed ideas about race. Yet, it makes meaning.
This meaning is so profound that it mediates the material conditions of life
for People of Color and, ultimately, alarming and significant gaps in edu-
cation, wealth, and health (Alexander, 2010; Ansell, 2017; Shapiro, 2017).
In the first part of this chapter, we provide a framework that illustrates
the inextricable and complex relationship between everyday microaggres-
sions, institutional racism (i.e., structures and processes), and ideologies of
white supremacy that maintain racial subordination. In the second part of
the chapter, we provide examples of how the framework can be used to
analyze historical and contemporary forms of racial microaggressions. We
illustrate how this framework, A Tree Model of the white supremist Roots
of Racial Macroaggressions, can be a robust conceptual tool to understand
how People of Color experience racial microaggressions and how those ev-
eryday assaults emerge from ideologies of white supremacy.

51
52 Racial Microaggressions

THEORIZING THE MACROAGGRESSION: A TREE METAPHOR

Theorizing racial microaggressions from a CRT perspective challenges us

to more clearly articulate the structural and systemic forms of racism that
operate in everyday racist acts. To meet this challenge, we offer a model
(Figure 3.1) we call a Tree Model of the white supremist Roots of Racial
Macroaggressions to help researchers analyze how everyday experiences
with racism are more than an individual experience, but part of a larger
systemic racism that includes institutional and ideological forms. Our model
uses the image of a tree to represent what we will define in the following sec-
tions as the macroaggression, institutional racism, and racial microaggres-
sions. We use this image because it illustrates how each of these concepts are
relationally structured and interrelated.

MACROAGGRESSION: THE ROOTS OF RACISM

We begin our explanation at the roots, where the foundation of the tree
begins. In the model, the roots represent the ideological foundations of
white supremacy that reproduce and perpetuate institutional (structural)

Figure 3.1. A Tree Model of the white supremist Roots of Racial Macroaggressions

Everyday Racism
Political System (Racial
Microaggressions)

Criminal Justice
Educational System
System

Economic System
Mass Media
Health System
Institutional Racism

Racial
Macroaggression

white supremacy
Examining the “Micro” Versus the “Macro” 53

and everyday forms of racism. As we mentioned earlier, we define white su-

premacy as the assigning of values to real or imagined differences in order to
justify the perceived inherent superiority of whites over People of Color that
defines the rights and power of whites to dominance. White supremacy is an
insidious disease that upholds the conscious and unconscious acceptance of
a racial hierarchy where People of Color are consistently placed in a subor-
dinate position to whites. This hierarchy structures the ideologies necessary
for racism to persist. It is the disease at the core of structural and everyday
racial inequity. Judge Robert Carter1 (1988) used the metaphor of “disease”
to explain the failure of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
U.S. Supreme Court decision to bring an end to racial segregation. In his
reflections on the case, Carter stated:

. . . [T]he NAACP lawyers erred. The lawyers did not understand then how
effective white power could be in preventing full implementation of the law;
nor did it realize at the time that the basic barrier to full equality for blacks was
not racial segregation, a symptom, but white supremacy, the disease. (p. 1095)

Carter argues that the NAACP lawyers overlooked the role of white
supremacy in their legal efforts to desegregate the nation’s public schools.
Carter’s reflection urges an analysis of white supremacy and how it plays
a central role in the examination of racism—to understand that racism is
a “symptom” of a larger “disease” of white supremacy. The concept of
the macroaggression allows for exactly this. We define the macroaggression
as the set of beliefs and/or ideologies that justify actual or potential social
arrangements that legitimate the interests and/or positions of a dominant
group over nondominant groups, which in turn lead to related structures
and acts of subordination (Pérez Huber & Solórzano, 2015b). Thus, mac-
roaggressions provide the ideological foundations that justify the actions of
racism in the many forms they take, including institutional racism and racial
microaggressions. These ideologies provide the “mental frames” or “com-
mon sense” (Lakoff, 2006) understandings and perceptions of dominant
and nondominant groups needed to justify the oppression experienced by
the latter.2 Referring back to the model, what emerges from the roots is the
trunk, the tree’s structural support. The tree trunk represents institutional
racism.

INSTITUTIONAL RACISM: THE TRUNK AND BRANCHES

Institutional racism can be understood as formal and/or informal structural

mechanisms, such as policies and processes that systematically subordinate,
marginalize, and exclude nondominant groups and mediate their experi-
ences with racial microaggressions (Pérez Huber & Solórzano, 2015b).
54 Racial Microaggressions

Institutional racism is a key component to understanding the function and

permanence of racism in the United States.3 Indeed, systemic racism is em-
bedded within social institutions that, in turn, serve as structural mechanisms
that perpetuate racism (Marable, 2002). Without a structural understand-
ing of the racism that manifests in the everyday lives of People of Color, it
remains an elusive concept that becomes difficult to “see” in any tangible
way. However, when institutional racism is understood as a mechanism that
strategically guides policies and processes in education, government, poli-
tics, and the law, the depth and breadth of institutional racism’s significance
in the everyday lives of all (People of Color and whites) emerges. The con-
cept of institutional racism, then, articulates the larger structural conditions
that exist and allow racial microaggressions to occur.
Manning Marable (2002) uses the term structural racism to explain
how racism is embedded within U.S. social institutions. In this work,
Marable (2002) states “[I]t is not the objective reality of difference between
‘races’ that produces disparities and social inequality between groups; it is
structural racism that reproduces ‘races’” (p. 28). Here, Marable highlights
a critical function of institutional racism and its relationship to what we call
macroaggressions. He explains that the objective perceptions—the domi-
nant set of ideologies or beliefs—about racial groups cannot alone produce
actual inequalities in the lives of People of Color. It is the structural forms
of racism that (re)produce the actual and/or perceived social arrangements
that legitimate the inequitable positions between People of Color and whites
in U.S. society.
As the trunk provides structural support for the tree, institutional rac-
ism provides the structural mechanisms that perpetuate racism. To do this,
the policies and processes of our social institutions systematically subordi-
nate Communities of Color in our model. The branches that grow from the
tree trunk are those social systems. As illustrated in Figure 3.1, education,
economic, health care, mass media, criminal justice, and political institu-
tions each function to produce racial inequities in nearly every outcome of
social life—from income inequality to unequal educational opportunities,
from health disparities to disproportionate criminalization, and from inade-
quate political representation to negative media portrayals, Communities of
Color have historically and consistently been marginalized. These systems,
however, could not solely perpetuate racism if not for the everyday practices
that reinscribe it. Racial microaggressions are those everyday practices.

RACIAL MICROAGGRESSION: THE LEAVES

The remaining components of the tree in Figure 3.1 are the leaves. The leaves
emerge from each system where institutional racism is embedded. These
leaves represent the everyday practices of racism carried out by individuals
Examining the “Micro” Versus the “Macro” 55

and groups. As we have defined previously, racial microaggressions are (1)

verbal and nonverbal assaults directed toward People of Color, often car-
ried out in subtle, automatic, or unconscious forms; (2) layered assaults,
based on race and its intersections with gender, class, sexuality, language,
immigration status, phenotype, accent, or surname; and (3) cumulative as-
saults that take a psychological and physiological toll 4 on People of Color.
Microaggressions allow us to “see” and “feel” those tangible ways racism
emerges in everyday interactions. At the same time, they have a purpose.
Whether conscious or not, microaggressions perpetuate larger systems of in-
stitutional racism. Microaggressions are the layered, cumulative, and often
subtle and unconscious forms of racism that target People of Color. They
are the everyday reflections of racist systems and ideological beliefs that im-
pact Peoples of Color’s lives. As illustrated in Figure 3.1, racial microaggres-
sions are inextricably linked to institutional racism and macroaggressions.
The ideologies of white supremacy provide the foundation for institutional
racism, which in turn perpetuates racial microaggressions. One could not
exist without the other.
Before continuing to explain how we apply these concepts to real-life
examples, it is important for us to acknowledge the ways our theorizing de-
parts from others’. Our conceptualization of racial macroaggressions is dif-
ferent from that of many other scholars, who define macroaggressions as the
overt, “large scale” acts of racism (i.e., state-sanctioned racism) experienced
by People of Color (Gildersleeve, Croom, & Vasquez, 2011; Levchak, 2018;
Smith, Allen & Danley, 2007). In his early work, Chester Pierce (1970) also
differentiated microaggressions from the “gross, dramatic, obvious macro-­
aggression such as lynching” (p. 266). We argue that the terms “micro” and
“macro” do not define acts of racism as minor or consequential. On this
note, we believe Pierce would agree, as he later advocated that the “micro”
in microaggression was not an attempt to minimize everyday racist acts,
“since their very number requires a total effort that is incalculable” (p. 520).
We concur with Pierce that we are limited by the terms we use to describe
the complexities of racism and the harm they can cause.5 Like Pierce, we do
not intend to depreciate everyday racism by using the term “micro.” Thus,
in our definition of microaggressions, we state that they are “often subtle,”
but can also be blatant. As a result, we define racial microaggressions as
taking on both covert and overt forms. Our major departure from Pierce
(and others) is in how we identify the distinctions among everyday racism,
the policies and processes that (re)produce it (via institutional racism), and
the ideologies of white supremacy that justify racism. Despite these differ-
ences, we believe that our theorizing of racial microaggressions remains in
alignment, not in contention, with Pierce and the trajectory of his work on
microaggressions. We make a strategic effort to reappropriate the power
of the term “microaggression” that has endured throughout the decades to
capture a historically situated meaning for everyday racism.6
56 Racial Microaggressions

APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK

Now that we have explained the model and defined its components, we
apply it to three examples of racial microaggressions that span historical
and contemporary contexts. We do this to demonstrate the conceptual use
of the model. Furthermore, with both historical and contemporary exam-
ples, we also demonstrate its utility to analyze microaggressions across time.
The first example utilizes an historical artifact, an archival photograph to
illustrate an example of a racial microaggression, institutional racism, and
macroaggression in the 1930s Jim Crow state of North Carolina. In the
second example, we use the 2013 class-action lawsuit Floyd et al. v. City of
New York. This case challenged the New York Police Department’s (NYPD)
racial profiling practices and the unconstitutional stop-and-frisk program in
predominately African American and Latina/o communities in New York
City. The final example brings us to date in 2019 (as we write this chap-
ter) to explore the inhumane treatment of Latina/o, and specifically Central
American migrants in the United States and along the U.S.–Mexico border.

Example 1: John Vachon, “A Drinking Fountain on the County Courthouse

Lawn” (1938)

Photography, particularly historical photography, provides an insightful

view to America’s racist past (Gates, 2019). Scholars such as Abel (2010)
and Smith (2004) recognize the significance of visual photography to cap-
ture historically situated meanings of race. We agree such historical images
are powerful and that is why we chose to use a photograph as our first
example of racial microaggressions. Figure 3.2 is a 1938 photograph cat-
alogued by the Library of Congress titled, “A Drinking Fountain on the
County Courthouse Lawn,” that was taken in Halifax, North Carolina.
Photographers working for the Farm Security Administration, Historical
Section, were charged with visually documenting “continuity and change”
in America during the 1930s and 1940s, with a particular focus on visual
signage (Vachon, 1938). This photograph is included in a collection titled,
“Photographs of Signs Enforcing Racial Discrimination.”7
In the photograph, a young African American boy stands next to a
water fountain located on the lawn of a county courthouse. The entrance of
the courthouse can be seen in the background to the left. A sign is posted on
a tree to the left of the water fountain that reads, “COLORED.” The boy
seems to gaze at the photographer as the photo is taken.
We argue that the racial microaggression in the photo is the “colored”
water fountain that the boy stands next to. Although the “COLORED” sign
would not be considered subtle today, this was an everyday form of de jure
racism (Jim Crow) experienced by this young boy at this particular historical
moment (1930s), and in this particular geographic location (Southern United
Examining the “Micro” Versus the “Macro” 57

Figure 3.2. “A Drinking Fountain on the County Courthouse Lawn”

Photograph by J. Vachon, 1938

States). Separate public facilities for African Americans in the South were an
everyday experience in 1938.8 We argue that consistent with our definition
of racial microaggressions, the separate water fountain was a form of sys-
temic everyday racism used to keep those at the racial margins in their place.
Separate facilities for People of Color in the South in the 1930s were norma-
tive in dominant society, practiced and enforced accordingly in automatic and
unconscious ways by many whites and accepted as a “natural” way of life
(Alexander, 2010). If we could speak to this young boy as a grown man, he
might very well describe the cumulative psychological and physiological toll
he had experienced during his life, subjected to this form of everyday racism.
Where a racial microaggression occurs, institutional racism operates to
enforce it. The institutional racism we identify in this photo is the Jim Crow
de jure policy that maintained separate public facilities for whites and People
of Color upheld at the time in the South—the Jim Crow “Colored Only” law.
We argue that the “COLORED” sign posted on the tree in the photo rep-
resents Jim Crow. Jim Crow law is the institutional racism that functioned as
a structural mechanism to systemically subordinate, marginalize, and exclude
People of Color through policies like separate public facilities. In effect, Jim
Crow laws were the forms of institutional racism that enforced and main-
tained the everyday racial microaggressions we see in this photo. If we would
have been able to talk to the young boy in the photo as an adult, he most like-
ly would tell us about the many ways his life has been limited by Jim Crow.
58 Racial Microaggressions

Although ideologies remain unseen to the eye, there are powerful ideol-
ogies at play that justified Jim Crow laws and mediated this young boy’s ev-
eryday experience with racial microaggressions. Thus, the macroaggression
we identify here is ideologies of white supremacy. These ideologies justified
the social arrangements maintained by Jim Crow (institutional racism) that
systematically subordinated People of Color at the time, and mediated ex-
periences with racial microaggressions. Without the ideological foundations
of white supremacy, neither institutional racism nor racial microaggressions
could be justified or sustained.
With this historical artifact we identified the various ways racism mani-
fests, from the everyday to the institutional to the ideological. Drawing from
Figure 2.1 (A Model for Understanding the Types, Contexts, Effects, and
Responses to Racial Microaggressions) in Chapter 2, we could also posit
the psychological and long-term physiological effects the young boy suffered
from microaggressions such as these. Returning to Carter’s (1988) metaphor
of symptom and disease, the water fountain and signage are symptoms of
the disease of white supremacy that justify and allow for this racist signage
and all that it represents. In the next examples we move to contemporary
times to show how the Tree Model (Figure 3.1) can be used to analyze racial
microaggressions that target People of Color today.

Example 2: Floyd v. City of New York (2013)

The federal class-action lawsuit Floyd v. City of New York (2013) chal-
lenged New York Police Department (NYPD) racial profiling practices and
unconstitutional stop-and-frisks in predominately African American and
Latina/o communities in the city. Stop-and-frisk persists in cities all over the
nation, when police target mostly African American and Latino males for
unlawful stops. As we write this book, an investigation by the Los Angeles
Times has revealed that from 2015 to 2018, Black drivers were dispropor-
tionately stopped in “high crime” areas of Los Angeles by the city police
department (LAPD; Chang & Poston, 2019). A civil rights attorney in the
article described LAPD practices as “stop and frisk in a car,” referring to the
racial profiling that took place in the Floyd case. The Floyd case is a story
of a community who sought to challenge these racist practices in the courts.
African American plaintiffs David Floyd, Lalit Clarkson, Deon Dennis,
and David Ourlicht represented “hundreds of thousands” of New Yorkers
stopped by NYPD officers for “suspicion-less” stop-and-frisks that dis-
proportionately targeted African Americans and Latinas/os in the city
(Fagan, 2010). According to an expert report presented in the case, African
Americans and Latinas/os constituted 84 percent of stops from 2010 through
2012 under the city’s stop-and-frisk policy, although these groups comprise
only 50 percent of the city’s total population. Nearly all of those stopped
were released by officers who found no basis for summons or arrest (Fagan,
Examining the “Micro” Versus the “Macro” 59

2012). From 2010 to 2012, there were over 1.6 million stops by police in
New York City. Approximately 1.3 million of those stopped were African
American and Latina/o, mostly male (Fagan, 2012). This would mean that
NYPD stopped and frisked more African Americans and Latinas/os than
the entire city populations of Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, Syracuse, Albany,
and New Rochelle combined (New York State’s six largest cities after New
York City). The New York Times reported NYPD superior officers provided
explicit orders for police to target “male blacks 14 to 20, 21” years of age
under the same policy (New York Times Editorial Board, 2013).
In the opinion of the case, the court recognized that People of Color,
and particularly African American and Latino males, were targeted by racial
profiling practices such as stop-and-frisk “on the way to work, in front of
their house or just walking down the street, without any cause and primar-
ily because of their race” (Fagan, 2012, p. 3). We argue that the everyday
and persistent practices of stop-and-frisk, which explicitly targeted Black and
Brown men in New York City, were racial microaggressions. The routine
practices of stop-and-frisk were layered microaggressions, based on race and
gender. Thousands of police officers engaged these tactics automatically, and,
perhaps, without being conscious of the racism they perpetrated. From report
findings we know that those targeted by these microaggressions were nega-
tively impacted by them. The Center for Constitutional Rights (2012) found
that those stopped experienced trauma, humiliation, and endured “fear as a
way of life” (p. 7). The report also found stop-and-frisks impacted not only
individuals directly targeted by them, but entire communities, who reported
feeling the presence of NYPD as a “military-style occupation” due to these
everyday acts of racism consistently committed in their communities (p. 19).
These findings illustrate how there were primary and secondary targets of this
type of microaggressions, as we explained in Chapter 2.
Indeed, stop-and-frisks were everyday acts of racism endured by hun-
dreds of thousands of People of Color in New York City. However, in or-
der for NYPD to engage such widely used tactics, the tactics had to be
institutionalized. The most obvious form of institutional racism is the stop-
and-frisk policy itself, as a formal structural mechanism that systematically
subordinated the plaintiffs targeted by racial microaggressions. The more
conspicuous form of institutional racism operating within this example is
what the court opinion called the “unwritten” policy of “targeting the right
people for stops,” or the informal structural mechanisms of institutional
racism that subjected many members of the African American and Latina/o
communities in the city to be held under suspicion of criminality.9 According
to the opinion delivered by U.S. District Court Judge Shira Sheindlin:

[T]he City adopted a policy of indirect racial profiling by targeting racially de-
fined groups for stops based on local crime suspect data. This has resulted in
the disproportionate and discriminatory stopping of [B]lacks and Hispanics . . .
60 Racial Microaggressions

Both statistical and anecdotal evidence showed that minorities are indeed treat-
ed differently than whites . . . despite the fact that whites are more likely to be
found with weapons or contraband. (Floyd et al. v. City of New York, 2013,
p. 16)

In effect, the Floyd ruling acknowledged both formal and informal

mechanisms of institutional racism that mediated police stop-and-frisk
practices, or the racial microaggressions. Moreover, it was found that these
racist practices disproportionately targeted African Americans and Latinas/
os. What the Floyd ruling did not address is how the perpetrators of these
racial microaggressions developed their racist beliefs and perceptions about
African American and Latina/o communities. This is addressed by the final
component of the Tree Model, the macroaggression (see Figure 3.1).
Identifying the macroaggression in Floyd exposes the powerful ideolo-
gies at play that articulate racist perspectives of Communities of Color. The
Floyd case found police officers engaged racial profiling strategies based on
racist perceptions of People of Color, and that these practices were formally
and informally enforced by the city’s written and unwritten stop-and-frisk
policies. What the case does not explain is that, without widely held, norma-
tive, racist beliefs about People of Color maintained by many of the police
officers that served in the NYPD, these stop-and-frisk policies and practices
could not have emerged in such a pronounced way.
Based on the evidence presented in the Floyd case, the opinion revealed
that African Americans and Latinas/os were (1) stopped more than whites
“even when other relevant variables” were held constant, (2) were more
likely than whites to be arrested for the same suspected crimes and, (3) were
more likely than whites to be “subjected to the use of force” even when
whites were more likely to require further enforcement action in a stop (li-
ability opinion in Floyd et al. v. City of New York, 2013, pg. 12). Based
on the facts of the case, we would argue that the macroaggression here is
ideologies of white supremacy. Thus, the macroaggression that operates in
Floyd is in fact the ideological beliefs in white superiority that led to actions
of law enforcement to criminalize Men of Color through such policies (see
Alexander, 2010).

Example 3: Immigration and the “Humanitarian Crisis”

The final example we provide in this chapter takes the analysis to what
is happening in the everyday lives of some undocumented Latina/o immi-
grants in the United States. In February 2019, President Donald Trump
declared a national emergency at the U.S.–Mexico border (Baker, 2019).
The announcement was a response to an increase in the number of mostly
Central American migrants arriving at the border seeking asylum. A rise
in the violence and threat of death in their home countries has prompted
Examining the “Micro” Versus the “Macro” 61

the migration, which began in 2014 but has been given much recent atten-
tion by Trump (Carcamo, 2014). Building “the wall” at the U.S.–Mexico
border has been one of the top priorities of the Trump administration and
one that he built his presidential campaign around.10 In 2016, when Trump
announced his presidential bid, his speech focused mostly on further vilify-
ing undocumented Mexican immigrants, calling them “rapists” and “crim-
inals,” and later, “bad hombres” (Mendoza-Denton, 2017; Pérez Huber,
2016). Trump’s racist rhetoric became clear, quickly.
Throughout his election and his presidency, Trump has characterized
undocumented communities as dangerous “animals,” associating them with
gangs, violence, and drugs (Davis, 2018). As a result, research has found
that his rhetoric has directly led to increases in hate crimes throughout the
nation (Miller & Werner-Winslow, 2016) as well as more hostile environ-
ments in schools and universities (Gomez & Pérez Huber, 2019; Muñoz &
Vigil, 2018; Rogers, Ishimoto, Kwako, Berryman, & Diera, 2019). As we
will explain in this chapter, the targeting of Latina/o undocumented com-
munities is nothing new, and has a longstanding history in the United States.
Here, we return to the concept of racist nativism introduced at the begin-
ning of the book to explain how we position an analysis of the anti-Latina/o
racism we have seen emerge during the Trump administration.

