microaggression – Opinions

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April 18, Priscilla Lui, SMU psychology professor, for a piece (updated from an earlier version) acknowledging the existence of micro-aggressive behavior and hate incidents that have links to systemic racism, and to which she offered suggestions to help alleviate this behavior. Published in Inside Sources: https://bit.ly/3mYif9g

Many people have heard “microaggression,” but how many understand what it really means or looks like?

Wrongfully assuming that an African American student must have been admitted to a prestigious university because of an athletic scholarship, rather than academic merits.
Asking a Latina business executive to bring coffee or help clean up an office, as if she was a custodial staffer.
Insisting an Asian American person is a foreign immigrant, and then concluding the Asian American is “oversensitive” when they react negatively after that assumption.

Such examples of microaggression are more than cultural and racial naïveté. They often are racism in disguise, weekly impacting 80 percent of Asian Americans, and likely other people of color, according to psychological research. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, Asian American people, in particular, have experienced increasing frequency and severity of everyday slights and attacks.

Continue reading “Microaggression, Isolated Hate, and Systemic Racism”

Dec. 21, Priscilla Lui, SMU psychology professor, for a piece acknowledging the existence of micro-aggressive behavior toward People of Color, its link to systemic rascism, and what can be done about it. Published in Diverse, Issues in Higher Education under the heading When We Understand Microaggressions in the Broader Context of Systemic Racism, We’ll Make Some Progress: http://bit.ly/37HNuiA

Many people have heard the word “microaggression,” but how many understand what it really means, or looks like?

Wrongfully assuming that an African American student must have been admitted to a prestigious university because of an athletic scholarship, rather than academic merits.
Asking a Latina business executive to bring coffee or help clean up an office, as if she was a custodial staff person.
Insisting that an Asian American person is a foreign immigrant, and then concluding the Asian American is “oversensitive” when they react negatively after such assumptions are made.

Such examples of microaggression are more than cultural and racial naïveté. They often are racism in disguise, weekly impacting 80% of Asian Americans, and likely other People of Color, according to psychological research.

Continue reading “When We Understand Microaggressions in the Broader Context of Systemic Racism, We’ll Make Some Progress”