LatCrit & Racist Nativism

In the Introduction, I (Lindsay) told a story of how the concept of racist

nativism evolved through a series of collective research projects with Danny
and other colleagues. As explained in the Introduction, our theorizing of
racist nativism began with a specific branch of CRT, Latina/o critical theory
(LatCrit). LatCrit is a theoretical branch of CRT and serves as the foun-
dation for unmasking the particular forms of racism that have emerged in
recent immigration debates. LatCrit enables researchers to better articulate
the specific experiences of Latinas/os through a more focused examination
of the unique forms of oppression this group encounters. (Montoya &
Valdes, 2008; Solórzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001). LatCrit is guided by the
same tenets as CRT (see Figure 1.2), but also acknowledges issues specific
to Latina/o communities, such as immigration status, language, ethnicity,
culture, and phenotype. LatCrit allows for a more refined research focus
and has led to the development of racist nativism.11
Racist nativism explains how People of Color have historically ex-
perienced racialized constructions of non-nativeness in the United States,
regardless of their actual origin (Pérez Huber et al., 2008). Specifically,
racist nativism examines the “inextricable” link between race and immi-
gration status, contextualized by the historical racialization of Immigrants
of Color, and allows for an analysis of the current moment of increased
anti-immigrant sentiment (Sánchez, 1997). This conceptual framework
62 Racial Microaggressions

explains how perceived racial differences construct false perceptions of

People of Color as “non-native,” and not belonging to the monolithic
“American” identity—an identity that has historically been tied to percep-
tions and constructions of whiteness (Acuña, 1972; Haney López, 2006;
Johnson, 2012). Historically, immigration law has been intricately tied
to legal constructions of racial categories used to regulate those arriving
in the United States and excluding those already residing in the country.
Since the late 19th century, legal strategies have been used to restrict immi-
gration and the rights of various immigrant groups perceived to misalign
with constructions of whiteness (and American-ness), including Southern
and Eastern European, Chinese, and Japanese immigrants. Today, legally
sanctioned strategies of racist nativism target Latina/o communities both
immigrant and non-immigrant, particularly Mexicans and Chicanas/os
(Gómez, 2018; Ngai, 2004; Saito, 1997).
As explained in the Introduction, we have defined racist nativism as

the assigning of values to real or imagined differences, in order to justify the su-
periority of the native, who is to be perceived white, over that of the non-native,
who is perceived to be People and Immigrants of Color, and thereby defend the
rights of whites, or the natives, to dominance. (Pérez Huber et al., 2008, p. 43)

This understanding of racist nativism builds upon the definitions of race

and racism provided in Chapter 1. It also highlights the functionality of rac-
ist nativism to assign subordinate values to People of Color generally, and
Latina/os especially. It does this by assigning a perceived differential status
from whiteness that characterizes U.S. nativeness and belonging. In effect,
racist nativism discursively assigns real and/or perceived subordinate values
to Latina/os generally, and Latina/o immigrants in particular, in order to
justify a perpetual non-native status to this group and to reinforce perceived
white superiority. Racist nativism has been used as a concept to understand
the discursive functions of racist nativism that shape the educational tra-
jectories of Latina/o students, and particularly undocumented Chicana/
Latina women (Pérez Huber, 2009a, 2011; Pérez Huber & Cueva, 2012).
It has also been used to explore how the Trump administration has utilized
racist nativism in current debates about undocumented immigration, and
how they are linked to the discourse about changing demographics of the
United States (Pérez Huber, 2016). In this section, we utilize racist nativism
to explore the types of racial microaggressions that target undocumented
Latina/o immigrants, and especially those from Central America, who are
arriving in the United States seeking asylum.
Figure 3.3 is a scene from Linda Freeman’s short film, Unaccompanied:
Alone in America (2018). The image is of a young Latino boy sitting in an
immigration courtroom before a judge with oversized headphones placed
on his small head to receive translation services. This image, and the film
Examining the “Micro” Versus the “Macro” 63

Figure 3.3. Unaccompanied: Alone in America (2018) by Linda Freeman12

it comes from, was meant to be representative of real-life events taking

place every day in federal U.S. immigration courts. Here, mostly Central
American migrant children who arrive in the United States without parents
(or have been separated from them) are categorized as “unaccompanied
alien children” (UAC’s) and required to appear in immigration court with-
out the right to an attorney or an interpreter. Freeman created the short film
in hopes it would “galvanize the general public” to take action against un-
accompanied children, some as young as toddlers, being subjected to court
hearings by themselves.13 The film is based on Freeman’s research in federal
U.S. immigration courts, including interviews with pro bono attorneys who
had represented unaccompanied children in court hearings.
We argue that what this photo represents is a type of racial microaggres-
sion, a racist nativist microaggression. Similar to racial microaggressions,
as defined earlier, racist nativist microaggressions are a form of systemic
everyday racist nativism used to keep Latina/o communities in their place.
This type of microaggression can be verbal or nonverbal, can be layered,
and can take a cumulative toll on those who are targeted by them. This little
boy represents so many Latina/o migrant children being required to appear
in immigration court without understanding any of its proceedings, or even
the language being spoken. Like many other unaccompanied children, he
was most likely detained for some period of time in a holding cell or camp
with living conditions that some reporters have compared to concentration
camps (Pitzer, 2018). Dr. Colleen Kraft, President of the American Academy
of Pediatrics, has called the separation of migrant children “government
sanctioned child abuse” (Alvarez, 2018). These children have been held here
without a trial and without guilt of any crime. This has become an unfortu-
nate and everyday reality for tens of thousands of unaccompanied Latina/o
64 Racial Microaggressions

children in the United States in recent years. The racism that characterizes
this inhumane treatment is intricately tied to their status as undocumented
immigrants. This example is different from the others we have provided in
this chapter thus far, where the racial microaggression is isolated to one
action or event. In this example, the ways that Latina/o unaccompanied
minors are targeted by racist nativist microaggressions happens when they
are arrested, when they are detained, when they are required to appear in
court without representation or translation, and in their interactions with
officials who remain complicit in their treatment. It has been reported that
by the end of 2018, the number of unaccompanied children in government
custody was over 14,000, the highest number ever reached in the United
States (Kopan, 2018). While the image represents the experiences of un-
accompanied minors, there are thousands of adult Latina/o migrants who
faced the same treatment.14
The institutional racism that supports the racist nativist microaggres-
sions so many Latina/o migrants have been subjected to are the policies that
have facilitated this treatment. In May of 2018, the Trump administration
unveiled a zero-tolerance policy that mandated the prosecution of every in-
dividual who entered the United States illegally. In the months that followed
this announcement, Central American migrants continued to arrive at the
U.S.–Mexico border seeking asylum to escape the violence and death that
threatened them at home (Morrissey, 2018). Many of the migrants traveled
thousands of miles through Central America and then Mexico, in a group
for safety, in what the Trump administration and news media called “mi-
grant caravans.” The Trump administration’s response was to first deny asy-
lum to those who enter the country without documentation (Miroff, 2018).
However, when those efforts were blocked by a federal judge, the adminis-
tration formed an agreement with Mexico to allow for the migrants to wait
in Mexico instead of in the United States to apply for asylum (Dinan, 2018;
Partlow & Miroff, 2018). These events led to Trump’s claim of a national
emergency, referencing the unfounded “humanitarian crisis.”15
The macroaggression in this example, as in the other examples we have
provided in this chapter, are the ideologies of white supremacy that justi-
fy and maintain the unjust and inhumane treatment of Latina/o undocu-
mented migrant children and adults. The Trump administration’s inhumane
immigration policies continue to propagate fear and trauma among immi-
grant communities across the United States (see O’Toole, 2020). The Kaiser
Family Foundation (2018) reported that key health implications related to
family separations: (1) compound existing trauma experienced by children
and their families in their home countries and in their journeys to the United
States, and (2) can have short-term and lifelong negative impacts on phys-
ical and mental health. Research has shown that these inhumane perspec-
tives and white supremacist ideologies that undergird the administration’s
stance on immigration have led to “a discursive opening for others with
Examining the “Micro” Versus the “Macro” 65

similar beliefs to . . . reinforce racist nativism, creating a space to more com-

fortably perform white supremacy” (Pérez Huber, 2016, p. 241).
As we explained in Chapter 2, racial microaggression is contextual. The
context of the racial microaggression must be understood in its persistent
and everyday forms. When this context is understood, there emerges an
opportunity to examine the underlying systemic causes of microaggressions.
When systemic racism is revealed, the white supremacist ideologies that up-
hold its perpetuation and maintenance can be seen. In these ways, we agree
with Coates’s (2017) use of the metaphor “machine” to describe white su-
premacy. However, our analysis of racial microaggressions takes one step
further to address what Judge Robert Carter once urged us to understand
about racial inequity—the difference between symptoms of racism and the
disease of white supremacy.
 CHAPTER 4

Racism Within and Between

Communities of Color
Internalized Racism

Too bad mi’jita was morena, muy prieta,1 so dark and different from her
own fair-skinned children. But she loved mi’jita anyway. What I lacked in
whiteness, I had in smartness. But it was too bad I was dark like an Indian.
“Don’t go in the sun,” my mother would tell me when I wanted to
play outside. “If you get any darker, they’ll mistake you for an Indian.” And
don’t get dirt on your clothes. You don’t want people to say you’re a dirty
Mexican.”

—Gloria Anzaldúa, 2002, p. 220

For many People of Color, this excerpt of Gloria Anzaldúa’s (2002) essay,
titled “La Prieta,” about the preference for light skin will sound sadly
familiar. In this work, Anzaldúa explains that the rough draft of the es-
say was shelved for a year because she was “terrified” to write about
how racism and heteropatriarchy can be perpetuated within Families and
Communities of Color (p. 220). She wrote, “I am still afraid because I will
have to call us on a lot of shit, like our own racism, our fear of women,
and sexuality” (p. 221). Yet, Anzaldúa took the risk, exposing many per-
sonal and painful experiences during her lifetime. Honoring her work, we
take a risk in this chapter and attempt to theorize how Communities of
Color can also participate in structures of oppression. We also found that
this chapter was a difficult one to write. However, like Anzaldúa (2002)
we believe it is an important discussion to have in order to better un-
derstand how racism and white supremacy operate in our own lives and
relationships with each other. As we described in Chapter 1 and will reit-
erate here, we believe People of Color cannot be racist but can internalize
racism. Our communities have never possessed the political or economic
power to create or enact structures of oppression. However, as Anzaldúa
(2002) writes, we are capable of “unwittingly passing on to our children
and our friends the oppressor’s ideologies” (p. 231). This chapter will

66
Racism Within and Between Communities of Color 67

examine how white supremacist ideologies can be internalized within our

own communities and enacted upon each other. Indeed, the internalization
of deficit perspectives, racist, and heterosexist stereotypes among People
of Color are one way that systems of white supremacy are (re)produced
and white dominance is maintained. In this chapter we introduce the con-
cept of internalized racism to explain a form of everyday racism that oc-
curs within our own communities and benefits white supremacy. But first,
some history.
The preference for light skin over dark skin is one that is prevalent in
many Communities of Color (Harris, 2008). It has also created conflict. It is
a phenomenon that is uncomfortable to discuss, even among those with crit-
ical viewpoints. However, it is important to understand that it did not begin
with us. Such preferences have endured for centuries in Latina/o and African
American communities since Spanish colonization of the Americas in the
15th century. It was during this time that Spanish colonizers used skin color
to create a caste system of racial hierarchy that ensured the subordination
of dark-skinned African slaves and indigenous communities of the Americas
by white colonizers (Acuña, 1972). Once the caste system was abolished,
the hierarchy it created continued in the hearts and minds of many white
Europeans. They brought these beliefs with them to colonize the West from
the 16th through 21st centuries. Their pillage included destroying Native
American communities, establishing an institution of slavery to build gener-
ational wealth from Black labor, annexing Mexican land to expand U.S. ter-
ritory over the Southwest, and importing Mexican, Chinese, and Japanese
labor to establish and maintain agribusiness in the United States (Acuña,
1972; Coates, 2017; Dunbar-Ortiz, 2014; Gómez, 2018; Roediger, 1999;
Takaki, 2008).2
Although there is much more history to tell than what we can provide
here (see Figure 1.1), we point to this brief historical legacy of racism
and white supremacy as the origins of internalized racism, what Anzaldúa
(2002) described above in “La Prieta.” It is important to acknowledge
these origins, and the centuries-old preference for whiteness that deter-
mines who deserves access to education, opportunity, success, health,
wealth, and who does not. Institutional racism ensures that white life out-
comes exceed those of People of Color (see Gaxiola Serrano & Solórzano,
2018; Pérez Huber, Vélez, & Solórzano, 2018). However, white supremacy
also operates to shape the beliefs and viewpoints of People of Color, par-
ticularly when it comes to race. A preference for whiteness can be shaped
by everyday environments, including through television, film, media, so-
cial media, and pop culture—all of which pervade life in contemporary
society. For Women of Color, there are even more ways to be influenced by
whiteness, when white standards of beauty and “good hair” define what
68 Racial Microaggressions

is considered feminine and beautiful (Berry & Duke, 2011; Jerald, Ward,
Moss, Thomas, & Fletcher, 2017; Montoya, 1994). We must be clear that
when racism is reproduced within Communities of Color, as in Anzaldúa’s
example, it is because of the historical legacies of racism and perceived
white superiority that have shaped our society. The preference for white-
ness we may see shows up in our own families and communities and is
bound by centuries-old narratives that white is better, good, civilized, vir-
tuous, beautiful, etc. This chapter explains how racism can be perpetuated
within Communities of Color, through what we call internalized racism.
In this chapter, we first explain this concept, and then show how it man-
ifests in Communities of Color. We offer a model to understand internal-
ized racism, and how it can help explain how racism operates within a
racial group (intragroup) and between racial groups (intergroup).
We define internalized racism as the conscious and/or unconscious ac-
ceptance of a racial hierarchy and its related ideologies and structures that
positions and privileges whites above People of Color (Kohli, 2017; Pérez
Huber, Johnson, & Kohli, 2006). This racial hierarchy reinforces white su-
premacy and is institutionalized through racist structures (i.e., mass media,
criminal justice, education, economic system, political system—see Figure
3.1). Internalized racism is a learned process of socialization where one in-
ternalizes and acts out the negative perceptions of People of Color created
by racism and white supremacy. These negative perceptions can be internal-
ized and enacted through intragroup and intergroup conflict that reinforces
institutionalized racism and the racial hierarchies it produces. Figure 4.1
illustrates how internalized racism operates.
The model begins at the outer frame of the figure, where we place
white supremacy, the ideologies and structures that (re)produce all forms
of racism generally, and internalized racism specifically. As we explained
in the previous chapter, ideologies of white supremacy justify the structural
mechanisms that systemically subordinate People of Color through institu-
tionalized racism. Institutionalized racism creates a racial hierarchy, where
whites are placed above People of Color. In turn, this leads People of Color
to internalize those racial hierarchies in the form of internalized racism.
Internalized racism can then be acted out against other Persons of Color
within one’s racial group, causing intragroup conflict. Internalized racism
can also be acted out against a Person of Color from another racial group,
causing intergroup conflict, which (re)inforces institutional racism and
white supremacy. In the following sections, we provide examples, grounded
in data, that explain how internalized racism is experienced, and how it
emerges to create intragroup and intergroup conflict within and between
Communities of Color.
Racism Within and Between Communities of Color 69

Figure 4.1. Internalized Racism and Intragroup and Intergroup Racial Conflict

white supremacy

Institutionalized Racism
Rein
Creates forc
e s Intra- and Intergroup
Racial Conflict

Causes
whites

Racial Leads to ð
Hierarchy Re-Createsï
Internalized Racism

People of Color

INTERNALIZED RACISM: THE CLARK DOLL EXPERIMENT

The landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

was supposed to end state-sanctioned segregation that prevailed during the
Jim Crow era. Key to this decision was the research of social psychologists
Kenneth and Mamie Clark (Guinier, 2004). What became known as the
Clark Doll Experiment was a study of the psychological effects of racial seg-
regation on African American children. The study included Black children
between the ages of 5 and 7 years old. In this experiment, children were
shown two dolls—one Black and one white—and asked a series of questions
that prompted them to identify which of the dolls was a “good” doll, which
was a “bad” doll, which was the “nice” doll, and which doll they would
prefer to play with (Clark, Chein, & Cook, 2004; Clark & Clark, 1947,
1950).3 The study found that African American children typically preferred
the white doll over the Black, associating negative characteristics with the
Black doll and positive characteristics with the white doll. The findings
provided evidentiary support for the plaintiffs in Brown, who argued that
70 Racial Microaggressions

African American children internalized the perceived inferiority most whites

held about Blacks during the time.4 The photo in Figure 4.2 was taken by
the renowned photographer Gordon Parks, who documented the study in a
special issue of Ebony magazine in 1947.5
In the photo, Dr. Clark stands before the young boy, with his arms out-
stretched, holding a Black doll in one hand and a white doll in the other.
The child sits before him, pointing to the white doll, while looking at Dr.
Clark. Because we know the context of this photograph, we believe that it
reflects how the child has internalized racism. Using our model in Figure 4.1,
we explain. In 1947 in the United States (particularly in the South) white
supremacist ideologies were widely accepted. These ideologies were critical

Figure 4.2. Gordon Parks, “Untitled, Harlem, NY, 1947”

Photograph by Gordon Parks. Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation.
Racism Within and Between Communities of Color 71

in establishing institutional racism, in which many local and state laws were
passed to segregate People of Color from whites, limit their voting rights, and
prohibit marriage between People of Color and whites. As we have explained
in earlier chapters, such laws became known as Jim Crow (Gates, 2019). In
the photo, this young boy’s reaction represents the internalization of the ra-
cial hierarchies that uphold principles of white supremacy. We can imagine
that Parks is taking this photo while Dr. Clark asks the little boy a question,
perhaps about which is the “good” doll, or the “nice” doll, as he points to the
white doll. Because of white supremacy, institutional racism, and the racial
hierarchies created by them, this little boy, no more than 7 years old, had
come to believe in the superiority of whites over Blacks, leading to his own
internalized racism. The little boy would experience in everyday life the man-
ifestations of white supremacy, with whites in control of Black lives. Now
decades old, the Clark Doll Experiment has been replicated multiple times
in social science research (see Fegley, Spencer, Goss, Harpalani, & Charles,
2008; Spencer, 2008; Van Ausdale & Feagin, 2001) and in the media (see
Ahuja, 2009; CNN, 2010). These replicated studies have found consistent
results over time, showing that internalized racism is a persistent consequence
of racism and white supremacy in society today. The next section will de-
scribe a form of internalized racism in Latina/o communities.

INTERNALIZED RACIST NATIVISM:

EL TEATRO CAMPESINO’S “EL CORRIDO”

In Chapter 3 we defined racist nativism. In this section we use the concept of

racist nativism to show how People of Color can internalize the racist and
xenophobic beliefs that define perceptions of U.S. belonging. We use Figure
4.3 to argue that white supremacy is the overarching ideology and related
structures that subordinates People of Color generally and Immigrants of
Color in particular. Within that overarching frame, institutionalized racist
nativism creates racial hierarchies, with the native (i.e., white) on top and
the perceived immigrant on the bottom. People of Color then internalize
those racial hierarchies in the form of racist nativism. Internalized racist
nativism re-creates those racial hierarchies within People of Color, or, in this
case, between citizens and noncitizens. This leads to intragroup conflict,
which in turn reinforces institutionalized racist nativism.
The following example of internalized racist nativism is borrowed from
a 1976 play called El Corrido (Ballad of a Farmworker) (Teatro Campesino,
1976). The play was written by Luis Valdez and performed by El Teatro
Campesino. The overall plot line for El Corrido6 highlights the migration
journey of the allegorical figure Jesus Pelado Rasquachi from a village in
central Mexico to the agricultural communities of the United States, to the
end of his life in an urban community in California. In this tale, Valdez
72 Racial Microaggressions

Figure 4.3. White Supremacy, Racial Hierarchies, and Internalized Racist Nativism

white supremacy
Institutionalized
Racist Nativism Rein
forc
e s
Creates Intra- and Intergroup
Racial Conflict

Causes
Perceived
Native

Racial Leads to ð Internalized Racist

Hierarchy Re-Createsï Nativism
Perceived
Immigriant

explores how Mexican migrants are controlled by poverty in both Mexico

and in the United States, and how the state controls their daily lives, the
power of agribusiness, and the social borders embedded in institutional and
everyday racism and racist nativism. The play also uses the trope of hi-
erarchies. For instance, the Patron (owner) is always on top, followed by
the Patroncito (Mexican labor contractor), and, at the bottom, the Pelado
(worker).
As we continue to theorize about how People of Color internalize rac-
ism, racist nativism, and heterosexism we return to a staple in ethnic studies
readings in the 1960s and 70s—Albert Memmi’s The Colonizer and the
Colonized (1974). Here Memmi offers a useful tool to understand how the
colonizer controls the colonized (a sort of internalized control)—how the
owner controls the worker. He shares the concept of the “pyramid of petty
tyrants.” He describes it as

each one, being socially oppressed by one more powerful than he, always finds
a less powerful one on whom to lean, and becomes a tyrant in his turn. . . .
All have at least this profound satisfaction of being negatively better than the
colonized. (p. 61)
Racism Within and Between Communities of Color 73

In our examples we see how People of Color sometimes set up these

“pyramids of petty tyrants”—racial hierarchical pyramids, racist nativist
hierarchical pyramids, and at the intersection of each of these, gendered
hierarchical pyramids. Borrowing Memmi’s “pyramid of petty tyrants” and
inserting it into the play El Corrido, we found that the playwright, Luis
Valdez, set up 14 tripartite hierarchical examples of power and oppression.
For example, in Scene Two of the play Valdez starts with the:

American
Mexican
Bracero.

He continues with the:

Patron
Patroncito
Mojado.

When speaking to gender dynamics he refers to:

El Patron
El Hombre
y La Mujer.

When his children internalize the hierarchy and are becoming assimilat-
ed into U.S. society, they speak to:

Americans
Mexican-Americans
Mexicans.

These four examples of the “pyramid of petty tyrants” show the impor-
tance of having someone to look down on, someone less than you. Derrick
Bell (1992b) speaks to a similar hierarchical dynamic at work in Black/
White relations in the beginning of his book Faces at the Bottom of the Well:

Black people are the magical faces at the bottom of society’s well. Even the
poorest whites, those who must live their lives only a few levels above, gain
their self-esteem by gazing down on us. Surely, they must know that their deliv-
erance depends on letting down their ropes. Only by working together is escape
possible. Over time, many reach out, but most simply watch, mesmerized into
maintaining their unspoken commitment to keeping us where we are, at what-
ever cost to them or to us. (p. v)
74 Racial Microaggressions

The New York Times opinion writer Charles Blow (2019), when speak-
ing on white supremacy, states that “white supremacy isn’t necessarily about
rendering white people as superhuman; it is just as often about rendering
nonwhite people as subhuman. Either way the hierarchy is established, with
whiteness assuming the superior position.” So, being at the bottom of that
racial pyramid, that racial hierarchy, is an important step in dehumanizing
and rendering People of Color as subhuman.
To set the stage for our example of internalized racist nativism, the three
main characters have been selected by a labor contractor to work in the ag-
ricultural fields of California. They are in the back of the truck heading to
the fields. One of the characters is Alberto, an older Mexicano farmworker
(the Old Man). The second character is Beto, a younger Mexican American
from the city looking for work. The third character is Gonzalez, a young
undocumented Mexicano farmworker. In the first scene of the play, we get
introduced to the characters in the back of the truck as the Old Man brings
out his guitar to sing a corrido—“The Corrido de Jesus Pelado Rasquachi.”
Scene two takes us through Jesus’s journey from a small village in Mexico
to the United States, where he travels working in the agricultural fields
throughout the country. At the end of Scene Two, Jesus Pelado Rasquachi
gets deported to Mexico. Scene Three, returning to the back of the truck,
begins with the Old Man and Beto discussing Jesus Pelado Rasquachi get-
ting deported and figuring out his next moves to return to the United States.
As they discuss the various movidas (moves) that Jesus can use, the dialogue
takes an unfortunate turn between Beto and Gonzalez:

SCENE THREE

GONZALEZ:
Oi es, ques sabes tu [Hey, what do you know]. You know so many
movidas [moves].
What are you doing in this troka [truck]?
You’re no better than the rest of us.

BETO:
Who said I was, man?

GONZALEZ:
Yo soy de Mexico. [I am from Mexico].

BETO:
I’m from Califas [California].
So what, man? We’re all Raza here.
But if we are going to survive ese, we got be cool, we got to think, we
got to let it slide.
Racism Within and Between Communities of Color 75

If I can’t get a job in the city, esta suave hermano [it’s cool my
brother], I’ll work in the fields.
It’s no skin off my nose.
As long as I get enough to breeze, I do what I please. Mi entiendes
[You understand]?

GONZALEZ:
Esto es puros babozadas [This is a bunch of bull shit].

GONZALEZ:
Do you know who you are, pocho [assimilated Mexican American]?

BETO:
Hey, I’m a Chicano, OK?

GONZALEZ:
(Through his teeth)
Chicanooooo.

BETO:
(Turning to the OLD MAN)
Do you believe this guy?

GONZALEZ:
Do you know what the word means? Chicaneria?

BETO:
Yah, I know what it means.

GONZALEZ:
It means crook! Ladron! [Thief!].

BETO:
(Again, turning to the OLD MAN)
Can you believe this dude?

GONZALEZ:
Hablan totacha, pero no saben ni madres de español! [They speak
street slang, but they don’t know any Spanish!]

BETO:
What did you say, ese?
76 Racial Microaggressions

GONZALEZ:
Que no sabes ni madres de español, tapado! [That you don’t know
any Spanish, dumb ass!]

BETO:
Y que tu sabes, Chuntaro, hijo de tu chin . . . ! [And what do you
know, wetback, son of a b . . . .!]
(BETO and GONZALEZ lunge at each other and the farmworkers
intercede, trying to prevent a fight. Then they tell the OLD MAN:)
Go ahead with the corrido.

BETO:
Go ahead paisano [countryman].
(BETO and GONZALEZ eye each other carefully, but they calm
down. The OLD MAN clears his throat)

OLD MAN:
Didn’t I tell you? Sometimes we come across the border, but we take
the border with us.
That’s what happened to Jesus Pelado Rasquachi.
The border went into his maseta [head].

In Scene Three, Luis Valdez takes us into the back of the labor contrac-
tor’s truck on the way to the fields. You get to know the character of BETO
as a young urban Chicano just looking for work any way and anywhere he
can find it. As a U.S. citizen (with that privilege), BETO also comes across
as dismissive of what undocumented Mexican workers have to go through
when they come to the United States in search of work. There is a point
in Scene Three when BETO is trying to show the other workers on the
truck how he uses his movidas [moves] both in work and in life that puts
him in conflict with GONZALEZ, the Mexican undocumented worker. At
that point in the scene GONZALEZ tells BETO that his talk is “puras ba-
bosadas”—pure bullshit—and goes on to challenge BETO’s Mexican iden-
tity by stating “Do you know who you are, pocho [assimilated Mexican
American]?” At this point, the re-created racial hierarchies are confusing,
because it is GONZALEZ who is putting Mexicans or Mexicanos on top of
Chicanos or pochos [derogatory terms for assimilated Mexican Americans].
He goes on to ask “Do you know what the word means? Chicaneria . . . It
means crook! Ladron [Thief)!].” Clearly GONZALEZ doesn’t understand
the history and politics of the ethnic identifier Chicano but has come north
from Mexico with stereotypes of what Chicanos or Mexican American
are—and clearly has created a hierarchy that puts them in conflict with each
other. BETO responds with “Y tu, que sabes, Chuntaro, hijo do tu chin . . . !
[And what do you know, wetback, son of a b . . . .!].” It is at that point
Racism Within and Between Communities of Color 77

that they lunge at each other and the workers in the truck get in between
them. The OLD MAN finally intervenes and brings the intragroup con-
flict back to the corrido and states: “Didn’t I tell you? Sometimes we come
across the border, but we take the border with us. That’s what happened to
Jesus Pelado Rasquachi. The border went into his maseta [head].” Using
the tools of racist nativism and the “pyramid of petty tyrants,” we see that
two groups at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder find ways through
experience and language to place themselves one rung above the other and
re-create racial hierarchies within groups.7 This leads to the reinforcement
of institutionalized racist nativism and white supremacy.

INTERGROUP CONFLICT: THE “BLEXIT” MOVEMENT

Now that we have explained examples of internalized racism, and inter-

nalized racist nativism, we present the final component of Figures 4.1 and
4.3, the intergroup conflict caused by internalized racism that emerges be-
tween Communities of Color. We use the Blexit campaign to show this type
of conflict. In an interview with the Washington Post Magazine, African
American conservative commentator Candace Owens described the emer-
gence of Blexit (Nelson, 2019). She coined the term after a 2018 meeting
of the Conservative Political Action Conference, where Owens met Nigel
Farage, conservative British leader of the Brexit Party. In a manner similar
to the way the Brexit portmanteau was used to signify the exit of Britain
from the European Union (EU), Owens sought to create a campaign calling
for African Americans to exit the U.S. Democratic Party. Thus, “Blexit”
began. The Blexit campaign seeks to attract more African Americans to the
Republican Party, and to disrupt the history of Black support of Democratic
candidates and political views.8 According to Owens, African Americans
and other People of Color have been “used” by the Democratic Party to gain
political power but received nothing in return (Nelson, 2019). She argues
that the abysmal conditions of Communities of Color provide the evidence.
Owens takes on other familiar tropes to argue that liberal values have done
more harm than good for African American communities. Some of these
racist tropes include: (1) That the focus on racism creates a “victimhood
mentality” (also discussed in Chapter 1) and a “lack of personal responsibil-
ity” among African Americans; (2) that welfare programs are to blame for
government dependence of Black families, and in particular, of single Black
mothers; (3) that institutional racism does not exist; and (4) that institution-
al racism is not a problem in U.S. society, but rather, the problem is African
Americans who believe it does. Owens claims that African Americans have
been “mentally enslaved” on the Democratic “plantation” and that it is
time they “Be Free” (Nelson, 2019). To signal these ideas, “Be Free” is the
main tagline used on the Blexit website, and “Off the Plantation” is a slogan
78 Racial Microaggressions

used by the campaign.9 Yet, in the same interview Owens speaks to African
Americans and states:

It’s because of racism, because of some imaginary white boogeyman, that you’re
never gonna be successful . . . if anything in this society, there’s almost a level of
Black privilege now. [Whites] can’t say anything or else [they’re] called a racist.
I can say anything I want because I’m Black. So that’s a whole new privilege,
that Black people get away with saying things that white people could never
say. (quoted in Nelson, 2019)

Owens uses yet another trope, reverse racism, to argue that white peo-
ple have somehow lost their privilege, replaced by those “new” privileges
gained by Blacks.
It is no surprise, then, that Owens and the Blexit campaign support
President Donald Trump and many of his racist policies, particularly his
anti-immigrant stance. At the inaugural event in January 2019 of Blexit in
Los Angeles, California, many attendees donned red Make America Great
Again baseball caps, one of Trump’s signature campaign tools. At this rally,
the Blexit campaign distributed posters that read “Build the Wall” and in
small print below, “Americans before illegals” for rally attendees to wave
during the event (see Figure 4.4). In fact, Owens has been clear that the
Blexit movement is hinged upon a hard, anti-immigrant stance, similar to
the Trump administration’s.
Blexit has been especially successful in the use of social media and oth-
er technology platforms, where this rhetoric is launched into the public

Figure 4.4. Blexit “Build the Wall” Poster

Racism Within and Between Communities of Color 79

discourse. In 2018, Owens tweeted: “Regarding #DACA: Send them ALL

home!—Unlimited immigration has harmed the black community for de-
cades. Put Americans first, not law-breaking illegal immigrants. In conclu-
sion: WALL!”
In this tweet, Owens refers to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
(DACA), the federal program implemented by the Obama administration
to provide certain eligible undocumented youth with protection from de-
portation and a permit to work legally in the United States.10 The major-
ity of DACA recipients are undocumented Latina/o youth, mostly from
Mexico and Central America (Pérez Huber, 2015). In a 2019 podcast inter-
view, Owens explained undocumented immigration as a threat to African
American communities:

I’m really focused on the Black community. The community that has been af-
fected the most by illegal immigration is the Black community. It’s just a fact.
I mean, you talk about low-wage workers, the people that are the most unem-
ployed in this country, are young Black men between the ages of 18 and 21.
Right? So they have been negatively impacted by the influx of people running
over the border. Because they come here and say, ok, well you were gonna pay
this guy seven dollars, whatever the minimum wage is, we’ll do it for less. And
that directly impacts the Black labor force. (Rogan, 2018)11

In this interview, and in others, Owens reproduces two longstanding

anti-immigrant narratives. The first is the perceived threat of undocument-
ed immigrants to the livelihood and well-being of others, in this case, the
African American community. The second is the myth that undocumented
immigrants are a“resource-drain” on the U.S. labor market and the econ-
omy. Such narratives have pervaded immigration discourse in the United
States since the early 20th century, and have been used to target Latina/o
undocumented communities more recently (Chavez, 2008; Chomski, 2014;
Ngai, 2004). These narratives reflect exactly what we described earlier in
Chapter 3 and in the previous example of El Corrido—racist nativism, that
is, a specific form of racism that targets Latina/o undocumented or immi-
grant communities. We argue, then, that this example shows how Owens
has internalized racist nativist beliefs about undocumented immigrants.
It also shows how Owens perpetuates racist nativism to explain the ineq-
uitable conditions that exist within African American communities. This
claim would directly contradict Owens’s argument for personal responsibil-
ity, and shows the instability of her position about the effects of racism on
Communities of Color.
We now return to our model in Figure 4.3 to trace the process of
internalized racist nativism. Candace Owens, the Blexit campaign she
started, and many of its People of Color followers, are perpetuating nar-
ratives that hold strong foundations in white supremacy. Racist nativism
80 Racial Microaggressions

is institutionalized through anti-immigrant policies, and it emerges more

frequently during moments of heightened anti-immigrant sentiment. For
example, in 1994 California voters passed Proposition 187 (the Save Our
State initiative) to deny social services to the undocumented. In 2006,
House Resolution 4437 was introduced to further militarize the border
and criminalize the undocumented. In 2010, Arizona passed Senate Bill
1070, which requires immigration checks during local law enforcement
stops. As we discussed in Chapter 3, in 2018 the Trump administration
implemented a zero-tolerance policy on undocumented immigration that
separated thousands of migrant children from their parents, and has led
to the detainment of thousands more adults in federal detention centers.12
Such policies justify a racial hierarchy, where whites are placed above
People of Color, in this case undocumented Latina/o communities. People
of Color internalize this hierarchy, where it becomes re-purposed to place
some groups above others. In the case of Candace Owens and the Blexit
movement, African American communities are placed above Latina/o un-
documented communities in this re-purposed hierarchy. The internaliza-
tion of such a hierarchy has led to intergroup racial conflict between these
groups. This conflict can be seen across the Blexit website, as well as its
social media platforms, where supporters often post their racist nativist
views using the hashtag Blexit.
For example, one post we found was a photo (see Figure 4.5) of three
smiling African American women, standing proudly as they held small U.S.
flags.13
The woman in the middle wore a t-shirt that read, “I THINK, therefore
I am a CONSERVATIVE.” The three women held a handmade sign that
stretched across their torsos. The sign read, “Democrats choosing illegal
immigrants first means black lives come last.” In this message, the women
implicitly refer to Black Lives Matter, a movement to end police murders of
African Americans specifically, and police violence in Black communities
generally.14 It shows the conflict that can arise when Communities of Color
internalize racist nativism and repurpose racial hierarchies that ultimately
pit one racial group against another. As scholar Carol Anderson (in Nelson,
2019) explains, “[Candace Owens] just appears to be one of a small coterie
of black folks circling around Trump . . . trying to put a black face onto
white supremacy.”15 Indeed, we would agree with Anderson’s analysis, and
we would add an additional dimension to this argument. That is, Derrick
Bell’s (1992a) concept of racial realism. According to Bell (1992a), racial
realism is the premise that racism is a permanent aspect of our society, em-
bedded in the lives of all persons in the United States, and destructive to all
of society’s institutions and structures. Bell argues that racial equality in the
United States is an unobtainable goal, due to the permanence of racism. The
institutional racism that our society was built upon has historically main-
tained, and will continue to maintain, the subordination of Black people
Racism Within and Between Communities of Color 81

Figure 4.5. #Blexit Social Media Post

(and we would argue other People of Color).16 Thus, in the struggle for
justice and dignity of Communities of Color, racial equality should not be
the goal. Bell (1992) states:

Black people will never gain equality in this country. Even those herculean efforts
we hail as successful will produce no more than temporary “peaks of progress,”
short-lived victories that slide into irrelevance as racial patterns adapt in ways
that maintain white dominance [emphasis added]. This is a hard-to-accept fact
that all history verifies. We must acknowledge it and move on to adopt policies
based on what I call: “Racial Realism.” This mind-set or philosophy requires us
to acknowledge the permanence of our subordinate status. That acknowledg-
ment enables us to avoid despair, and frees us to imagine and implement racial
strategies that can bring fulfillment and even triumph. (pp. 373–374)

A central premise of racial realism is that racism will never be overcome

because it is adaptive, constantly changing form in efforts to “maintain
white dominance.” For Bell, racism is like a mythological shape-shifter.17
It has the ability to change its own contours and configurations by shifting
form. According to Bell, if history and the law can teach us anything, it is
that racism has always been, and always will be.
82 Racial Microaggressions

Candace Owens exemplifies what Bell (1992) describes as “involun-

tary pawns in defining and resolving society’s serious social issues” such
as immigration. White supremacy uses People of Color to achieve its own
goals of white dominance. Owens upholds white supremacy in her own
beliefs, and in her use of power (e.g., political power) to encourage other
People of Color to do so. In this way Owens indeed is a “pawn” of white
supremacy, what Bell would also call a “race traitor” (1992b).18 “Race trai-
tors” are those People of Color who have betrayed the interests of their
communities by perpetuating stereotypic and deficit perspectives of People
of Color and supporting policies that ensure racial harm, thereby working
toward maintaining the status quo.19 Race traitors actively use their power
to uphold white supremacy and justify institutional racism. These People
of Color leaders have used their political, economic, and intellectual power
to uphold white supremacy by undermining their own communities and/or
other Communities of Color. They have perpetuated deficit perceptions and
stereotypes of Communities of Color and supported anti-immigrant policies
in their rhetoric and policymaking. Indeed, these race traitors have become
“pawns” in the game to maintain white dominance. Through their political
and intellectual influence, they have contributed to empowering institution-
al racism and ideologies of white supremacy. Bell’s concept of “race traitor”
is one example of the adaptation of racism that takes place within a process
of racial realism, that is, structures of institutional racism adapting to allow
some People of Color to have just enough power to keep their communities
in their place within the racial hierarchy (see Figures 4.1 and 4.3).
In this chapter we have taken up an uncomfortable, but necessary, con-
versation about how racism manifests within Communities of Color. We
believe that People of Color have agency to make decisions about how they
do or do not participate in racism and white supremacy. However, white
supremacy is embedded within all social institutions, which, in turn, influ-
ence the perspectives of all those who pass through them. As a result, deficit
perspectives of Communities of Color often become normalized into widely
held beliefs that blame these communities for social inequities and low edu-
cational outcomes. These deficit perspectives are so pervasive, they can infil-
trate the ways that People of Color themselves view their own communities.
Thus, People of Color can perpetuate racism and the ideologies of white
supremacy that ensures its permanence. We have attempted to show this
process in the models of internalized racism and internalized racist nativism
that we have provided in this chapter. It is important to note that these mod-
els are simplified visuals of very complex processes and experiences. The
models offer a conceptual beginning point to bring in the complexities and
nuances of lived experience to understand how internalized racism occurs.
Historically, law, policy, and governance have protected white rights
and white lives over those of People of Color (Bell, 1992a). Internalized
racism and internalized racist nativism are symptoms of the disease of white
Racism Within and Between Communities of Color 83

supremacy that enables People of Color to believe the perceived inferior-

ity of themselves and their communities, in a racial hierarchy where they
take a perpetually subordinate status to whites. Institutionalized racism and
racist nativism perpetuate this ugly cycle that can lead to conflict and even
self-hate (Bagwell, 1994). The Clark Doll Experiment provided empirical
evidence of internalized racism in the 1950s, while the race traitors of our
society today and since show how internalized racism and racist nativism
have persisted through time. Anzaldúa (2002) opened our discussion of
internalized racism in this chapter, and we close it with her reminder of
hope for our communities as she ended her essay “La Prieta.” She states,
“I believe that by changing ourselves we can change the world” (p. 232).
Anzaldúa (2002) believed that, through our resistance, transformation was
possible. We focus on these possibilities in the following chapter.
 CHAPTER 5

Responding to Racial
Microaggressions
Theorizing Racial Microaffirmations

We opened the first chapter of this book with the stories of People of Color
to bring their lived experiences to the center of our analysis. We return to
the stories of People of Color as our book comes to a close. However, the
stories we highlight here are different. Rather than the recounting of painful
experiences of everyday racism, these stories focus on affirmation, human-
ity, and joy. We argue that Communities of Color have always responded
to racial microaggressions in powerful and transformational ways. One of
those responses is a concept we call racial microaffirmations (Pérez Huber,
2018; Solórzano, Pérez Huber, & Huber-Verjan, 2020). We began theo-
rizing this concept 5 years before the writing of this book (see Solórzano,
2014).1 In this chapter, we explain how we came to define, and later theo-
rize, this concept that moves our analysis from everyday racism and systems
of oppression to the resiliency and hope of Communities of Color.
Before providing our definition, we begin with a story from the mem-
oir of African American literary critic and historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
(1994). For us, Gates’s story highlights what racial microaffirmations look
like in the experiences of People of Color. It was this story that became the
starting point to theorize the concept of racial microaffirmations.2 Thus, his
story precedes our definition. Gates begins his 1994 memoir, titled Colored
People, with a letter to his daughters, Maggie and Liza. He explains that, in
part, the letter is prompted by a question posed by Liza, about why Gates
would talk to African American “strangers” on the street. Gates writes:

Dear Maggie and Liza. . . . Last summer, I sat at a sidewalk café in Italy, and
three or four “black” Italians walked casually by. . . . Each spoke to me; rather,
each nodded [emphasis added] his head slightly or acknowledged me with a
glance, ever so subtly. When growing up, we always did this with each other,
passing boats in a sea of white folk. . . . Which is why I still nod or speak to
black people on the streets and why it felt so good to be acknowledged by the
Afro-Italians who passed my table at the café in Milan. . . . Above all, I enjoy
the unselfconscious moments of a shared cultural intimacy, whatever form they

84
Responding to Racial Microaggressions 85

take, when no one else is watching, when no white people are around. . . . And
I hope you’ll understand why I continue to speak to colored people I pass on
the streets.
Love, Daddy. (pp. xi–xvi)3

In his story, Gates (1994) explains why he chooses “to speak to colored
people” he passes in the streets, even though (according to his daughters)
they may seem to be strangers. Gates explained that there were two pur-
poses for why he does this. The first was to acknowledge other African
Americans amid the “sea of white folks,” as a strategy of acknowledgment
in white-dominated space. The second purpose, he explained, was that this
acknowledgment created a “shared cultural intimacy” among other African
American people (p. xv). What Gates seems to suggest is that this “shared
cultural intimacy” is an affirmative validation of Blackness amid white
space, where People of Color often experience marginalization, exclusion,
and erasure.4
We seek to name and theorize such moments in this chapter—those
everyday forms of affirmation and validation that People of Color engage
in a variety of public and private settings. The nods, smiles, embraces, use
of language, and other actions that express acknowledgment, respect, and
self-worth—what we call racial microaffirmations. We define racial microaf-
firmations as the subtle verbal or nonverbal strategies People of Color en-
gage that affirm each other’s dignity, integrity, and shared humanity. These
moments of shared cultural intimacy allow People of Color to feel acknowl-
edged, respected, and valued in a society that constantly and perpetually
seeks to dehumanize them (Pérez Huber, 2018; Solórzano, Pérez Huber, &
Huber-Verjan, 2020). We argue that racial microaffirmations can be one
response to the everyday indignities posed by racial microaggressions (see
Figure 2.1 in Chapter 2).

THEORIZING RACIAL MICROAFFIRMATIONS

Microaffirmations is a term that was first used, to our knowledge, in 2008

by economist Mary Rowe. Rowe (2008) used the term to describe effective
mentorship practices for faculty and practitioners in academic and profes-
sional spheres. Rowe defined “micro-affirmations” as, “apparently small
acts, which are often ephemeral and hard-to-see, events that are public
and private, often unconscious but very effective, which occur whenever
people wish to help others succeed” (p. 46). Rowe argued that “micro-af-
firmations” could improve professional environments and productivity
when people’s strengths were valued and acknowledged. Indeed, Rowe’s
(2008) idea is useful in naming everyday affirmations that make others feel
validated. We were intrigued by this concept because Rowe explains how
86 Racial Microaggressions

recognizing the strengths that people bring with them to the workplace can
promote feelings of validation. We considered how such a concept could
be used to develop a way to describe the strategies People of Color use to
affirm each other. In 2014–2015, we began using the term racial microaf-
firmations in academic presentations to describe one way People of Color
respond to racial microaggressions (see Pérez Huber & Huber-Verjan, 2015;
Solórzano, 2014, 2015). Our conceptualization of racial microaffirmations
is quite different from Rowe’s. As we explained in our definition, and in the
example we used from Gates’s (1994) memoir, we focus on the everyday
strategies of validation and acknowledgment People of Color utilize with
and among each other. Our definition is more conceptually aligned with
Jones and Rolón-Dow (2018), who also argue that racial microaffirmations
“resist the impact of racism” through acts of affirmation and validation
(p. 39). We extend the concept of racial microaffirmations from validation
to naming strategies that seek to (re)claim the humanity and challenge the
dehumanization of everyday racism (Pérez Huber, 2018; Solórzano, Pérez
Huber, & Huber-Verjan, 2020).
Our conceptualization of racial microaffirmations led us to search the
literature for theories that could help us ground an understanding of this
concept. During this search, we found self-affirmation theory in psychology
to be useful. Claude Steele first introduced self-affirmation theory in 1988 as
a “self-system that essentially explains ourselves, and the world at large, to
ourselves . . . activated by information that threatens the perceived adequa-
cy or integrity of the self” (pp. 261–262). Steele (1988) explains that self-­
affirmation is a “coping process” used to maintain self-integrity when one
experiences a cognitive dissonance that is “inconsistent with self-images of
adequacy and integrity” (p. 277). In other words, when an individual has an
experience that challenges their self-integrity (e.g., racial microaggressions),
the person will engage in what Steele calls “adaptive reactions” to reduce
the “sting-to-self” and eliminate the perceived threat in an effort to main-
tain their integrity. Steele (1988) examined this phenomenon in a series of
experimental tests where people were exposed to some negative perception
of themselves (e.g., being perceived as uncooperative). In responding to the
threat, the individuals engaged in “self-affirming actions” (e.g., agreeing to
help) that validated their overall self-integrity by affirming characteristics of
the self that were important to their identities (e.g., being helpful and collab-
orative) (p. 267). It is important to note that Steele argues “self-affirming ac-
tion” does not necessarily directly challenge a specific threat to self-integrity
(p. 268). Rather, he states, “an individual’s primary self-defensive goal is to
affirm the general integrity of the self, not to resolve the particular threat”
(p. 268). Steele continues,

because of this overriding goal, the motivation to adapt to a specific self-threat

of one sort may be overcome by affirmation of the broader self-concept or of
Responding to Racial Microaggressions 87

an equally important, yet different, aspect of the self-concept, without resolving

the provoking threat. (p. 268)

In other words, one may engage in self-affirming behaviors to validate

self-integrity, without the expectation that they can resolve the threat. This
finding may explain why People of Color continue to engage in racial mi-
croaffirmations, regardless of the permanence of racism, or racial realism
(Bell, 1992a).5
In 2006 (18 years after Steele), Sherman and Cohen (2006) expanded
on the theory of self-affirmation. They explained:

People can be affirmed by engaging in activities that remind them of “who

they are” . . . those qualities that are central to how people see themselves . . .
In a difficult situation reminders of these core values can provide people with
perspective on who they are and anchor their sense of self-integrity in the face
of threat . . . A “self-affirmation” makes salient one of these important core
qualities or sources of identity. (p. 189)

Similar to Steele (1988), Sherman and Cohen (2006) argue that self-­
affirmations can lessen the negative effects of threats to the self by affirming
important aspects of one’s own identity to maintain a sense of “self-worth”
(p. 184). However, Sherman and Cohen extend Steele’s theorizing of self-­
affirmation to emphasize the significance of social identities (e.g., race, gen-
der) in coping with threats. Thus, rather than being exposed to negative
information or events about an individual’s personality or habits—as was
the case for most of Steele’s experiments in 1988—Sherman and Cohen un-
derline the significance of threats to “collective aspects of self.” They state,
“People will defend against threats to collective aspects of the self much
as they defend against threats to individual or personal aspects of self . . .
even when these events do not directly implicate oneself” (p. 206). In fact,
psychological research has supported this claim, particularly as it relates to
stereotype threat for People of Color.6 We argue that negative racial group
threats (such as stereotype threat) are a form of racial microaggressions.
Thus, according to this psychological research, People of Color will engage
in strategies to affirm a collective racial group’s worth, what we call racial
microaffirmations. Moreover, Sherman and Cohen (2006) argue that self-­
affirmations can deter negative health outcomes related to stress, and that
“it is plausible that repeated affirmations might help people cope with daily
stressors” (p. 199), such as the stress of everyday racial microaggressions.
Finally, these researchers and others have found that self-affirmation strate-
gies can improve academic outcomes for Students of Color in schools and in
institutions of higher education (Cohen, Garcia, Purdie-Vaughns, Apfel, &
Brzustoski, 2009; Layous, Davis, Garcia, Purdie-Vaughns, Cook, & Cohen,
2017; Walton & Cohen, 2011).
88 Racial Microaggressions

It is clear to us that psychological research has already begun to theorize

self-affirmations among People of Color by examining how they happen
and how People of Color are impacted by them. We argue that the theoriz-
ing of self-affirmation in psychology provides evidence of the possibilities
of racial microaffirmations. However, our theorizing of racial microaffir-
mations departs from this research through our focus on the explicit ways
those affirmations are related to an individual and collective sense of worth,
among racial groups. This is exactly what we believe Gates (1994) refers
to in his description of “shared cultural intimacy” (p. xv) and exactly what
we refer to in our explanation of racial microaffirmations as affirming the
shared humanity of People of Color.

EXAMPLES OF RACIAL MICROAFFIRMATIONS: EXISTING LITERATURE

Once we found theoretical grounding for the concept of racial microaffirma-

tions, our next step was to explore existing literature to find examples. As
with Gates (1994), we knew that writers and scholars would not necessar-
ily be using the term racial microaffirmations to describe their ­experiences.
However, having a clear definition and a theoretical grounding provided
a set of guidelines to see the multiple ways that racial microaffirmations
could emerge in everyday life. We found several powerful examples that we
will explain here. Thus, we began this next step in our research with the
question, what other examples of racial microaffirmations can we find in
the literature?
To begin this search, we returned to Gates’s (1994) retelling of what
we would argue is a racial microaffirmation. What Gates described was a
complex and nuanced cultural understanding of a simple gesture, a head
nod. Although we are not members of the African American community,
we understood that the head nod is an important and culturally significant
act within the Black community, demonstrating acknowledgment and re-
spect. Thus, our next step was searching for literature that would explore
the significance of the nod. Indeed, we found several important pieces that
included a discussion of this type of racial microaffirmation. These works
are important, because: (1) They show how a racial microaffirmation is
distinct from race-neutral affirmations, such as those Rowe (2008) outlines,
and (2) how racial microaffirmations are a response to everyday racism and
systemic oppression.
Sociologist Michael Eric Dyson (2001) explains the historical signifi-
cance of racial codes utilized by African Americans dating back to slavery.
Dyson explains, “In slavery, our forebears had to devise a means of com-
munication that slipped the notice of the majority culture, since what they
had to say sometimes challenged the status quo . . . After slavery, the need
for codes persisted” (p. 93). These codes persisted, Dyson argues, because
Responding to Racial Microaggressions 89

African Americans could not freely express themselves in “a hostile white

world” (p. 93). The nod, then, has become one of these codes. For Dyson,
the nod is also a gendered code. Dyson explains:

At its root, the nod may be most useful for its affirming role in the politics of
acknowledgment among black men. American society remains reluctant to rec-
ognize our humanity. Or more fundamentally, that we exist at all. The nod is a
way of literally and figuratively saying, “I know you exist. I see you. I acknowl-
edge your being.” (p. 94)

In Dyson’s explanation of the nod, he describes the act of acknowledg-

ment and the recognition of humanity that we theorized in our understand-
ing of a racial microaffirmation. In Dyson’s explanation, the nod is also a
gendered act, specifically affirming Black men. Other Black scholars, how-
ever, discuss the nod in more general terms, as a culturally significant gesture
practiced by Black communities, regardless of gender. For example, sociol-
ogist Elijah Anderson (2018) explains what he calls the “the racial nod”:

Being generally outnumbered by white people, black people feel a peculiar vul-
nerability, and they assume that other black people understand the challenges
of this space in ways that white people cannot. Since the white space can turn
hostile at any moment, the implicit promise of support black people sense from
other black people serves as a defense, and it is part of the reason that black
people acknowledge one another in this space, with the racial nod—an informal
greeting serving as a trigger that activates black solidarity in this space. (The
Nod section, para. 2)

Like Anderson (2018), Black journalist Musa Okwonga (2014) reiter-

ates the meaning of the nod to take on an element of unspoken community
solidarity amid hostility. Okwonga states:

The Nod is also so much more than that: It’s a swift yet intimate statement
of ethnic solidarity . . . That means it’s always a privilege to receive The Nod,
which is the closest thing to a secret handshake I will probably ever have.
Sometimes, though, it’s bittersweet, reflecting how far black people yet have to
go to feel at home in their surroundings. (paras. 2, 6)

Finally, African American Studies professor James Jones (2017) exam-

ined how race is structured into the organization of the U.S. Congressional
workplace. Among his findings was that Black staffers (men and women) uti-
lized the nod as an adaptive strategy to feel seen in a white male–dominated
environment where they are often rendered unseen. In Jones’s (2017) study,
the nod transcended professional rank, class, and age as a practice engaged
by all levels of African Americans in Congress, from service employees to
90 Racial Microaggressions

Congress members. It was used to facilitate introductions between Black

people on Capitol Hill, to acknowledge “a shared experience” among them,
and to gauge shared viewpoints and value systems.7
Our research on the meaning of the nod practiced in African American
communities solidified our initial cultural intuition8 that this gesture could
be considered a racial microaffirmation.9 The scholars and writers we have
mentioned here share deep and meaningful insights into this act found to
be marked by a desire to build solidarity and empowerment within white
space. As Gates (1994) first described in his memoir, this research confirmed
for us that the nod is a powerful example of a racial microaffirmation prac-
ticed among the African American community. Our research on the nod
prompted us to consider what kinds of racial microaffirmations we may
encounter in our own Latina/o communities.
Our next example comes from previous research we have engaged with
my (Lindsay) eldest daughter, Layla. For several years, we have worked with
Layla to understand how racial microaggressions emerge in the everyday
experiences of Youth of Color. Layla found that one of her first memories of
a racial microaggression was an image she found in a children’s book, with
a racist depiction of a “Mexican bandit” (Pérez Huber & Solórzano, 2015a;
Solórzano, Pérez Huber, & Huber-Verjan, 2020). As her work identifying
racial microaggressions progressed, she began to develop an understanding
of racial microaffirmations, a concept we were just beginning to explore.
Layla found that children’s literature could also be a place where racial mi-
croaffirmations could be found that empowered Youth of Color (Solórzano,
Pérez Huber, & Huber-Verjan, 2020). Layla explained:

I started thinking about what the opposite of a microaggression would be. I

thought about the book I was reading at school during that time, Esperanza
Rising, by Pam Muñoz Ryan (2002). I explained to my mom that the main
character, Esperanza, was a young Latina girl from a wealthy family in Mexico.
After her family experienced several tragedies, Esperanza and her mother lost
their home in a tragic fire. Esperanza and her mother had no choice but to move
to a migrant camp and work as laborers in the fields of the Central Valley in
California. The book was an example of what the opposite of a microaggres-
sion is because Esperanza persevered through very hard times and is a great role
model for other Latina girls, like me. I felt proud to be able to share the same
race as Esperanza. (p. 204)

While in earlier research Layla had found children’s literature to be an

unfortunate source of racial microaggressions, she found that children’s
books could also be a place where children are empowered and affirmed by
the stories and characters they read about. It has been found that Children
of Color are far less likely to read books with characters that reflect their
own racial identities (Pérez Huber, Camargo Gonzalez & Solórzano, 2018).
Responding to Racial Microaggressions 91

However, Layla’s story illustrates the affirming power of children’s books

that include positive portrayals of People of Color.
Layla’s example prompts another important question about racial mi-
croaffirmations: What are the ways adults can engage microaffirmations
with Children of Color? This question led us to other examples of microaf-
firmations in the field of education. Janie Victoria Ward’s (1996) research
examined how Black mothers socialize their daughters to maintain self-­
esteem and self-worth through culturally specific parenting practices. In her
work, she features the story of one Black mother, Lillian:

When my daughter Patsy was four, I would sit her down between my legs and
every morning as I combed and braided her hair I would have her reach up and
run her hands through it. “Look,” I’d say, “Look at how pretty your hair is . . .
Look at how different it is from your little white friends and how special that
is.” (p. 85)

In Ward’s research, this mother strategically engaged the practice of

affirming her young daughter’s beauty by complimenting her hair. This was
an attempt to validate her daughter’s beauty and worth, in a world where
beauty is defined by whiteness.
In a similar education study about Latina mothers, Bianca Guzmán
(2012) explained how the culturally specific practices of sharing cuentos,
consejos, and pláticas10 with daughters can create positive self-agency for
Latina girls that enables them to challenge racism and other forms of sub-
ordination in their lives. In a separate psychology study, J. Parker Goyer
and colleagues (2017) examined how positive affirmations of middle school
Students of Color (Latinas/os and African Americans) led to increased lev-
els of self-esteem and long-term positive academic outcomes. Such studies
highlight the prevalence and significance of racial microaffirmations in the
lives of Youth of Color.
We have found other examples of microaffirmations in existing liter-
ature. We would argue that legal scholar Margaret Montoya’s (1994) use
of the Spanish language (and storytelling) in her groundbreaking law arti-
cle “Máscaras, Trenzas y Greñas: Un/masking the Self While Un/braiding
Latina Stories and Legal Discourse” is a strategy to affirm her own “mesti-
za” identity, and that of other Latina/o readers (p. 32).11 Montoya (1994)
writes:

The Euro-American conquest of the Southwest and Puerto Rico resulted in in-
formal and formal prohibitions against the use of Spanish for public purposes.
So by inscribing myself in legal scholarship as mestiza, I seek to occupy com-
mon ground with Latinas/os in this hemisphere and others, wherever situated,
who are challenging Western bourgeois ideology and hegemonic racialism. (p.
32–33)
92 Racial Microaggressions

Montoya explains that her use of the Spanish language is a conscious

strategy to express solidarity with other Latina/o scholars concerned with
racial justice in legal writing. In this act of disruption of the traditional legal
canon, Montoya utilizes language to signal recognition and affirmation to
other critical Latina/o and Spanish-speaking scholars in the legal academy.
Indeed, Montoya (1994) argues that, “incorporating Spanish words, say-
ings, literature, and wisdom can have positive ramifications for those in
the academy and in the profession, and for those to whom we render legal
services” (p. 34). Montoya shows us that racial microaffirmations in schol-
arship and literature can go beyond the politics of representation—beyond
the seeing of others like you represented in writing—and toward a con-
scious strategy to subvert the discursive power that mediates what formats
become “traditional” in academic scholarship. Montoya did this with her
groundbreaking article in multiple ways. Her use of language was one, but
her use of personal narrative and counterstorytelling were also unique and a
strategic contribution to academic legal scholarship. These subversive strat-
egies invite People of Color to engage with texts they have historically been
excluded from. Indeed, Montoya’s work suggests that there are pedagogical
implications of racial microaffirmations.

EXAMPLES OF RACIAL MICROAFFIRMATIONS: OUR PERSONAL STORIES

When I think about racial microaffirmations, I (Lindsay) think about the

moments spent with my daughters each year at their annual baile folklórico
performances. This traditional Mexican dance performance has its roots in
regional community dance forms in Mexico that were eventually adapted
for stage performance (Najera-Ramirez, 2009). Each dance in the perfor-
mance highlights the regional dance and music styles of the Mexican state
from which it comes. This dance is always accompanied by music (and is
even better with live music), and there are certain mariachi-genre songs that
are very likely to be played at these performances. “Son de la Negra” and
“La Madrugada” are almost always included in Mexican baile folklórico
performances in the U.S. Southwest.12 Although I did not necessarily listen
to these songs growing up in my household, hearing them—particularly as
they are accompanied by Latina/o dancers, and especially children—has an
effect on me. When I see them dressed in their bright, colorful dresses, danc-
ing to music that celebrates Latina/o culture, it is a sight of beauty inspired
by cultural pride. Each time (they have performed for many years) I get
goosebumps. Music in our communities (and in others) can be a powerful
form of racial microaffirmation.13 It can remind us of the beauty of the
countries we are from, or the countries from where our elders/ancestors
have come, of home. This has meaning particularly when you live in a place
Responding to Racial Microaggressions 93

where your people are often demonized as criminals and economic burdens,
and treated as second-class citizens (Chavez, 2008; Pérez Huber, 2016).
When I see and hear their dancing, I am reminded of the privilege I have
to be able to engage in the (re)claiming of our culture and language with
my daughters. From family stories passed down from my elders who lived
in the U.S. Southwest for generations (Texas and California), I knew they
constantly encountered racist nativist messages, particularly in schools—
that Spanish was a “bad” language, not allowed to be spoken, that being
Mexican meant being less than, and that it was necessary to make strategic
moves toward whiteness to avoid some of the harshest discrimination. My
mother, aunt, and uncle all changed their names as elementary students at
their predominately white Catholic school, when nuns couldn’t pronounce
them, and their peers teased them. My grandparents did not speak Spanish
to them, or to my sisters and me, as we later grew up with them. Today,
I understand my family history and the choices they made to be mediated
by racism and racist nativism. I also understand the consequences of this
legacy of racist nativism. It has led to difficult moments in developing racial
and cultural identities and an understanding and confidence in who I am
and where I belong, and it has led to the linguistic terrorism14 I have experi-
enced. However, as a parent, I could play a role in taking back some of what
was taken from us. There have been many choices and efforts made to do
this; dancing folklorico was one of them. Their dancing is a type of racial
microaffirmation that is a response to the generations of racism experienced
by my family in the U.S. Southwest.
As I (Danny) reflect on how I came to racial microaffirmations, I’m
reminded of my experiences growing up in neighborhoods to the east of
Downtown Los Angeles. My father, Manuel Solórzano Sr., inculcated in me
a love of our communities. Not just the Latina/o communities of the east-
side, but the African American communities of the southside, and the Asian
American communities of Little Tokyo and Chinatown near Downtown
Los Angeles. Riding with my father through these neighborhoods deliver-
ing Mexican bread to small markets throughout the neighborhoods of East
L.A., South Central L.A., and Downtown L.A. infused a knowledge of these
communities, a respect for these communities, a love of these communities.
It was my first introduction to the community cultural wealth that existed
all through these communities. These journeys affirmed for me their beauty,
their history, and my place in these communities.15 My later coming to ethnic
studies generally, and Chicana/o and African American studies in particular,
was further affirmation of my history and others’ histories—the stories of
People of Color. And now, as faculty, every year I attend Chicana/o Studies
departmental graduations and Raza graduations. These culminating events
are further affirmations for students, their families, their communities, and
for us, their faculty.
94 Racial Microaggressions

EXAMPLES OF RACIAL MICROAFFIRMATIONS: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE

With the concept of racial microaffirmations being a recent development,

studies have yet to examine the topic empirically. Thus, our next step in
theorizing was to empirically investigate racial microaffirmations. Our most
recent work was conducted with the assistance of my (Lindsay’s) graduate
students Tamara Gonzalez and Gabriela Robles. The study explores how
Graduate Students of Color at a public 4-year university in California ex-
perience racial microaffirmations in schools, at home, and in their com-
munities. This study confirmed our theorizing of racial microaffirmations
and the existing literature that implicitly supports it, showing how students
feel acknowledged, valued, and validated by these everyday acts. We also
found that just as there are types and contexts of racial microaggressions
(see Figure 2.1; Pérez Huber, 2015), there are types and contexts of racial
microaffirmations.
Ariel was a 1st-year male-identified Latino graduate student. He shared
that in one of his classes he was learning about former Mexican president
Benito Juárez, and coincidentally encountered a mural of him on his univer-
sity campus. Ariel shared:

Being an activist, and also being in political science, I was learning

about other leaders around the world. It just so happened that I was
learning about Benito Juárez. Even though I’m from Ciudad Juarez,
which [is named] after him, I really don’t know much about him. So
I was walking . . . and I pass by La Raza building and somebody was
painting a portrait of Benito Juarez. When I saw that, I was just like,
what? You have that here? I felt that connection and I was just like
happy. The following week I went [back] and checked it out. And
once I went inside [the building] and I saw that they had different
photographs of other leaders, I felt I [could] identify, and I felt like all
these are my [people]. (personal communication, October 24, 2019)

Ariel explains that although he is from the Mexican city named after
this historic leader (Ciudad Juárez), he knew very little about Benito Juárez’s
life until he learned about him during his undergraduate career. Seeing the
mural of Juárez on his campus was surprising, and he immediately felt a
connection. The image prompted him to return to the building where it was
displayed, and where the multicultural center was located. Here, he found
more photos of Latina/o leaders. Seeing them made him feel connected to
his community. The type of microaffirmation that Ariel describes is a visual
racial microaffirmation experienced within the context of his university.16
Brittany is an Afro-Latina woman who recently completed her graduate
program. She is a case worker at a nonprofit organization in Los Angeles fo-
cused on re-entry support for formerly incarcerated youth. In her example,
Responding to Racial Microaggressions 95

Brittany explains how music can play a role in racial microaffirmations. The
context that she describes is her workplace. Brittany shared:

Unfortunately, formerly incarcerated [people] are mostly Black and

Brown. I think when they come into the office, it’s kind of like a dual
affirmation, where I feel like I can be myself and I’m not in a space
filled with white people doing nonprofit work. I’m in a space filled
with People of Color, and I’m playing hip hop music when they’re
coming by the office. I’m playing jazz and salsa. I feel that kind of
makes them feel welcome because they are often pushed out of spaces,
and led down a path that society forced them into. So the office
space feels like the center of a racial microaffirmation, where you’re
providing services in an authentic way, and they feel comfortable
being able to express themselves, and we get to know [them] on a
deeper level. So that feels really good. (personal communication,
March 7, 2019)

Here, Brittany explains how she utilizes music that has cultural rele-
vance for the communities she works with as a way to discursively open her
office door for the mostly African American and Latina/o youth she serves.
She also explains that a racial microaffirmation can be a “dual” experience,
being simultaneously affirming for the person giving and for the person re-
ceiving the microaffirmation. In this case, she is affirmed by the Youth of
Color that she works with, and they are affirmed by her support as they
share space and time in this predominately white nonprofit organization.
Teresa shares a similar experience, showing us that space can be a type
of racial microaffirmation. Teresa is a 1st-year graduate student and full-
time teacher who identifies as Latina. She teaches 2nd-graders at a predom-
inately Latina/o elementary school in Los Angeles. In her example, Teresa
describes a morning routine she engages each day with her students in the
classroom.

I try to affirm my students every day, all day because I’m a firm
believer in a holistic approach to education, and especially [with]
little ones. I think it’s really important to build that foundation. So
every morning before we walk in, we do a call. We do a lot of “call
and response” and I say, “Hey there scholars!” They say, “Hey, Ms.
Lozano.” And then I say, “I’m here and I see you!” And then they
respond, “It feels good to be seen!” So every day, they start their
day knowing that their presence is valued and important. And then
after we have breakfast, we stand up and we do a poem, an excerpt
[from a TedTalk] that I got from an educator named Dr. Rita Pearson.
We say, “I am somebody. I was somebody when I came. I’ll be a
better somebody when I leave. I am powerful. I am strong. I deserve
96 Racial Microaggressions

the education that I get here. I have things to do, people to impress
and places to go.” And we say that every morning no matter what.
They don’t know, but I’m also affirming myself when I say that.
So I think it’s important when you’re affirming others, you’re also
affirming yourself as well. And I think that that really builds that
community and that understanding of our shared humanity. (personal
communication, March 7, 2019)

In Teresa’s powerful example she explains a strategic pedagogical prac-

tice as a racial microaffirmation that she engages in her 2nd-grade classroom.
She utilizes a call-and-response method, coupled with a poem excerpt, to en-
sure that her students begin each day feeling “seen” and “important,” and
reminding them that they are “powerful.” Teresa’s experience also confirms
Brittany’s idea of what she called a “dual” microaffirmation. That is, the
mutual reciprocity that can be experienced by People of Color that engage
in racial microaffirmations. Teresa builds on this idea by suggesting that it
is the mutual reciprocity that can lead to solidarity and a sense of “shared
humanity” in the act of a racial microaffirmation.
In this chapter we have just begun to scratch the proverbial surface of
what we believe is a concept with great potential and depth. Indeed, racial
microaffirmation is an everyday strategy of resistance. However, it is also
something more. It is a particular form of resistance marked by the desire to
affirm the dignity and humanity of People of Color—those qualities signifi-
cant to all human beings—but often denied by institutional racism and white
supremacy. Racial microaffirmations, then, are a (re)claiming of the dignity
and humanity that everyday racism attempts to take from Communities of
Color. We have only begun to explore the many ways that racial microaf-
firmations can emerge. We believe racial microaffirmations can be seen all
around us, in everyday environments, if we pay attention. For example,
spaces created by and for People of Color can be a racial microaffirma-
tion, such as the Raza graduations Danny described in this chapter. Layla
Huber-Verjan described how racial microaffirmations can emerge in texts
(Solórzano, Pérez Huber, & Huber-Verjan, 2020). Lindsay described a type
of racial microaffirmation experienced through music and performance.
The participants in our focus groups described other examples in art and
pedagogy. In the Introduction to this book, Danny described how a high
school student once shared that learning about racial microaggressions gave
her a way to “name” her pain. We believe that racial microaffirmations can
provide a language for People of Color to name their humanity.
Racial microaffirmation is a concept that reminds us that our dignity is
already within us, and that we affirm it every day with our families, in our
communities, with colleagues, and with those whom we may not know, but
with whom we share a “cultural intimacy” that binds us in our collective
humanity. While this empirical research on racial microaffirmations has just
Responding to Racial Microaggressions 97

begun, our research thus far has found that racial microaffirmations are
already practiced in schools, communities, workplaces, homes, and many
other spaces occupied by Communities of Color. If we were to look, we
are sure racial microaffirmations could be found throughout history, in the
struggles of People of Color for dignity and humanity in the face of racism.17
Put simply, racial microaffirmations are those everyday reminders that we
matter—and we believe Communities of Color have been telling each other
this, in their own ways, since the beginning.
 CHAPTER 6

Conclusion

This book has been an attempt to bring together the ideas, concepts, and
theorizing around racial microaggressions that have developed from our
critical race research projects conducted (collectively) during the past 2 and
a half decades. Our intention was to bring together our work to provide a
set of tools for those interested in engaging critical race research and praxis
on racial microaggressions. We hope that these tools provide some readers
with a language to “name” the pain of everyday racism, as one African
American high school student once shared it did for her.
During our years of research, we have learned important lessons about
studying everyday racism. First, a racial microaggressions analysis should
always include an examination (or at the very least, an acknowledgment)
of the structural conditions that lead to everyday racism. As we have dis-
cussed throughout the book, examining the structural conditions that lead
to everyday racism is critical to understanding how racism is (re)produced
over time. Moreover, this structural analysis shifts the focus from the people
targeted by racial microaggressions, and toward the social conditions that
limit the life opportunities of People of Color. Without this focus, culturally
deficit perspectives of Communities of Color become more easily utilized
to explain everyday racism and the social inequities that shape it.1 Indeed,
this is at the core of our argument, to delve beyond the symptoms of racism
and to acknowledge the disease of white supremacy, as Judge Robert Carter
(1988) once urged.
Second, history teaches us that resistance is born from struggle. As cer-
tain as we are that racism exists, we also know that it is and has been
challenged and resisted every day by Communities of Color. It is critical to
examine and understand the many forms racism takes on in our society.
However, it is just as important to recognize and name the ways People of
Color respond to it. In doing so, we honor the many forms of resistance
Communities of Color have engaged and continue to engage that seek to
challenge and transform racism (Solórzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001). In
our theorizing we have tried to be intentional about acknowledging resis-
tance to everyday racism for these reasons.
Third, we need to affirm the dignity and humanity of People of Color
that this resistance demands. This means acknowledging, supporting, and

98
Conclusion 99

valuing the presence and contributions Communities of Color bring with

them to any public or private space. Recognizing the everyday strategies of
racial microaffirmations People of Color engage is crucial for understanding
responses and resistance to microaggressions. Moreover, it is important to
also recognize the ways racial microaffirmations operate outside of the con-
struct of racial microaggressions.
The concept of racial microaffirmations can stand alone conceptually
because its existence lies in the agency of Communities of Color, rather
than in systemic racism and white supremacy. Racial microaffirmations can
move toward transformation of injustice by focusing analysis on the ways
Communities of Color have, and continue to affirm, a shared humanity and
collective self-worth. Thus, it is important to acknowledge those everyday
strategies utilized by People of Color to let others know “I see you”—those
small moments of affirmation that can get lost if we do not stop to acknowl-
edge them.
We have discussed each of these lessons in this book, although we re-
alize that our contributions are only a beginning. To our knowledge, this is
the first book to theorize racial microaggressions from an explicit Critical
Race Theory (CRT) perspective in education. We look forward to the work
of other scholars who will continue to further theorize, critique, and build
upon the models we have provided throughout this book. We believe that
these models of racial microaggressions also provide important implications
for practitioners in the field of education and others who serve Communities
of Color. We hope that they can be used for implementing strategies to
counter racial microaggressions, and to acknowledge racial microaffirma-
tions in education and beyond. As we conclude, we offer a few beginning
points for future research and praxis on everyday racism.

FUTURE RESEARCH ON RACIAL MICROAGGRESSIONS:

PROMISING AREAS

One gap in racial microaggressions research is the study of everyday racism

with Youth of Color, generally, and those in K–12 schools in particular.
Much of the research on racial microaggressions in education focuses on
higher education contexts with college-age students. However, scholars have
found that preschool-age children have already developed an understanding
of race and racism (Tatum, 1997; Van Ausdale & Feagin, 2001), and these
perceptions mediate their peer preferences (Spencer, 1984), and how they
differentiate themselves from others (Tronya & Hatcher, 1992). Yet edu-
cational research exploring race and racism with young children is sparse,
and even more so with Children of Color. This work is especially urgent in
the current moment. Research has found that Students of Color have expe-
rienced an increase in racially hostile school environments since the election
100 Racial Microaggressions

of Donald Trump in 2016 (Huang & Cornell, 2019; Rogers et al., 2017;
Rogers et al., 2019). This research suggests that the racist rhetoric perpe-
trated by the Donald Trump presidency has had profoundly negative effects
on Students of Color throughout the United States. Indeed, students across
the nation will feel these negative effects long after his presidency. Thus,
research on racial microaggressions in K–12 schools is particularly urgent
now, and will continue to be far into the future. Findings in this area can
lead to theorizing effective curricular and pedagogical interventions on rac-
ism in elementary, middle, and high schools that could equip students with
important tools they can use into adulthood. For example, Dolores Lopez’s
(2017) study on the experiences of Latina/o elementary school students and
racial microaggressions found that, indeed, children understand how they
are targeted by everyday racism in a dual-immersion instruction school. Her
study suggested that a “critical pedagogy curriculum” that incorporates an
asset-based perspective on the Spanish language and Latina/o culture could
have been useful to help students mitigate racial microaggressions.
Another opportunity for the study of everyday racism is to explore
what we call visual microaggressions. In Chapter 2, we briefly mentioned
visual microaggressions as one type of racial microaggression that can be
seen in everyday environments. We noted in that chapter that visual racial
microaggressions are often nonverbal representations of racist ideas and
beliefs about People of Color (Pérez Huber & Solórzano, 2015b). These
visual assaults can emerge in various forms. For example, in Chapter 5,
Layla Huber-Verjan described how we can see visual microaggressions in
textbooks and children’s books when People of Color are portrayed in ra-
cially stereotypical ways, or erased from important historical events (Pérez
Huber & Solórzano, 2015b). They can be seen in advertisements, photos,
film and television, dance and theater performances, and public signage and
statuary. Similar to the ways that microaggressions function, visual micro-
aggressions reinforce institutional racism and perpetuate the ideologies of
white supremacy that justify the subordination of People of Color. Visual
microaggressions are an important type of microaggression to explore be-
cause they often quietly convey implicit, deficit, and racist messages about
People of Color. One powerful example is an image captured in 1956 by
renowned African American photographer Gordon Parks (see Figure 6.1).
The image, titled “Department Store,” shows an African American wom-
an with a young African American girl (maybe 6 years old), both dressed
in their Sunday best, standing on a sidewalk in Mobile, Alabama (Parks,
1956). They stand under a sign with red neon lights that reads “COLORED
ENTRANCE” with a blue neon arrow pointing toward the door right be-
hind where they stand gazing across to the opposite side of the street.2 Parks
documented the everyday experiences of this woman and little girl and so
many other African Americans during the segregation era in the South. It
captures both the everyday subtlety and the racial violence experienced by
Conclusion 101

Figure 6.1. Gordon Parks, “Department Store, Mobile, Alabama, 1956”

Photograph by Gordon Parks. Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation.

African Americans during the Jim Crow Era. In recent work we have doc-
umented visual forms of microaggressions in Latina/o communities. We
found that stereotypical images of Mexican banditry have persisted for over
100 years in film, and are present today in children’s books, advertisements,
and school celebrations (Pérez Huber & Solórzano, 2015b). Many forms of
visual microaggressions go unnoticed because they have become normalized
within everyday environments, yet their racist messages are powerful.
Another promising area of racial microaggressions research is work that
takes a quantitative approach to examine the negative health consequences
of everyday racism. We would argue that research in the health sciences on
racial discrimination indicates that there are measurable psychological and
physiological effects of racial microaggressions (Beatty Moody, et al., 2019;
102 Racial Microaggressions

Chae et al., 2016; Chae, Lincoln, Alder, & Syme, 2010; Chae et al., 2012;
Gravlee et al., 2005; Harrell, 2000; Hill, Kobayashi, & Hughes, 2007; Park,
Du, Wang, Williams, & Alegria, 2018; Watson, 2019; Williams, Yu, Jackson,
& Anderson, 1997; Williams, 2018; Zeiders, Doane, & Roosa, 2012). This
research provides the quantitative evidence for Dr. Chester Pierce’s argument
decades ago—that everyday racism can lead to negative health outcomes for
People of Color. Research on the effects of racial microaggressions is critical
to our understanding of how everyday racism impacts the minds and bodies
of Communities of Color. However, we also wonder how we can quantita-
tively measure other ways People of Color experience racial microaggressions.
For example, quantitative research on campus climate in higher education
informs an understanding of how Students of Color experience racist insti-
tutional cultures (Hurtado, Alvarado, & Guillermo-Wann, 2015; Hurtado,
Milem, Clayton-Pedersen, & Allen, 1999). In turn, racially hostile campus
climates can have negative consequences for Students of Color. One question
for quantitative researchers interested in taking up this area of research would
be: How can we quantitatively measure experiences of everyday racism on
college campuses? In schools? In the workplace, or in other spaces?
Some of the current research on racial discrimination and microaggres-
sions provides insight into how we could begin to answer such questions.
For example, Franklin, Smith, and Hung (2014) examined the “racial battle
fatigue” of Latina/o college students who experience racial microaggres-
sions. Racial battle fatigue examines the psychological, physiological, and
behavioral stress responses People of Color have to racial microaggressions.
We found that the measures that this study used are borrowed from a more
extensive body of research in public health that we would argue is directly
related to racial microaggressions.
Public health scientist David R. Williams (2016) has developed the “ev-
eryday discrimination scale” to empirically investigate the effects of racial
discrimination and socioeconomic status (SES) on the physical and mental
health of People of Color compared to their white counterparts in the United
States and South Africa (Sterthnal, Slopen, & Williams, 2011; Williams et
al., 2008; Williams et al., 1997). The findings of these studies consistently
indicate that Black communities (in the United States and abroad) experi-
ence higher frequencies of everyday discrimination than whites that can be
correlated to negative health outcomes and, ultimately, to health disparities
between these groups.
Williams (2016) uses several versions of the everyday discrimination
scale, and we can adapt the measure to ask “In your day-to-day life, how
often do any of the following happen to you?,” followed by a series of state-
ments, some including:

• You are treated with less respect than other people are.
• You are treated with less courtesy than other people are.
Conclusion 103

• People act as if they think you are not smart.

• People act as if they are afraid of you.
• You receive poorer service than other people at restaurants, offices,
or bookstores.

These questions are then followed by possible responses to measure the

frequencies of these experiences (i.e., every day, once a week, a few times
a week or year, less than once a year, or never) (Williams, 2016). Although
Williams and his colleagues do not use the term racial microaggressions to
describe these experiences, we would argue—as we have throughout this
book—that these everyday forms of discrimination are, in fact, racial micro-
aggressions. Thus, Williams’s research would be a beginning point for fu-
ture researchers interested in quantifying racial microaggressions in school/
university settings. In fact, Williams et al. (1997) recommend that future
research include other non-Black racial groups. We would extend this sug-
gestion to recommend that research on Latina/o communities is urgently
needed, considering their population growth across the nation (U.S. Census
Bureau, 2019). Even more specifically, future research could correlate
heightened anti-immigrant sentiment since the 2016 election of Donald
Trump, racist nativist microaggressions, and negative health outcomes.
Related to Williams’s (Williams et al., 1997) everyday discrimina-
tion scale is the “heightened vigilance scale,” which assesses how African
Americans respond, or anticipate, everyday discrimination (William, 2016;
Williams et al., 2012). This scale uses the measure “In your day-to-day life,
how often do you do the following things?,” followed by these items:

• Try to prepare for possible insults from other people before leaving
home.
• Feel that you always have to be very careful about your appearance
(to get good service or avoid being harassed).
• Carefully watch what you say and how you say it.
• Try to avoid certain social situations and places.

These responses gauge what Williams calls the “emotional ­responses”

and “stressfulness” associated with racial discrimination (Williams et
al., 2012, p. 977). Examples of some of the responses measured with the
heightened vigilance scale are: anger, frustration, powerlessness, vulnera-
bility, inferiority, and resignation. Similar to our Types, Contexts, Effects
and Response Model (see Figure 2.1) for racial microaggressions, Williams’s
research on vigilance examines the range of responses African Americans
have to racial discrimination, and especially those individuals from low-
SES households. The research on vigilance provides a pathway for future
research to quantitatively document responses to racial microaggressions.
We would recommend that future research continue this line of inquiry but
104 Racial Microaggressions

also seek to explore the more transformational responses People of Color

have to everyday racism that we outline (Chapter 2), such as resistance, and,
possibly, racial microaffirmations (Chapter 5).
As we explain in Chapter 5, future research on racial microaffirmations
is much needed, as it is a relatively new concept in educational research.
Quantitatively, we believe it is possible that the current scale instruments
created by Williams and colleagues (1997, 2016) to explore racial discrim-
ination could be adapted to capture racial microaffirmations. These scales
could be used to examine racial microaffirmations in a range of contexts:
in schools, universities, workplaces, and other spaces. Racial microaffirma-
tion scales could also be used to examine collections of textbooks, artwork,
and other textual and visual materials where Communities of Color are
represented and affirmed. For example, if we adapted the Williams and col-
leagues’s (1997, 2016) everyday discrimination scale outlined above to mea-
sure racial microaffirmations, we could first explore how People of Color
feel affirmed in their everyday lives. Building from Willams’s scale, we could
ask, “In your day-to-day life how are you acknowledged, affirmed, or val-
ued in your school/institution setting?” Drawing from our research thus
far on racial microaffirmations, this question could be followed by these
possible measures:

• Through the use of language (e.g., a language other than English,

vernacular language/expressions)
• Through physical gestures (e.g., a nod, a smile, eye contact)
• Through the presence of other People of Color
• Through artwork, murals, paintings, photography, films, or other
visuals
• Through books, textbooks, magazines, research articles, or other
texts

Similar to Williams’s (2016) scale, the recommended response catego-

ries could be: almost every day, at least once a week, a few times a month,
a few times a year, less than once a year, or never. This scale could assess
how racial microaffirmations are experienced, while another scale could be
developed to understand the effects of these racial microaffirmations.
If we were to create a scale to capture the effects of racial microaffir-
mations, or, how a microaffirmation makes a Person of Color feel, then
we could ask, “In your day-to-day life, how often do any of the following
happen to you when you are with other (Latina/o, African American, Asian
American, or Native American) students at your (institution type)?” This
question could be followed by these measures:

• You feel acknowledged or valued.

• You feel more comfortable, relieved, or at ease.
Conclusion 105

• You feel seen.

• You feel appreciated.
• You feel respected.

These measures could then be followed by the same response categories

as used by Williams (2016). Everyday racial microaffirmations scales, if we
were to call them this, would focus on how a Person of Color experiences a
racial microaffirmation and how it makes them feel. As renowned African
American writer Maya Angelou said, “People will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made
them feel.”3 We believe this may be one powerful way that quantitative re-
search could capture racial microaffirmations.
A qualitative approach for each of these areas of inquiry is also need-
ed. For example, in a current study we are conducting with one of our
graduate students, Lorena Camargo Gonzalez, we seek to engage what we
call a Critical Race Content Analysis to examine the racial representations
of Characters of Color in children’s early reader books. A Critical Race
Content Analysis (CRCA) utilizes the tenets of CRT to engage a critical read-
ing of children’s books that forefronts raced (and intersectional) representa-
tions within the narratives and images of children’s literature (Pérez Huber,
Camargo Gonzalez, & Solórzano, 2018; Pérez Huber, Camargo Gonzalez,
& Solórzano, under review). CRCA functions to locate power within sto-
rylines, uncover dominant ideologies that circulate within the narrative, and
examine cultural authenticity. We encourage this analysis to be approached
from an interdisciplinary perspective and be guided by social justice goals.
We have designed qualitative analysis rubrics to engage CRCA to examine
racialized representations, as well as the ways resistance emerges through
children’s stories. One of the ways that resistance can emerge is through
racial microaffirmations, as Layla Huber-Verjan (Solórzano, Pérez Huber, &
Huber-Verjan, 2020) describes in Chapter 5. This project is one example of
how critical race tools can be developed to examine racial microaffirmations
in children’s literature, but could also be adapted to examine other textual
and visual forms of writing and images (i.e., textbooks, photography and
visual arts, film and media, social media, literature for adults).
We believe there are other important areas of future research on racial
microaffirmations to mention here. First, studies can more closely examine
the interactional dimensions of racial microaffirmations. As our focus group
data suggested in Chapter 5, college Students of Color mention what we call
“mutual reciprocity” when engaging in a microaffirmation. However, we
also do not assume that microaffirmations are always mutually reciprocal.
In addition, we do not yet fully understand the meaning-making involved
in the exchange of racial microaffirmations. For example, what role does a
Person of Color’s community and/or family history play in how they engage
racial microaffirmations? In how a microaffirmation is received? In how
106 Racial Microaggressions

it is delivered or given? In Chapter 5 we discussed the nod as one type of

racial microaffirmation practiced within the African American community.
Some scholars have argued that this microaffirmation is mediated by gender
(Dyson, 2001), others not (Anderson, 2018; Okwonga, 2014). Thus, future
research questions could also explore how intersectionality emerges through
racial microaffirmations. In addition, there is a need to explore how mi-
croaffirmations are experienced across (intergroup) and within (intragroup)
Communities of Color.
Second, as current literature and our focus group data indicated, there
are pedagogical implications of racial microaffirmations that could be espe-
cially important for education. In Chapter 5, one focus group participant, a
Latina teacher, shared a powerful example of how she engaged daily racial
microaffirmations with her elementary school students. This routine microaf-
firmation was utilized each day, reminding students that they are important
and powerful. Similarly, in Chapter 5 we discussed the work of legal scholar
Margaret Montoya (1994) and her use of language and storytelling to dis-
cursively “invite in” Latina/o communities to engage legal scholarship. We
would argue that this is indeed a pedagogical strategy. In fact, Montoya en-
gages other pedagogical strategies specific to teaching that could also serve as
examples of racial microaffirmations, for example her work (with colleagues)
on name narratives. A name narrative is a classroom practice that prompts
Students of Color to explore their family histories, acknowledge their cultur-
al capital, and understand how their life experiences are mediated by social
structures (Montoya, Vásquez & Martínez, 2014). Name narratives as peda-
gogy is a strategy to affirm the cultures and experiences of Students of Color
in the classroom, a space where they are often marginalized. These examples
of pedagogical racial microaffirmations are only a few of what we believe are
many critical pedagogies used by educators within and beyond the field of
education. Future research would further explore and name others.

PRAXIS: DISRUPTING RACIAL MICROAGGRESSIONS

Before we conclude, we also wanted to provide some future directions for

praxis. As researchers we often receive the question, “what can I do?” about
racial microaggressions. Our response can depend on the person (or people)
asking the question. For example, engaging this question with a Person of
Color who experiences racial microaggressions would be different from en-
gaging it with a white person who realizes that he may have microaggressed.
For People of Color, we would argue that the onus of responsibility to rec-
ognize and disrupt racial microaggressions should not solely rest with them.
Too often, People of Color are looked toward for answers about racism.
In education, Teachers, Faculty, and Administrators of Color often become
the institutional go-to people to lead discussions and trainings related to
Conclusion 107

race. Much of this work is done above and beyond the responsibilities of
white colleagues in the same professional positions. We argue that the re-
sponsibility to understand and disrupt racism should also lie with the insti-
tution. If an institution—whether it be a school, college, or university—is
committed to equity and diversity (as most state they are), it should have
institutionalized programs in place to ensure that those within the organi-
zation understand what this commitment means. For us, this commitment
means that there is a widely recognized definition of equity and that it cen-
ters on strategies to provide more equitable access and opportunities for
People of Color. It means that institutions are not asking whether racism ex-
ists, but how it operates through its systems, policies, and processes. Finally,
it means the institution seeks to provide an understanding of the relevant
histories that have led to the inequities we seek to remediate, and explicit
steps toward that remediation. However, before we get to this point there
must be a general understanding that racism, in all of its manifestations, is
a problem in the first place. To begin a process of disrupting racial microag-
gressions, this fact must first be recognized.
Chester Pierce (1974) offered this statement about the disruption of ra-
cial microaggressions, stating African Americans “must be taught to r­ecog-
nize . . . microaggressions and construct his [and her, their] future by taking
appropriate action at each instance of recognition” (p. 520). We would ar-
gue that all people, not only People of Color, should be trained to recognize
everyday racism in order to take action against it, wherever and whenever it
occurs. Figure 6.2 illustrates a model created from Pierce’s argument.

Figure 6.2. Chester Pierce’s Model of Recognition, Reflection, and Action

Critical Reflection

Recognition Action
108 Racial Microaggressions

The figure begins with the recognition of racial microaggressions. Only

after they are recognized can we begin a process of critical reflection to
understand how and why the microaggressions happened. With this under-
standing, appropriate action can be taken.
We believe one promising possibility for praxis in the disruption of racial
microaggressions is theater. Chicano actor and playwright Luis Valdez de-
veloped Teatro Campesino in the 1960s as a cultural branch of the Chicano
Movement and the United Farm Workers Movement (UFW) in California.4
Teatro Campesino was created to raise awareness about the plight of farm-
workers in the UFW and of sociopolitical injustices suffered by Mexicans
and Chicana/o communities in the U.S. Southwest more broadly. It was
also used as an organizing tool, encouraging audiences to participate in the
social change that these movements struggled for (see Broyles-González,
1994). Similarly, in the 1970s Brazilian theater scholar Augusto Boal (1979)
developed Theater of the Oppressed, a range of Freirean-influenced perfor-
mance techniques that encouraged audience members to become active par-
ticipants in the storyline and in the analysis of real-life sociopolitical issues.
The goal of Theater of the Oppressed was to engage audiences in a critical
reading of instances of social and political injustice—those that could be
seen in everyday realities. Indeed, scholars have borrowed the techniques
from Teatro Campesino and Theater of the Oppressed to engage critical
analyses of social issues in education and with Students of Color. For exam-
ple, Sylvia Vega Rodriguez (2018, 2019) used these performance strategies
in her work with Latina/o elementary school students from immigrant fam-
ilies in Los Angeles. Her work sought to explore how these children could
use artistic expression to bring their own critical analysis and agency to the
troubling moment of heightened anti-immigrant sentiment encouraged by
the 2016 election of Donald Trump.
Another step that must be undertaken to disrupt racial microaggres-
sions in education is institutional responsibility. The disruption of racial
microaggressions should be a priority for institutional leadership. For exam-
ple, Shaun Harper (2017) argues for racially responsive leadership in higher
education that enacts proactive, rather than reactive, efforts and policies
that challenge racism. At the same time, institutions must support the efforts
of people and programs within their organizations that seek to do this work.
For example, Harper (2017) explains that universities typically request con-
sultation from a racial equity center or scholar only when there has been
an incident of racism on campus. Having racially responsive leaders means
that there is a concerted, consistent, and on-going effort to challenge racism
regardless of the current climate or individual incidents. These racially re-
sponsive leaders would support these efforts, even in the midst of disagree-
ment and potential hostility toward anti-racist work. We would argue that
racially responsive leaders are needed just as much in K–12 schools, the
workplace, labor unions, businesses, and community organizations.5
Conclusion 109

These are just some of the possibilities for future directions of research
and praxis on racial microaggressions. At the moment this book is being
written, the racist (and racist nativist) policies of the Trump administration
have created a context of hate that targets Communities of Color in the
United States and abroad. The racism we see today is certainly not new,
as we have attempted to show in our references to the historical contexts
of racism. History tells us that racial progress happens in waves, moving
us forward, then back, and then forward again (Coates, 2017).6 This has
only been possible because of the resistance People of Color have engaged
historically to challenge racial microaggressions and other forms of racism.
Although we find ourselves in a moment of retrenchment for racial progress,
we will most certainly find ourselves again riding a wave of progress for-
ward, toward the betterment of our communities. We hope that this book
acknowledges those courageous efforts to name the pain of everyday racism.
Like Bell, we agree that racial realism is a reality (Bell, 1992a). Yet, also like
Bell, we agree that our success is found in the struggle (Bell, 1992b). We
hope this book provides new tools to support the efforts in that struggle as
we collectively and continually push forward.
Notes

Introduction
1. Throughout this book, we write primarily in a collective voice (i.e., we) as
coauthors. However, there are also moments in which we give individual perspec-
tives, especially related to personal experiences. Daniel Solórzano indicates his voice
with “Danny” and Lindsay Pérez Huber indicates her voice with “Lindsay” where
appropriate.
2. From 1975 to 1985 I taught in the Chicano Studies Department at East Los
Angeles College (ELAC).
3. The Chronicle of Higher Education is a weekly newspaper that addresses the
latest news, information, and job listings in the field of higher education.
4. I credit Professor Laurence Parker, my colleague at the University of Utah,
with this term.
5. For three seminal readers in Critical Race Theory and the law see Crenshaw,
Gotanda, Peller, & Thomas, 1995; Delgado, 1995; and Matsuda, Lawrence, Delga-
do, & Crenshaw, 1993.
6. I am now exploring how CRT can be used in the science, technology, engi-
neering, and math (STEM) fields.
7. For my story of that journey in race and ethnic studies and Freirean pedagogy
see Solórzano, 1989; Solórzano 2013; Solórzano, 2019; Solórzano & Yosso, 2001.
8. I begin this work in MSE as an Educational Testing Service Postdoctoral
Fellow in Educational and Social Policy in 1986.
9. “People of Color” is intentionally capitalized to reject the grammatical norm.
This practice is part of a political move toward language use that reflects the values
of social and racial justice. It also applies to “Students of Color,” “Communities of
Color,” “Immigrants of Color,” and “Men and Women of Color.” For these reasons,
we also chose to de-capitalize “white,” particularly in the context of the term “white
supremacy” where capitalization can discursively emphasize power and dominance.
10. In later work on Critical Race Spatial Analysis with my colleague, Veron-
ica Vélez, we acknowledge that place and space have related but distinct meanings
(Solórzano & Vélez, 2016; Solórzano & Vélez, 2017; Vélez & Solórzano, 2017).
According to Friedland (1992), “place is the fusion of space and experience, a space
filled with meaning, a source of identity” (p. 14). We have come to differentiate and
utilize each term based on Friedland’s (1992) definition.
11. Aldon Morris’s (2015) The Scholar Denied: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Birth
of Modern Sociology speaks of Parks’s failure to reference Du Bois on this and other
sociological constructs (see pp. 145–147).

111
112 Notes

12. This paper was my first professional CRT presentation. I presented it at the
Annual Meeting of the Association for Studies in Higher Education, Orlando, FL,
November 2, 1995. The title of my talk was “Critical Race Theory, Marginality, and
the Experiences of Minority Students in Higher Education.” I never published this
paper, but, like a good backyard car with usable spare parts, the manuscript held
ideas I could use in other papers on racial marginality (Solórzano & Villalpando,
1998), mentoring (Solórzano, 1998a), racial microaggressions (Solórzano, 1998b),
and spatial analysis (Solórzano & Vélez, 2016; Solórzano & Vélez, 2017; Vélez &
Solórzano, 2017).
13. In the 1969 chapter, Chester Pierce first introduces the concept of offensive
mechanisms, which was the precursor to microaggressions. There are 13 articles
where Pierce shares his developing ideas about the concept (see Pierce, 1969; Pierce,
1970; Pierce, 1974; Pierce, 1975a; Pierce, 1975b; Pierce, 1980; Pierce, 1988; Pierce,
1989; Pierce, 1995; Pierce, Carew, Pierce-Gonzalez, & Wills, 1978; Pierce, Earls, &
Klineman, 1999; Pierce & Profit, 1991; and Profit, Mino, & Pierce, 2000). In addi-
tion, we have Ezra Griffith’s 1998 biography on Pierce.
14. The initial team that conducted the data gathering consisted of Walter Allen,
Grace Carroll, Daniel Solórzano, Miguel Ceja, and Elizabeth Guillory. In addition,
the following people assisted in the preparation of the report to the court: Gniesha
Dinwiddie, Gloria Gonzalez, and Tara Yosso, all doctoral or former education and
sociology doctoral students at UCLA.
15. In one of the most comprehensive histories of racial microaggressions,
Wong, Derthick, David, Saw, and Okazaki (2014) state that the Solórzano, Ceja,
and Yosso (2000) article on African American students preceded the Sue, Capodi-
lupo, Torino, Bucceri, Holder, Nadal, and Esquilin (2007) and Sue and Constantine
(2007) articles by 7 years. However, the 1998 Solórzano article on Chicana and
Chicano scholars was the first empirical piece on racial microaggressions.
16. Throughout this book, we continue to use the term “Latina/o” as a pan-­
ethnic description of people of Mexican, Central American, South American, Cu-
ban, Dominican, and Puerto Rican descent. However, we acknowledge the move
toward “Latinx” as a grammatical strategy for inclusivity of individuals who iden-
tify outside of the female–male gender binary. We use the term Latina/o because of
the ongoing debate about the use of “x” and its meaning (de Onís, 2017). Latina/o
honors the work of scholars like David Hayes-Bautista and Jorge Chapa (1987),
who made the case for the importance of conceptually and operationally defining
Latino populations, while situated within a historical context of changing terminol-
ogy. Their 1987 article “Latino Terminology: Conceptual Bases for Standardized
Terminology,” explained the history that can help us understand the social and po-
litical contexts behind the terms we use as researchers. Their call in 1987 continues
to have resonance as we engage in debates about ethnic identifiers such as “Latinx”
and “Chicanx.” We think there is a need for researchers to have this discussion to
address the issue of using the “x” as more researchers move toward this term.
17. I would not be an academic if not for the mentorship and research expe-
rience I received as an undergraduate at UC Irvine. I have named two people who
were mentors during my undergraduate career, my counselor Ramon Muñoz, and
political science professor Dr. Lisa García Bedolla. In addition, I would like to ac-
knowledge the mentorship of Dr. Jeanett Castellanos. These mentors have supported
me—and continue to support me—in my academic pursuits. I would also like to
Notes 113

acknowledge the important undergraduate research programs that I participated in

that encouraged undergraduate research and doctoral education, including the Sum-
mer Bridge Program, the Summer Academic Enrichment Program (SAEP), the Un-
dergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), and the Summer Research
Opportunities Program (SROP). Through all of these I was introduced to research
and to the PhD career pathway.
18. At the time it was introduced, this bill was unique in its framing—to pro-
tect national security and to contribute to antiterrorist efforts. It proposed that any
undocumented immigrant residing in the United States be charged with a felony for
his “illegal” presence in the country, effectively barring him from ever gaining legal
status in the United States. The bill also sought to charge anyone, regardless of legal
status, with a felony who assists or conceals the status of an undocumented immi-
grant from the U.S. government. H.R. 4437 also sought to expand the U.S.–Mexico
border wall. It became known as the “Sensenbrenner bill” after one of its sponsors,
Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.). The Senate passed an alternative bill,
S. 2611 (Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006). Both bills died in con-
ference committee.
19. The study was an unpublished manuscript titled “Beyond the direct impact
of the law: Is Assembly Bill 540 benefiting undocumented students?”
20. The people, united, will never be defeated!
21. Racism targeting indigenous communities in Mexico can be traced back to
Spanish conquest during the 16th century. In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidal-
go ended the Mexican-American war when the U.S. annexed over half of Mexico’s
territory, what is today the U.S. Southwest. Under the Treaty, Mexicans living in this
territory had a choice to relocate to the newly established borders of their country
or remain in the U.S. with full citizenship. Scholars have documented the racism and
second-class citizenship Mexicans and Chicanas/os have historically been subjected
to. See Acuña (1972) and Gómez (2018).
22. In 1968, in the aftermath of the 1967 summer uprisings across the United
States, President Lyndon Johnson established the Kerner Commission. They issued
their report called the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, 1968—
The Kerner Report. They begin the report by stating on the first page, “What white
Americans have never fully understood—but what the Negro can never forget—is
that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it.
White institutions maintain it, and white society condones it” (p. 1).
We would add that white society benefits from the “ghetto.” As we write this
book in June of 2020 (52 years later), we ask if “white Americans” still don’t under-
stand their implication in the “ghetto,” and still don’t understand their complicity in
white supremacy (National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, 1968).
23. Tara Yosso (2000) first used the concept of visual microaggressions in her
dissertation—A Critical Race and LatCrit Approach to Media Literacy: Chicana/o
Resistance to Visual Microaggression.
24. UC Berkeley chose to create its own response to the UCOP faculty seminar
series and excluded the racial microaggressions lecture.
Chapter 1
1. In 1993, the first authored book on Critical Race Theory in the law was ti-
tled, Words That Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, and the First
114 Notes

Amendment (Matsuda et al., 1993). The title is illustrative in that its focus was on
“Words That Wound”—racist hate speech on and off college campuses. The authors
begin the book with the sentence “[T]his is a book about assaultive speech, about
words that are used as weapons to ambush, terrorize, wound, humiliate, and degrade.
Of late, there has been an alarming rise in the incidence of assaultive speech” (p. 1).
Racial microaggressions in all their forms are also racially assaultive, injurious, and
increasingly commonplace. In Words That Wound, Matsuda and colleagues identified
these “polite and polished” colleagues (i.e., white male elites) as the chief spokespeople
against those Academics of Color who dared to challenge the orthodoxy of “mer-
it, rigor, standards, qualifications, and excellence” (p. 14). Matsuda and colleagues
(1993) argue that the “first amendment arms conscious and unconscious racists—­
Nazis and liberals alike—with the constitutional right to be racists” (p. 15). They also
state that “[W]e are in this fight about how to balance one individual’s freedom of
speech against another individual’s freedom from injury” (p. 15).
2. Later in this chapter, we will see how W. E. B. Du Bois (1920, 1940) describes
this rage. Another response to the majoritarian storytellers comes from Derrick Bell
(1992a). He introduces us to Mrs. Biona MacDonald, a civil rights activist in the
Mississippi Delta. When asked by Bell where she found the courage to continue
working in civil rights in the face of intimidation, Bell wrote, “‘Derrick,’ she said
slowly, seriously . . . ‘I am an old woman. I lives to harass white folks’” (p. 378).
3. It should be noted that Indigenous peoples populated these lands for centu-
ries before the first settler colonists came to what is now the Americas (North, Cen-
tral, and South America). The settler colonists invaded and occupied Native lands
and committed genocide against the Native People throughout the Americas. The
Indigenous peoples’ story of racism begins when the first European settler colonists
came to the Americas. It should also be noted that subsequent African American,
Chicana/o, Asian American, and other People of Color have stories of racism that
also began when settler colonists made contact with the Americas.
4. These approximate percentages reflect the time at which we are writing this
book. As time progresses, these percentages will change. However, the history of
institutional racism and white supremacy remains.
5. We use the end of the Civil War as a point in time where explicit and implicit
Jim Crow laws begin. We would argue that variations of Jim Crow existed in the
Northern states before and after the end of the Civil War. The North used their ver-
sion of Jim Crow to continue Black subjugation.
6. We recognize that African Americans and non-Black People of Color experi-
ence the consequences of slavery differently.
7. A racialized society, space, and/or subject are characterized by racial stratifi-
cation, marginalization, and disparity that align with the ideology of white suprem-
acy (Ladson-Billings, 1998).
8. Here, education is broadly defined as a process that occurs within and out-
side of formal schooling institutions. In effect, we recognize that racial microaggres-
sions occur within these varied contexts, as is evident in the examples we present
both earlier and later in the book.
9. We use the term “aracialism” to name an analysis that lacks, dismisses, or
erases the consideration of race and racism.
10. These Du Boisean concepts were also a part of Solórzano’s journey to the
concept of marginality mentioned in the Introduction.
Notes 115

11. In his seminal work The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois (1903) poignantly
defined and articulated the intersection between space and race as the color-line. He
stated: “Since then a new adjustment of relations in economic and political affairs
has grown up . . . which leaves still that frightful chasm at the color-line across
which men pass at their peril. Thus, then and now, there stand in the South two
separate worlds; and separate not simply in the higher realms of social intercourse,
but also in church and school, on railway and street-car, in hotels and theatres, in
streets and city sections, in books and newspapers, in asylums and jails, in hospitals
and graveyards” (p. 72). In 1897, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote an article in the Atlantic
Monthly called the “Strivings of the Negro People.” In this article he first introduces
early elements that, in The Souls of Black Folk (1903), would help us understand
the concept of the color-line: the veil, second-sight, double-consciousness, two-ness.
These color-lines could be a street, a highway, a river, railroad tracks, or any other
geographic or structural indicators that separate racial groups—the physical and
non-physical divide between racial/ethnic groups that ensures that white people re-
ceive better treatment, services, and opportunities than People of Color.
12. Sue (2010) theorizes racial microaggressions within the context of the coun-
seling psychology field, and specifically to provide counseling practitioners with
strategies to address the unconscious racism that informs their practice with Clients
of Color. In this context, the focus on the perpetrator is important and much needed.
Here, we acknowledge these contributions. However, we differentiate a theory of
racial microaggressions from a CRT perspective that explicitly focuses on the target
of the racial microaggression: People of Color.
Chapter 2
1. See, for example, Laclau & Mouffe, 2014.
2. There are other types of microaggressions. See, for example, Solórzano
(1998a) on gender microaggressions and Pérez Huber (2011) on racist nativist mi-
croaggressions. See also Nadal (2013) on sexual-orientation microaggressions.
3. It is important to note that our concern is for Melinda and how she expe-
rienced the racial microaggression, and not for the professor, who tried to explain
away the behavior.
4. To find powerful examples of visual microaggressions, we would encourage
readers to visit the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State Uni-
versity in Big Rapids, Michigan. The museum displays various objects with racist
depictions of African Americans during the Jim Crow era. A small display at the en-
trance to the museum has been added to the collection that shows objects with racist
depictions of Native Americans. There are also several traveling exhibits that display
racist objects from more contemporary pop culture with racist and heteropatriarchal
imagery. See www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/, where many of these displays can be found.
5. The New York Times highlighted in this article 67 of the “most representa-
tive” experiences shared by their readers in which they experienced perceptions of
not belonging.
6. For examples of types of microaggressions encountered in higher education
institutions, see the important volume that documents the experiences of Women
of Color in academia, titled, Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and
Class for Women in Academia (Gutiérrez y Muhs, Niemann, González, & Harris,
2012).
116 Notes

7. See Truong, Museus, and McGuire (2016) for examples of secondary racism,
or what they call vicarious racism. It is also important to note here that personal and
community histories can provide contexts to understand the ways that primary and
secondary targets can be affected by racial microaggressions.
8. Watson (2019) discussed a range of variables that are also important to con-
sider when assessing and comparing telomere length of Black male college students.
Socioeconomic status, prior health conditions, and racial group exposure (racial
makeup of their home schools and communities) can all play a role in telomere
length. He suggested further research examine the relationships of these variables
(and others) to racial microaggressions, race-related stress, and telomere length.
9. Derrick Bell’s use of racism hypos in the classroom did not include responses.
Rather, the responses to and questions about Bell’s hypos were prompted by his law
students. In our critical race hypo, we provide responses of Melinda, her peers, and
the instructor.
10. Again, Matsuda and colleagues (1993) state that “we are in this fight about
how to balance one individual’s freedom of speech against another individual’s free-
dom from injury” (p. 15).
11. There are other possibilities for “making amends” in this hypo. For exam-
ple, the professor could have approached the chair and/or dean of her department to
request that all faculty have professional development opportunities to learn about
recognizing, addressing, and disrupting racial microaggressions in classroom settings.
Chapter 3
1. Robert Carter joined the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in
1944 and became a legal assistant to General Counsel Thurgood Marshall. Many
argue that Carter was the chief legal architect of the civil rights cases brought before
the courts. Carter argued 23 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and won 22 of
them. He argued for using social science data in civil rights cases brought before
the court. For instance, in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Carter used the
psychological research of Kenneth and Mamie Clark showing the deleterious effects
of segregated schools on Black students’ learning and development (i.e., Clark Doll
Studies). In 1956, Robert Carter succeeded Thurgood Marshall as the general coun-
sel of the NAACP. He resigned from the NAACP in 1968.
2. It is important to note that white supremacy is not the only form a macro-
aggression can take in the analysis of microaggressions. For example, gender mi-
croaggressions can be experienced by white women. The macroaggression in the
analysis of these types of microaggressions would be patriarchy. Other forms of
macroaggressions could be theorized located within other systems of oppression
(e.g., heteropatriarchy, ableism, ageism, etc.).
3. Derrick Bell (1992a) uses the concept of racial realism to describe the per-
manence of racism in the United States. In his work, he cautions us against focusing
intently on efforts that merely change racism’s form. Rather, he argues, we must
develop and implement “strategies that can bring fulfillment and even triumph” (p.
374). Institutional racism articulates a systematic positioning of race and racism in
the United States that leads to racial realism. Racial microaggressions, then, become
a tool, or “strategy” in understanding how everyday racism occurs in order to con-
front and dismantle structures of oppression.
4. We use the term toll as Chester Pierce (1974, 1989) used it, to describe the
cumulative effects of racial microaggressions over time.
Notes 117

5. It is important to note that Chester Pierce argued that while the term “micro”
was only “micro in name,” he also considered “macroaggressions” as overt forms
of racism. In 1970 Pierce distinguishes between microaggressions and the “gross,
dramatic, obvious macro-aggression such as lynching” (p. 266).
6. Through this reappropriation of terminology, we engage a discursive shift of
power that allows us to (re)create and (re)envision the meaning of microaggression.
Historically, People of Color have engaged similar strategies with terminology, par-
ticularly for terms to describe racial/ethnic identity (e.g., Black, Chicana, Chicano).
7. Full title of the collection is “Photographs of Signs Enforcing Racial Discrim-
ination: Documentation of Farm Security Administration—Office of War Informa-
tion Photographers” (see www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/085_disc.html).
8. One could argue that de jure and de facto racism also occurred in other parts
of the United States.
9. This could be an example of what Michelle Alexander (2010) refers to as the
“New Jim Crow.”
10. During his declaration, Trump admitted that invoking the national emer-
gency was not necessary, but a faster way to get funding for construction of “the
wall.” This, after he was unsuccessful in negotiating with Democrats for border-wall
funding during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, from December
22, 2018, to January 25, 2019.
11. As we describe in this section, we use the term “native” to refer to the dis-
cursive values assigned to groups, shaped by constructions of whiteness that define
belonging and not-belonging in the United States. We consider this use of the term
“native” to be distinct from the use of the term “native” to describe indigenous
communities such as Native Americans.
12. This photo is a screenshot from Freeman’s 2018 documentary posted on
Vimeo at https://www.unaccompaniedchildren.org/.
13. See the website for the film at www.unaccompaniedchildren.org/about,
where filmmaker Linda Freeman tells her story about how she became involved in
this project.
14. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Protection reports that in 2018 over
500,000 apprehensions were made at the U.S. Southwest border (see www.cbp.gov/
newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration). Of those, 48,325 were categorized as “unac-
companied alien children” coming from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Gua-
temala (see www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration/usbp-sw-border-­
apprehensions).
15. We would argue that “the crisis” was not the migrants themselves, but the
ways that they have been inhumanely treated, forced to sleep under roadways and
tents in Tijuana, Mexico, for those being processed, or arrested and detained, for
those who took the chance to cross the border into the United States. The most dis-
turbing treatment was suffered by those most vulnerable, the children of migrants.
Under this zero-tolerance policy, thousands of children who entered the United States
with parents were taken away and sent to separate detention centers, often hundreds
of miles away (Carcamo & Repard, 2018; Jordan, 2018). The Trump administration
claimed that there were less than a few hundred children separated from their par-
ents. Yet, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS, 2020) report-
ed that from April 2018 to March 2020 there have been 3,774 children separated
from their parents. Officials have admitted that there was no structured system in
place to reunite the separated children who were placed in shelters and foster homes
118 Notes

(Littlefield & Vasquez, 2018), conflicting with the information provided by the HHS.
In the FAQ page for unaccompanied alien children (www.hhs.gov/programs/social-­
services/unaccompanied-alien-children/faqs/index.html) the agency claims that there
has been “misinformation” about the agency’s oversight of these children and ex-
plains a federal call center that is used in the system to reunite separated children and
parents. The Kaiser Family Foundation reported that the number of unaccompanied
children who were separated from their parents was over 2,342. It was estimated
that during the implementation of this policy (May 5 to June 9, 2018), an average of
65 children per day were separated from their parents (Kaiser Family Foundation,
2018). Compounding the atrocities that are being committed against these children
are reports of sexual abuse while in U.S. custody. Axios (2019) reports that in the
4 years from 2014 to 2018 thousands of unaccompanied children in U.S. custody
have been abused. Axios reported data from the Department of Health and Human
Services provided to the new media outlet by Rep. Ted Deutch’s office (D-FL 22nd
District). See www.axios.com/immigration-unaccompanied-minors-sexual-assault-
3222e230-29e1-430f-a361-d959c88c5d8c.html. The Trump administration has
been actively seeking to create new immigration policies and change current ones
to deny these migrants the opportunity to seek better lives for themselves and their
families in the United States.
Chapter 4
1. In the Spanish language morena refers to a dark-skinned woman. Muy prieta
means a very dark woman, referring to skin color.
2. Even the islands surrounding the United States were not spared. Spain first
colonized Puerto Rico before it was ceded to the United States, and the U.S. military
overthrew the Kingdom of Hawaii in order to annex these islands (see Gonzalez,
2000, and Trask, 1999).
3. Clark & Clark (1947) reported that there were a total of eight questions the
participants in the study were asked about these dolls. They were: (1) Give me the
doll that you like to play with—(a) Give me the doll that you like best, (2) Give me
the doll that is a nice doll, (3) Give me the doll that looks bad, (4) Give me the doll
that is a nice color, (5) Give me the doll that looks like a white child, (6) Give me the
doll that looks like a colored child, (7) Give me the doll that looks like you.
4. The study was footnoted in the Brown case (footnote 11), making Brown
one of the first Supreme Court cases to utilize social science research as evidence for
a case. See Guinier (2004).
5. The series of photos taken by Parks for the Clark doll study was a part of
Ebony magazine’s photo archives. In 2019, the Johnson Publishing Company, which
owns the magazine, sold Ebony’s photo archives (more than 4 million images). The
images will be donated to the National Museum of African American History and
Culture and the Getty Research Institute. This photo was used with permission from
the Gordon Parks Foundation.
6. The play begins with a prologue and continues with seven scenes (acts). The
structure of the play’s seven scenes moves between the farmworkers in the back of the
labor contractor truck to a theater stage where the corrido is enacted. To view El Cor-
rido and other Teatro Campesino plays, see cemaweb.library.ucsb.edu/ETCList.html.
Notes 119

7. At the end of the play, the undocumented workers on the truck realize they
are being used as scabs (strikebreakers) and move to the side of the strikers (both
documented and undocumented).
8. Upon reviewing interviews with Owens as well as the Blexit website, we see
that the movement focuses explicitly on getting African Americans to question dem-
ocratic beliefs and values, in order to encourage movement toward conservatism.
However, in our research on #Blexit, we did see other People of Color seeming to
support the campaign. The Pew Research Center reports that in 2018, 90% of Af-
rican Americans voted for a Democratic candidate, versus just 9% who voted for a
Republican. See Pew Research Center (2018).
9. Nelson (2019) notes that the “plantation” association with the Democratic
Party was first used by Richard Nixon in his 1968 presidential campaign and was used
even earlier in history by Black conservatives. Nelson comments that the discourse
used by Blexit is no different. “Blexit is the flashier, millennial, made-for-social-media
edition.” However, we would argue that the history of racist tropes as political strate-
gy goes back further in U.S. history. Even conservative Kevin Phillips’s (1969) analysis
of the evolving Republican Party from the late 19th century suggests that race has been
a defining factor in U.S. political behavior since at least Lincoln’s election in 1860.
10. On June 15, 2012, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), un-
der executive action of President Barack Obama, announced the DACA program.
The program allowed certain undocumented people who meet specific requirements
for eligibility to receive a temporary 2-year work authorization and it deferred de-
portation removal. Some requirements set by U.S. Customs and Immigration Ser-
vices (USCIS) for those seeking consideration of DACA were that they arrived in
the United States before they were 16 years of age, they had continuously resided
in the United States since June 15, 2007, and they were under the age of 31 as of
June 15, 2012 (see www.uscis.gov/archive/consideration-deferred-action-childhood-
arrivals-daca#guidelines). To be eligible, an applicant must also have been enrolled
in school, graduated high school (or earned a GED), or have been an honorably
discharged veteran of the U.S. military. Furthermore, applicants could not have been
convicted of a felony or any significant misdemeanors. The DACA program was in
effect for 5 years until it was rescinded on September 5, 2017, under the direction
of President Donald Trump. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case challenging
Trump’s rescinding of the policy. SCOTUS heard the case on November 12, 2019,
and a decision was handed down in July 2020 in support of DACA.
11. The original podcast is from the series The Joe Rogan Experience, hosted
by Joe Rogan. Rogan’s interview with Owens is episode #1125 and aired May 31,
2018.
12. In 2019, the Trump administration moved to change asylum procedures,
requiring applicants to pay a fee and judges to adjudicate requests sooner. These
changes were made in an attempt to discourage Latina/o migrants, mostly from
Central American, from applying for asylum.
13. Faces of the women in the photo have been blurred by authors to protect
their identities. The photo was found on TooPics, a website that features popu-
lar/trending Instagram posts and hashtags. This particular photo was found in a
“#Blexit” search at www.toopics.com/tag/blexit. The site continually refreshes new
posts that use this hashtag.
120 Notes

14. See Khan-Cullors & bandele’s (2018) memoir, “When They Call You a Ter-
rorist” on the development of the Black Lives Matter movement.
15. This quote from Carol Anderson is cited in Nelson’s interview with Candace
Owens in 2019. See Nelson (2019).
16. In much of Derrick Bell’s work, including his work on racial realism, he
speaks specifically to the experiences of Black communities. However, we believe
that many of the concepts that Bell has theorized, including racial realism, are rele-
vant to the experiences of other People of Color.
17. Many Native American and other indigenous cultures tell stories of
shape-shifting, where one creature can change form into a new manifestation.
18. Race traitors can be People of Color, from any group, who have internalized
racism and white supremacist ideologies to the detriment of Communities of Color.
Indeed, Owens is not the only example.
19. The term “race traitor” was introduced in Derrick Bell’s Faces at the Bottom
of the Well (1992b). In this book, Bell also applies the term to whites who engage
in strategies to challenge and dismantle white dominance. This definition of a white
race traitor was taken up by Noel Ignatiev and John Garvey shortly after, producing
the edited book Race Traitor in 1996. This book focuses on the deconstruction of
whiteness, what the authors (problematically) describe as “the struggle to abolish
the white race from within” (Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p. 2). Ignatiev and Garvey’s
(1996) discussion of race traitors centers whites and whiteness and (problematically)
claims that the strategies for anti-whiteness of Communities of Color fall outside the
scope of their work.
Chapter 5
1. As you’ll notice with our research on racial microaggressions, racial microaf-
firmations, and Critical Race Theory, these ideas have long gestation periods and
earlier points of origin.
2. I (Danny) first read the Gates letter to his daughters in 1994. It was something
that I knew was important and filed for later use. Twenty years later (January 2014)
I presented the concept of racial microaffirmations at an invited lecture to the Prin-
cipal Leadership Institute at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education & Information
Studies. I then presented a paper on the concept of racial microaffirmations titled
“Toward Collective Action to Reclaim Public Narratives for Justice: Ameliorating
an Impoverished Cultural Discourse on Affirmative Action in Higher Education,” at
the Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association, Chicago, IL,
April 18, 2015.
3. The excerpt here is taken from several pages throughout the preface of this
memoir, including from pages xi to xvi.
4. For other articles that articulate racial justice strategies for the disruption of
“white space” see Anderson (2015), Montoya (1994), Baszile (2004).
5. We explain Bell’s (1992a) concept of racial realism in further detail in Chap-
ter 4. Racial realism holds that racism has and always will be a permanent fixture
in U.S. society.
6. Steele’s research on self-affirmation theory led to a closer examination of
race-based threats and the impact they have on People of Color. Later in his career,
Steele developed the theory of stereotype threat to explain how perceived negative
expectations of Students of Color can negatively impact self-esteem and academic
Notes 121

outcomes. See Steele and Aronson (1995). See also Cohen and Garcia (2005) for a
study that explains a concept called “collective threat”—how the self-esteem of Peo-
ple of Color can be negatively impacted by those within one’s own racial group who
may be perceived as reinforcing negative racial group stereotypes. It should be noted
that these studies do not consider individual and/or group agency or the structural
conditions that shape racist viewpoints of People of Color.
7. Jones (2017) also found that “not nodding” could be interpreted as a signal
of disrespect, and/or a signal that some African Americans did not want to be asso-
ciated with others in this setting.
8. Dolores Delgado Bernal (1998) explains the concept of cultural intuition as
culturally specific ways of knowing Chicana/o scholars bring to the research process
that inform methodological decisions and strategies as well as the broader research
design.
9. In 2018, on a trip to the National Museum of African American History and
Culture, we found a permanent exhibit on Gestures of Acknowledgment. In this
exhibit panel they mention “the Nod.”
10. Stories, advice, and conversations.
11. We would also argue that Montoya’s later work on name narratives as ped-
agogy could be a powerful form of racial microaffirmation used in classrooms, for
marginalized students in particular. See Montoya, Vasquez, and Martínez (2014).
12. Norma Cantú (2008) highlights the significance of place (and land) in tradi-
tional Mexican dance styles performed in the United States.
13. Music in Latina/o communities, as in other Communities of Color, has his-
torically served as a form of resistance to oppression and as an affirmation of cul-
tural pride. Corridos, for example, is a Mexican music genre that has been used in
these ways since the 19th century (Paredes, 1958). The documentary Rumble: The
Indians Who Rocked the World, tells the story of the Native American influence on
the development of rock ’n’ roll in the United States and how it was erased from
music history (Salas, Johnson, & Bainbridge, 2018). Similarly, in African American
communities, jazz, blues, hip-hop and other important genres have their roots in
resistance, while also being appropriated by white listeners (see Chang & Herc,
2005; Floyd, 1996; Jones, 1999). The history of appropriation, profit, and historical
erasure of music created by Communities of Color is a result of institutional racism
and white supremacy.
14. Anzaldúa (1999) uses the term linguistic terrorism to name the ways that
the Spanish language is stigmatized, and its use among Chicana/o communities pun-
ished in the United States (p. 80). Linguistic terrorism describes how language sup-
pression is discursively utilized as an exercise of power and strategy of domination
over Chicana/o communities in the United States, often beginning in schools and
extending to other social institutions where linguistic norms are established to mar-
ginalize and exclude Chicanas/os and Latinas/os. Anzaldúa (1999) also describes
how “language is a male discourse” and these processes of subordination are not
only racist, but also patriarchal (p. 76).
15. Under the leadership of Jim Enote, the director of the Zuni A:shiwi A:wan
Museum & Heritage Center, 50 artists from the Zuni nation have embarked on a
project called the Zuni Map Art Project. Enote states that he “wanted to make maps
that were both elegant, evacuative, and profoundly important to the Zuni People.”
He goes on to state that “these maps become a thing that helps a family or group
122 Notes

to start speaking about places. To start learning from each other and talking about
places in a way that is uniquely Zuni.” He speaks of maps as affirming, and states
that “when people have a map that is part of affirming their identity, it tells them
that they are of this place” (see Enote & McLerran, 2011, and the online Emergence
Magazine, at (emergencemagazine.org/story/counter-mapping/) for a video descrip-
tion of the Zuni Map Art Project. Like the Zuni Map Art Project, we also recognize
that the field of Ethnic Studies has been a source of racial microaffirmation through-
out our careers—seeing, affirming, and validating ourselves in space, history, and
text. We also argue that not seeing oneself in space, history, and text is a racial
microaggression.
16. In Chapter 2, we explain visual microaggression as a type of racial microag-
gression. We believe that visual microaffirmation is a type of racial microaffirmation,
and that the model we present in Figure 2.1 could be adapted and used to explore
the types, contexts, effects of, and responses to racial microaffirmations.
17. Some examples of racial microaffirmations in the history of African Amer-
ican communities in the United States can be found in early photojournalism. The
National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC,
recently opened the exhibit “African Americans in Full Color,” which displays ear-
ly 20th-century African American photojournalism (see nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/
african-­americans-full-color). Among these publications were Ebony and Jet, mag-
azines that offered affirmative Black imagery and featured achievements of African
Americans. The entire Ebony and Jet photo archive went up for auction in 2019
after its publishing company filed for bankruptcy. Some photos from the collection
were featured in a New York Times article about the archive collection and auction
in July 2019 (see www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/us/ebony-magazine-photographs-­
auction.html). Since then, the National Museum of African American History and
Culture announced that it had acquired a significant portion of the collection (see
www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/foundations-donate-historic-
jetebony-­archive-to-african-american-museum/2019/07/25/caaee662-af11-11e9-
bc5c-e73b603e7f38_story.html).
Chapter 6
1. Valencia (2010) theorized cultural deficit theory to describe the phenomenon
of blaming the cultures, families, and communities of Latinas/os and African Amer-
icans to explain the social inequities, including lower educational outcomes, that
exist in the United States.
2. Parks was commissioned by Life magazine in 1956 to document the lives of
three Black families living in Alabama during the Jim Crow segregation era. This
“Department Store” photo captured one of the family members, Joanne Thorton
Wilson, and her young niece. The sign was actually at the entrance to a movie the-
ater, near a department store. In the New York Times (2013) Wilson tells the story
of the photo, explaining that her niece smelled the popcorn wafting from the theater
entrance, but that Wilson did not want to take her through the back entrance to
buy it for her. So she stood on the sidewalk under the sign thinking “where I could
go to get her popcorn” (see lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/the-woman-in-the-
picture/)
3. See Maya Angelou’s website at www.mayaangelou.com/blog/.
Notes 123

4. The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) library currently houses

The Teatro Campesino Archives, a collection of over 20 years of work created by
the theater group that includes interviews, films, audio recordings, photographs, and
other materials. For the finding aid to this collection see pdf.oac.cdlib.org/pdf/ucsb/
spcoll/cusb-cema5.pdf
5. A possible example we should mention here is a package of bills introduced to
the California legislature by Assemblywoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Ange-
les). These bills would require state-licensed doctors, physician assistants, and nurses
to undergo 8 hours of implicit bias training and testing every 2 years. See www.
latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-implicit-bias-legislation-california-20190422-story.
html
6. Coates (2017) explains that the rise of support for Donald Trump was a di-
rect response to the progressive politics of former President Barack Obama and the
policies that sought to improve the lives of Communities of Color. Coates provides
a historically insightful account of these waves of progress and retrenchment of the
rights of People of Color dating back to the early 19th century.
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Index

The letter f after a page number indicates a figure.

Abel, E., 56 Apfel, N., 87

Abrego, L., 10 Apology response, 48, 49
Acknowledgment and respect, 85, 88, Aracialism, 21, 33n9
90n10. See also Head nod Arizona immigration policy, 80
Action against racism, 50, 107–108, Aronson, J., 87n7
107f Ashe, J. J., 101
Acuña, R., 11n21, 62, 67 Asylum, 64, 80n12
“Adaptive reactions,” 86 Authors’ backgrounds
Adelman, L., 43 Danny (Solórzano), 1–8
Adler, N. E., 101 Lindsay (Pérez Huber), 8–14
Affirmation, 98–99. See also Racial Author’s voice, 1n1
microaffirmations Axios, 64n15
Affirmative action, 7, 8
“Affirmative Action, Educational Bagwell, O., 83
Equity and Campus Racial Climate” Baile folklórico, 92–93
(Allen & Solórzano), 7–8 Bainbridge, C., 92n14
“African Americans in Full Color” Baker, P., 60
exhibit, 97n18 Baldwin, J., 25, 25n2
Ahuja, G., 71 Bandele, a., 80n14
Alegría, M., 102 Baszile, D. T., 85n4
Alexander, M., 25, 51, 57, 59n9, 60 Battle-Baptiste, W., 34
Allen, W. R., 7, 8, 43, 55, 102 Beatty Moody, D. L., 101
Alvarado, A. R., 102 Bell, D., 25n2, 37, 54n3, 73, 80–82,
Alvarez, L., 63 82n19, 83, 87, 87n6, 108
Anderson, C., 80 Bell, D., 54n3
Anderson, E., 85n4, 89, 105, 106 Benavidez Lopez, C., 12
Anderson, N. B., 26, 42, 43, 102, 103, Bennett, M., 46
104 Bermudez, E., 19–20
Angelou, M., 105 Bernard, H. R., 42, 101
Ansell, D. A., 51 Bernhard, M., 16
Anti-immigrant stance, 61, 78–80, 103 Berry, C. D., 68
Anzaldúa, G., 66, 67, 83, 93n15 Berryman, A., 61, 100

144
Index 145

Binning, K. R., 91 Children’s literature, 90–91, 105

Black Codes, 27 Chomski, A., 79
Black Lives Matter movement, 80 Citizen (Rankine), 20
Blexit campaign, 77–82, 77n8, 81f, 83 Clark, K. B., 53n1, 69, 69n3
Blow, C., 74 Clark, M. P., 53n1, 69, 69n3
Boal, A., 108 Clark, R., 42
Bonilla-Silva, E., 32 Clark, V., 42
“Bootstraps” myth. See Meritocracy Clark Doll Experiment, 53n1, 69–71,
Border Protection, Antiterrorism and 69n3, 70f, 83
Illegal Immigration Control Act of Clayton-Pedersen, A., 102
2005 (H.R. 4437), 10, 10n8, 80 CNN, 71
Border wall, 61 Coates, T., 65, 67, 108
Bound, J., 43 “Cognitive distortions,” 23
Brenes, T., 99 Cohen, G. L., 87, 87n7, 91
Brexit campaign, 77 “Cohesion” in storytelling, 21
Brown v. Board of Education, 43n8, “Collective aspects of self,” 87
53, 53n1, 69 Collins, P., 3
Broyles-González, Y., 108 Colonialism, 25n3, 72
Brzustoski, P., 87 Colonizer and the Colonized, The
Bucceri, J. M., 8n15, 34 (Memmi), 72
Colored People (Gates), 84–85
California immigration policy, 11, “Color-line,” 33–34, 34n11
11n21, 80 Constantine, M. G., 8n15, 34, 35
Camargo Gonzalez, L., 90, 105 Context for microaggressions, 39, 39f,
Campus-climate study, 7–8 41–42
Cantú, N., 92n13 Cook, J. E., 87, 91
Capodilupo, C. M., 8n15, 35 Cook, S. W., 69
Capouya, E., 25 Corbin, J., 4
Carbado, D., 46 Cornell, D. G., 99
Carcamo, C., 61, 64n15 Counterstories, 19–21, 36, 91
Carew, J., 5, 5n13 Cox, P. R., 14
Carroll, G., 8, 29, 43 Crenshaw, K. W., 2n5, 23n1, 47n10, 48
Carter, R., 12, 53, 53n1, 58, 98 Critical analysis of social issues, 106–108
Casey, P., 46 “Critical Race Analysis of Marginality,
Ceja, M., 8, 8n15, 39, 40, 45 A” (Solórzano), 4
Censorship. See Free speech “Critical Race and LatCrit Approach to
Center for Constitutional Rights, 59 Media Literacy, A” (Yosso), 14n23
Chae, D. H., 43, 101 Critical Race Content Analysis, 105
Chang, C., 58 Critical race hypos, 17–18, 37–38,
Chang, J., 92n14 41–42, 47–48
Chapa, J., 8n16 Critical Race Spatial Analysis, 3n10
Chapters overview, 17–18 Critical Race Theory (CRT), 1–2, 3f,
Charles, N., 71 13, 14, 23n1, 33–36, 35f
Chavez, L. R., 79, 93 “Critical Race Theory, Racial and
Chein, I., 69 Gender Microaggressions, and
Chicana feminism, 13–14 the Experiences of Chicana and
Chicano Movement, 108 Chicano Scholars” (Solórzano), 7
146 Index

“Critical Race Theory, Racial Dinan, S., 64

Microaggressions, and Campus Doane, L. D., 102
Racial Climate for Latina/o Domenech Rodríguez, M., 48, 49
Undergraduates” (Yosso et al.), 8 Dominant-group stories. See
“’Critical Race Theory’ Questions Majoritarian stories of racism
Role of Legal Doctrine in Racial Don’t Tell Lies, Lucy! (Cox), 14
Inequality” (Monaghan), 2 Double-consciousness, 3
Croom, N., 55 Dressler, W. W., 42, 101
CRT (Critical Race Theory). See Du, H., 102
Critical Race Theory (CRT) Dual affirmation, 95–96
Cuentos, consezos, and pláticas, 91, Du Bois, W. E. B., 3–4, 25n2, 26, 27–
91n11 30, 33, 34, 34n11
Cueva, B. M., 13, 42, 43, 44, 62 Duke, B., 68
Culp, J., 4 Dunbar-Ortiz, R., 67
Cultural affirmations, 106 Dusk of Dawn (Du Bois), 29–30
Cultural deficit theory, 24, 98n1 Dyson, M. E., 88–89, 105
Cultural wealth, 93n15
Earls, F., 5n13
DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Education, 9–10, 33n8, 62, 99–100
Arrivals), 79, 79n10 El Corrido (Ballad of a Farmworker)
Dance and music, 92–93, 92n13, (Teatro Campesino), 71–77
92n14 Empowerment, 89–90
Danley, L. L., 43, 55 Enote, J., 93n16
Darden, T. M., 101 Enslavement of African Americans, 25,
Darkwater (Du Bois), 26–28 25n3, 26, 26f
Dasgupta, N., 46 Epel, E. S., 101
David, E., 7, 8n15 Erasure, 94, 100
David, J. H., 61 Esquilin, M., 8n15, 35
Davis, E. M., 87 Essed, P., 19
Davis, P., 4, 5 Ethnic studies, 8–9
De facto segregation, 27–29 “Everyday discrimination scale,”
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals 103–104
(DACA), 79, 79n10 Everyday racism. See Racial
Deficit perspectives, 24, 82, 98, 98n1 microaggressions
De jure segregation, 27, 57f, 101f. See
also Jim Crow laws Faces at the Bottom of the Well (Bell),
de la Luz, A., 12 73, 82n19
Delgado, R., 2n5, 19, 21, 22, 23n1, Fagan, J., 58–59
47n10, 48 Faigman, D., 46
Delgado Bernal, D., 13, 61, 90n9 Feagin, J. R., 71, 99
Delwiche, T., 16 Federal detention centers, 80
Demographic changes, 62 Fegley, S. G., 71
De Onís, C., 8n16 First amendment rights. See Free speech
Derthick, A., 7, 8n15 Fletcher, K. D., 68
Desegregation, 53, 53n1, 69–70. See Flores Niemann, Y., 50
also Segregation Floyd, S. A., 92n14
Detention centers, 80 Floyd v. City of New York, 58, 60
Diera, C., 61, 99, 100 Ford Foundation research, 2–3, 5–7
Index 147

“Fostering Inclusive Excellence” Haro, C., 9

seminar series, 16 Harpalani, V., 71
Franke, M., 99 Harper, S., 108
Franklin, J. D., 43, 102 Harrell, S. P., 101
Freedman, L., 62, 63, 63f, 63n12 Harris, A. P., 41n6
Free speech, 22–23, 23n1, 47n10 Harris, C., 32, 67
Freire, P., 35 Hatcher, R., 99
Friedland, R., 3n10 Hate crimes, 61
Hate speech, 25n2
Garcia, G. A., 40 Hayes-Bautista, D., 8n16
Garcia, J., 87, 87n7, 91 Head nod, 88–90, 90n8, 90n10
García Bedolla, L., 8, 11 Health effects of racism, 13, 31, 42–45,
Gardiner, A., 41 48, 64, 87, 101–103
Garibay, J. C., 40 “Heightened vigilance scale,” 103
Garvey, J., 82n19 Hentoff, N., 25
Gates, H. L., Jr., 56, 69, 71, 84–85, 86, Herc, D. J. K., 92n14
88, 90 Herrera, F. A., 40
Gaxiola Serrano, T., 67 Hicken, M., 43
Gee, G., 43 Hill, L. B. K., 42, 101
Geller, R., 99 Holder, A. M. B., 8n15, 35
Gender, 4, 5–6, 12, 47, 89, 93n15 “Homoracial Behavior in the U.S.A.”
Geronimus, A., 43 (Pierce & Profit), 5
Gildersleeve, R., 55 Hooks, b., 3
Gillborn, D., 32, 33 Housing discrimination, 25
Giraldo, L. G., 40 H.R. 4437 (Border Protection,
Gitlin, T., 16, 17, 22–23, 26 Antiterrorism and Illegal
Glaser, B., 4 Immigration Control Act of 2005),
Gómez, L. E., 11n21, 32, 62, 67 10, 10n18, 80
Gomez, V., 40, 44, 61 Huang, F. L., 99
González, C. G., 41n6 Huber-Verjan, L., 84, 85, 86, 90, 105
Gonzalez, H. M., 102 Hughes, J. W., 42, 101
Gonzalez, J., 67n2 Hughes, L., 25
Goss, T. N., 71 Huidor, O., 10
Gotanda, N., 2n5 “Humanitarian crisis,” 64, 64n15
Goyer, J. P., 91 Hung, M., 43, 102
Gravlee, C. C., 42, 101 Hurtado, S., 102
Greenwald, A. G., 46 Hypersensitivity argument, 22–23
Grier-Reed, T., 45 Hypos. See Critical race hypos
Griffith, E. E. H., 35
Grutter v. Bollinger, 7, 9 “I, Too, Am Harvard” campaign, 16
Guillermo-Wann, C., 102 I Am Exhausted (Masta), 20–21
Guinier, L., 24, 69, 70n4 Identity, 87, 91, 93n16, 94
Gutiérrez y Muhs, G. y., 41n6 Ignatiev, N., 82n19
Guzmán, B., 91 Imagery. See Racial microaggressions:
visual
Haidt, J., 16, 23, 24, 26 Immigration, 10–12, 60–61, 63–64,
Haney López, I., 62 64n14, 64n15, 79–80, 79n10,
Hansberry, L., 25 80n12, 103
148 Index

Implicit bias, 46, 108n5 Jones, C., 26, 43

Incarcerated youth, 94–95 Jones, J. M., 86
“Independent Investigative Report on Jones, J. R., 89, 90n8
Acts of Bias and Discrimination Jones, L., 92n14
Involving Faculty at the University Jordan, M., 64n15
of California, Los Angeles” Juárez, B., 94
(Moreno et al.), 15–16
“Institutional neglect,” 11 K–12 education, 99–100
Institutional racism Kaiser Family Foundation, 44, 64,
and internalized racism, 67, 69–71 64n15
relationship to racial Kamlager-Dove, S., 108n5
microaggressions, 46–47, 46f, 51, Kang, J., 46
52f, 53–54, 57, 59–60, 63–64 Katzel, L. I., 101
social conditions, 98 Kazin, A., 25
theoretical perspective, 12–14, 16, Keene, D., 43
25–26 Kendi, I. X., 24, 27
Institutional responsibility, 108 Khan-Cullors, P., 80n14
Interactional dimension of racial Kleinman, A., 5n13
microaffirmations, 105–106 Kobayashi, I., 42, 101
Intergroup conflict. See Internalized Kohli, R., 8, 39, 68
racism: intergroup conflict Kopan, T., 64
Internalized racism Kraft, C., 63
definition and model, 68, 69f Krieger, L. H., 46
foundations, 66–68, 82–83 Kwako, A., 61, 100
intergroup conflict, 68, 69f, 72f,
77–83 Laclau, E., 38, 38n1
internalized racist nativism, 44, 71– Lacy, K., 27
77, 72f, 79–82 Ladson-Billings, G., 29n7
intragroup conflict, 68, 69f, 71, 72f Lakoff, G., 53
research, 69–71, 70f, 83 Language, 3n9, 8n16, 19, 91–92, 93,
Internalized racist nativism, 44, 71–77, 93n15
72f, 79–82 “La Prieta” (Anzaldúa), 66, 83
Intragroup conflict. See Internalized Larsen, N., 29
racism: intragroup conflict LatCrit, 61
Invisibility, 94, 100 Latina/o education, 9–10, 62
Ishimoto, M., 61, 99, 100 Law and race, 2, 4, 23n1, 91–92
“Law as Microaggression” (Davis), 4
Jackson, J. S., 102, 103, 104 Lawrence, C., 2n5, 23n1, 47, 47n10,
Jackson-Triche, M., 15 48
Jacob Arriola, K. R., 101 Layered assaults, 55, 59
Jerald, M. C., 68 Layous, K., 87
Jim Crow laws, 25, 25n5, 56–57, Leadership, 108
69–71 Ledesma, M., 8
John, D. A., 103 Legal scholarship, 91–92
Johnson, K. R., 62 Levchak, C. C., 55
Johnson, R. N., 39, 68 Liebel, D. K., 101
Johnson, T., 92n14 Life histories of scholars, 3, 4, 5
Johnston, M. P., 40 Lin, A. I., 35
Index 149

Lin, G., 20 Morning routine, 95–96

Lin, J., 101 Morris, A., 4, 4n11
Lincoln, K. D., 101 Morrissey, K., 64
Linguistic terrorism, 93n15 Moss, L., 68
Littlefield, A., 64n15 Mouffe, C., 38, 38n1
Lopez, C. B., 12, 61, 62 Muñoz, R., 8–9
Lopez, D., 100 Muñoz, S. M., 61
Lorde, A., 32 Museus, S. D., 41n7, 43
Low expectations, 4, 39, 44 Music as affirmation, 92–93, 92n13,
Lukianoff, G., 16, 23, 24, 26 92n14, 95

MacDonald, B., 25n2 NAACP, 53n1

Magaña, L., 10 Nadal, K. L., 8n15, 35, 38n2
Malagón, M. C., 10, 11, 12, 13, 61, 62 Najera-Ramirez, O., 92
Marable, M., 32, 54 Name narratives, 106
Marginalization, 2–4, 3f, 16, 29n7, 85 Naming as empowerment, 1, 35–36
Martínez, D. V., 91n12, 106 Nash, G., 15
“Máscara, Trenza y Greñas” National Advisory Commission on
(Montoya), 91 Civil Disorders, 12n22
Masta, S. Z., 20–21 National Museum of African American
Matsuda, M. J., 2n5, 23n1, 47n10, 48 History and Culture, 97n18
McGuire, K. M., 41n7 Native, as term, 61n11
Memmi, A., 32, 72 Nativism. See Racist nativism
Mendoza-Denton, N., 61 Nelson, R., 77, 78, 78n9, 80, 80n15
Menjívar, C., 10 New Jim Crow, 59n9
Mentorship practices, 85–86 New York Police Department, 58
Meritocracy, 24, 35 New York Times Editorial Board, 59
Mestiza identity, 91 Ngai, M., 62, 79
Mexico and racism, 11n21 Niemann, Y. F., 41n6
Mexico–U.S. border, 60–61 Nod, the. See Head nod
Michigan Proposal 2, 40 Nonbelonging, 41
Microaggressions. See Racial Normalization of beliefs, 35–36, 82
microaggressions Nuru-Jeter, A. M., 101
Milem, J., 102
Miller, C., 61 Obama, B., 79, 79n10
Mino, I., 5n13, 31 Offensive mechanisms, 30–31
Miroff, N., 64 Okazaki, S., 7, 8n15
Mnookin, J., 46 Okwonga, M., 89, 105, 106
Model of Recognition, Reflection, and Omi, M., 32
Action, 107f O’Toole, M., 64
Mohammed, S. A., 102, 103 Owens, C., 77–82, 77n8, 83
Monaghan, P., 2 Oyserman, D., 103
Montoya, M. E., 61, 68, 85n4, 91–92,
91n12, 106 Pantoja, A. D., 10
Moonmal, H., 102 Paredes, A., 92n14
Morales, S., 45 Parenting practices, 91
Moreno, C., 15 Park, I. J. K., 101
Moreno Report, 15–16 Park, R., 4
150 Index

Parker, L., 2n4 Purdie-Vaughns, V., 26, 42, 43, 87, 91

Parks, G., 100, 101f “Pyramid of petty tyrants,” 72–73, 77
Partlow, J., 64
Pedagogy, 95–96, 106 Qualitative research topics, 105–106
Peller, G., 2n5 Quantitative research topics, 101–105
Pérez, E., 32
Pérez Huber, L., 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, Race. See also Racism; White
15, 17, 25, 26, 34, 38n2, 39, 40, supremacy
41, 42, 43, 44, 47, 53, 61, 62, 65, and aracism, 33n9
67, 68, 79, 84, 85, 86, 90, 93, 94, children’s literature, 90–91
100, 101, 105 codes of communication, 88–89
Performance, 108, 108n4. See also El court cases involving, 7, 9, 58–60
Corrido (Ballad of a Farmworker) deficit perspectives, 24, 82, 98, 98n1
(Teatro Campesino) definition of, 32–33
Permanence of racism. See Racial harm, 4–5, 6
realism housing discrimination based on, 25
Perpetrators of racism, 35n12, 46, 46f, law and, 2, 4, 7, 9, 23n1, 56–60,
48–50, 60 69–71, 91–92
Personal responsibility, 77, 79 link to immigration, 12
Pew Research Center, 77n8 marginality concept, 3–4
Phillips, K. P., 78n9 progress, 109
“Photographs of Signs Enforcing Racial representation of, 3, 94, 100, 105
Discrimination,” 56, 56n7 saliency, 32
Photojournalism, 56–58, 56n7, 57f, segregation based on, 56–57, 57f,
97n18, 100–101, 101f 101f
Physiological effects of racism. See slavery, 25, 25n3, 26
Health effects of racism stereotypes regarding, 4, 14–15, 39,
Pierce, C., 5, 5n13, 29, 30, 31, 34, 44, 87, 87n7
41–42, 43, 45, 55, 55n4, 107 Race hypos. See Critical race hypos
Pierce-Gonzalez, D., 5, 5n13 Race Traitor (Ignatiev & Garvey),
Pitzer, A., 63 82n19
Place and space, 3n10 Race traitors, 82, 82n18, 82n19, 83
Political parties, 77, 77n8 “Racial battle fatigue,” 102
Poston, B., 58 Racial macroaggressions, 51, 52f, 53n2,
Power differentials, 72–73, 76, 93n15 55, 55n5, 55n6, 60, 64–65
Praxis, 106–110 Racial microaffirmations
Preference for whiteness, 66, 67–68 definition, 85, 86
Pressley, A., 41 interactional dimension, 105–106
Presumed Incompetent (Muhs et al.), in literature, 88–92
41n6 music and dance, 92–93, 95
Priest, N., 26, 42, 43, 104 and photojournalism, 97n18
Profit, W., 5, 5n13, 31 reciprocity, 96, 105–106
Proposition 187 (California), 11n21, responses to, 104–105
80 stories of, 84–85, 92–96
Proposition 227 (California), 11 theory, 85–88
Psychological effects of racism. See and transformation, 99
Health effects of racism visual, 90–91, 92–93, 94, 94n17,
Public outreach, 17 97n18
Index 151

Racial microaggressions secondary, 42, 42n7

acknowledging harm, 1, 48–49 unconscious, 45–46
context, 39, 39f, 41–42 U.S. history, 25–30, 26f, 36, 67
definitions, 55n5, 55n6 Racism hypotheticals. See Critical race
early work (Pérez Huber), 8–9, 27–28 hypos
early work (Solórzano), 1–2, 4–8 Racist nativism, 11–13, 41, 43–45,
effects, 30–31, 39, 39f, 55, 55n4 61–65, 63f, 93. See also Internalized
intent, 45–46, 46f racist nativism
model, 38–39, 39f Rankine, C., 20
naming, 35–36 Reciprocity, 96, 105
national attention to, 16 Reeves, S. L., 91
and praxis, 106–108 Repard, P., 64n15
responding to, 1, 18, 39, 39f, 45–50, Representation, 3, 94, 100
103–104 Resistance, 98
scholars and, 5–6 Reverse racism, 78
stories (contemporary), 19–25, 44 Rice, C., 15
stories (historical), 25–30 Ro, A., 43
targets of, 45, 46, 46f, 59 Roediger, D. R., 27, 32, 67
tree analogy, 52f, 54–55 Rogan, J., 79, 79n11
types, 6–7, 31, 34, 38, 39–41 Rogers, J., 61, 99, 100
visual, 14–15, 14n23, 39–40, 40n4, Rolón-Dow, R., 86
56–58, 56n7, 57f, 90–91, 100– Roosa, M. W., 102
101, 101f Rowe, M., 88
“Racial Microaggressions as a Tool Rusert, B., 34
for Critical Race Research” (Pérez Ryan, P. M., 90
Huber & Solórzano), 14
Racial nativism, 12 “Safetyism,” 23–24
“Racial nod,” 89 Saito, N. T., 62
Racial profiling, 58–60 Salas, S., 92n14
Racial realism, 54n3, 80–82, 81n16 Sánchez, G., 10, 12, 61
Racism. See also Race; Racial realism; Save Our State initiative, 11n21, 80
White supremacy Saw, A., 7, 8n15
action against, 50, 107–108, 107f Scholars research, 2–3, 5–7
anti-immigrant, 11, 32–33 Schuette v. Coalition to Defend
definition, 32–33 Affirmative Action, Integration and
health effects, 13, 42–45, 48, 64, 87, Immigration Rights and Fight for
101–103 Equality, 40–41
Indigenous people as targets of, Segregation, 25, 25n4, 27–29, 56–57,
11n21, 25n3 69–71. See also Desegregation
Latinas/os as targets, 10–11 Self-affirmation theory, 86–88
majoritarian stories, 22–25, 36 Self-integrity, 86–87
Mexico and, 11n21 Senate Bill 1070 (Arizona), 80
racial profiling, 58–60 Sexism, 5–6
recognizing existence of, 107–108, Sexual abuse, 64n15
107f Shapiro, T. M., 51
responsibility for, 24, 49–50, 106– Shared cultural intimacy, 85, 88, 96
107, 108 Shariff-Marco, S., 43
reversal, 78 Sherman, D. K., 87
152 Index

Slavery, 25, 25n3, 26, 26f Theater of the Oppressed, 108

Slopen, N., 102 Thomas, K., 2n5, 68
Smith, S., 29, 34, 43, 56 Thomas, S. B., 101
Smith, W. A., 8, 39, 40, 42, 43, 45, 55, Title IX, 47
102 Toll of microaggression, 30–31, 39, 39f,
Social identities, 87 55, 55n4. See also Health effects of
Social systems, 53f, 54 racism
Solidarity, 89–90 Torino, G. C., 8n15, 35
Solórzano, D. G., 1, 2n7, 3n10, 4n12, Trask, H., 67n2
7, 8, 8n15, 10, 12, 14, 15, 17, 21, Tree Model analysis, 56–61
22, 24, 25, 26, 29, 32, 33, 34, 37, Tree Model of the white supremacist
38n2, 39, 40, 43, 45, 47, 53, 61, Roots of Racial Macroaggressions,
62, 67, 84, 85, 90, 101, 105 51, 52, 52f
Solórzano, R. W., 24 Tronya, B., 99
Sonnega, J., 103 Trump presidency, 60–61, 61n10, 64,
Souls of Black Folk, The (Du Bois), 34, 64n15, 80, 80n12, 99–100, 109,
34n11 109n6
Space and place, 3n10 Truong, K. A., 41n7, 43
Spanish language use, 11, 19, 91–92, Twoness, 3
93, 93n15
Spencer, M. B., 71, 99 UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
Steele, C. M., 86–87, 87n7 (CSRC), 9–11
Stein, D. J., 102 Unaccompanied (Freedman), 62–63,
Stereotypes. See Race: stereotypes 63f, 63n12
regarding “Unaccompanied alien children,” 63,
Sternthal, M. J., 102 64n14
Stop-and-frisk policy, 58–60 Unaccompanied immigrant children,
Strauss, A., 4 63–64, 64n14, 64n15
“Strivings of the Negro People” (Du Unconscious discriminatory behavior,
Bois), 33–34 45–46
Structural racism, 54. See also Underrepresentation. See
Institutional racism Representation
Sue, D. W., 8n15, 34, 35, 35n12 Undocumented persons, 10, 11
Suzuki, B., 15 United Farm Workers Movement, 108
Syme, S. L., 101 University of California Office of
Systemic racism. See Institutional the President Faculty Leadership
racism Seminar Series, 22
University of California Senate-
Takaki, R., 67 Administration Work Group on the
Takenaga, L., 41 Moreno Report, 15
Tatum, B. D., 99 “Untruths,” 23
Taylor, R. J., 101 U.S. Census Bureau, 103
Teatro Campesino, 71 U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, 64n14
Telomere length, 43, 43n8 U.S. Department of Health and Human
Terminology, 55n4, 55n5, 55n6, 61n11 Services (HHS), 64n15
Testimonio, 13 U.S. Department of Homeland Security,
Thank response, 48 79n10
Theater, 108, 108n4 U.S. immigration. See Immigration
 153

“Using a Chicana Feminist Ward, L. M., 68

Epistemology in Education Watson, K., 42, 43, 43n8, 102
Research” (Delgado Bernal), 13 Werner-Winslow, A., 61
“Using the Critical Race Tools of Racial Weyeneth, R. R., 28, 29
and Gender Microaggressions White supremacy
to Examine Everyday Racism in as defined in this book, 26
Academic Spaces,” 16 historical racism and significance of
U.S.–Mexico border, 60–61 race, 27, 29, 29n7
and internalized racism, 67, 69–71,
Vachon, J., 56, 57f 72f, 82, 82n19
Valdes, F., 61 as macroaggression, 46f, 51, 52f, 58,
Valdez, L., 108 60, 64–65
Valencia, R. R., 24, 98n1 as symptom of racist nativism, 12
Van Ausdale, D., 71, 99 Williams, D. R., 26, 42, 43, 102, 103,
Vasquez, I. M., 91n12, 106 104, 105
Vasquez, P., 55 Williams, S., 102
Vasquez, T., 64n15 Wills, D., 5, 5n13
Vega, C., 40 Wilson, J. T., 100n2
Vega Rodriguez, S., 108 Winant, H., 32
Vélez, V. N., 3n10, 4n12, 12, 26, 61, Wong, G., 7, 8n15
62, 67 Woodson, R. L., Sr., 24
Vigil, D., 61 Words That Wound (Matsuda), 23n1
Villalpando, O., 4n12, 45 Work permit, 79
Visibility, 3, 94, 100
“Visualizing Everyday Racism” (Pérez Yosso, T. J., 1, 2n7, 8, 8n15, 14n23,
Huber & Solórzano), 15 21, 22, 39, 40, 43, 45
Visual microaffirmations, 90–91, 92– Youth of Color research, 99–100
93, 94, 94n17 Yu, Y., 102, 103, 104
Visual microaggressions. See Racial Yun, J. E., 99
microaggressions: visual
Volokh, E., 16, 23, 24, 26 Zeiders, K. H., 102
Zero-tolerance policy, 64, 64n15, 80
Waldstein, S. R., 101 Zonderman, A. B., 101
Walton, K., 87 Zuni Aishiwi Aiwan Museum &
Wang, L., 102 Heritage Center, 93n16
Ward, J. V., 91 Zuni nation, 93n16
About the Authors

Daniel G. Solórzano is professor of social science and comparative education

and director of the Center for Critical Race Studies in Education in the
Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University
of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His teaching, research, and publishing
interests include Critical Race Theory in education, racial microaggressions,
critical race pedagogy, and critical race spatial analysis. Dr. Solórzano has
authored over 100 research articles and book chapters on issues related to ed-
ucational access and equity for underrepresented student populations in the
United States, Critical Race Theory, and racial microaggressions. Over his
48-year career, Dr. Solórzano has taught at the Los Angeles County Juvenile
Hall, the California Community College, the California State University,
and the University of California Systems. Among his awards, he has re-
ceived the UCLA Distinguished Teacher Award, the American Education
Research Association Social Justice in Education Award, the Critical Race
Studies in Education Association Derrick A. Bell Legacy Award, and the
Association for Studies in Higher Education (ASHE) Mildred Garcia
Exemplary Scholarship Award. In 2014 Solórzano was selected as a Fellow
of the American Education Research Association. In 2017, he received the
inaugural Revolutionary Mentor Award from the AERA Critical Educators
for Social Justice (CESJ). In 2019, he delivered the AERA Distinguished
Lecture on Racial Microaggressions. Solórzano received the Distinguished
Alumni Award from the Claremont Graduate University and the 50th
Anniversary Alumni Award from the Chicano Latino Student Affairs Center
at the Claremont Colleges in 2020. Also in 2020, Solórzano was elected to
the National Academy of Education.

Lindsay Pérez Huber is an associate professor in the Social and Cultural

Analysis of Education (SCAE) master’s program in the College of Education
at California State University, Long Beach. Dr. Pérez Huber’s research agen-
da is concerned with using interdisciplinary perspectives to analyze racial
inequities in education, the structural causes of those inequities, and how
they mediate educational trajectories and outcomes of Students of Color.
She has conducted studies in K–12 schools, community colleges, and 4-year
universities. Her research specializations include race, immigration, and

155
156 About the Authors

higher education; racial microaggressions; and critical-race gendered meth-

odologies and epistemologies. Her work is known for further developing
theoretical and conceptual frameworks in Critical Race Theory (CRT),
bridging CRT and Chicana feminist perspectives in education, and for con-
tributing to a greater understanding of Latina/o undocumented student
experiences. Dr. Pérez Huber has served as vice president for the Critical
Race Studies in Education Association (CRSEA), and as a visiting schol-
ar at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center (CSRC) and the UCLA
Center for Critical Race Studies in Education (CCRSE). She is a National
Academies Ford Foundation Fellow, an American Association of Hispanics
in Higher Education (AAHHE) Faculty Fellow, and the 2019 Derrick Bell
Legacy Award winner for the Critical Race Studies in Education Association
(CRSEA).