Racial Microaggressions In Higher Education

Today’s society sees college as a very fundamental step to obtaining success. Carmen Lugo-Lugo argues that instead of being focused on education, college is beginning to convert into a marketplace and a business. She states that colleges are now more interested in making a profit from their students than the actual education they are there for. Due to this mindset, the flow of the classroom environment and how students treat professors is affected. She also makes it known how prevalent systematic racism and racial profiling exist and tells the readers by her first hand accounts. In her essay “A Prostitute, A Servant, And A Customer-Service Representative: A Latina in Academia”, Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies, Carmen Lugo-Lugo uses emotion and language to communicate her claim. Throughout her writing she demonstrates strong emotion-evoking words, and hyperboles.

This paper serves as a personal reflection of the implication of racial microaggressions in daily life. Three journal articles and a book chapter are explored in an effort to obtain a greater understanding of the effects of racial microaggressions experienced by people of color and to bring light to how often racial microaggressions are committed by White Americans without notice or accompanied by attempts to explain away the offenses. The sources used provide examples of obvious acts of discrimination as well as subtle microaggressions which are often unconsciously or naively perpetrated and go on to offer recommendations for professional counselors in order to both provide a framework for helping clients of color to cope with encounters of microaggressions and highlight the need of awareness of possible racial microaggressions present during counselor-client interactions which may result in negative impacts on the therapeutic process. Racial microaggressions are broken down into subcategories of microassaults, microinsults, and microinvalidations, providing a deeper explanation of my own experiences with such discriminatory actions. This ultimately leads to a decision of continuation of training with a necessary focus on increasing mindfulness and field experiences in respect to the subject of racial microaggressive behaviors and attitudes.

Racial disparities exist in every aspect of our society. It exists in religion, socioeconomic status, life-chances, media, etc. It affects everyone even if they realize or not. Education is one of the things that are also affected by the racial stratification occurring in the United States. In this paper I will look in to whether Tennessee is better or worse for educational advancement by comparing four races and their high school graduation rates on the national and state levels. The four races used will be; Asian, Black, Hispanic/Latino, and White. I will then tie specific theories to why these disparities may exist. This will hopefully give insight in to this touchy topic and provide a starting point for correcting the gap.

Living as a Latina in the United States of America is tough. Racial stereotypes follow minorities everywhere they go, even in the classroom. The average American has a typical image of what a professor should be like; which most refer to this image as a white graduate male. These perceived images should not exist because professors come in many different genders, sexualities, and races. In “A Prostitute, A servant, and a Customer-Service Representative: A Latina In Academia,” professor in the department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race studies, Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo, uses emotional appeals and language to inform and create awareness of social and racial stereotypes, as well as how profiting is a priority amongst universities.

Microaggressions are committed constantly, among numerous people without them realizing it. I must say I am completely guilty of also playing part in this act. These acts are done constantly and no one understands the affects it has on people. Miller and Garran (2008) states, “Racial microaggressions are similar to aversive racism. They are “subtle, stunning, often automatic,” verbal and nonverbal putdowns and social assaults that wound people of color unbeknownst to the perpetrator” (p.97). This is what produces pain and anger inside countless of people. Many individuals need professional help in order to surpass the neglect they have been summited to.

66). Research on racial microaggressions has been examined to explore the campus climate for African American students (Solórzano et al., 2000) and Latina/o students (Yosso et al., 2009) and Chicana/o scholars (Solórzano,1998). Sue et al. (2007) define microaggressions as the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership. Thus, microaggresssions manifest in various ways (i.e., they are not just verbal) and in spite of intentionality (i.e., the offense occurs no matter the enactor’s

Throughout my lifetime I will cross paths with many different people. These people could be friends, colleagues, teachers, professors, or significant others, all of any race or cultural background. When meeting someone for the first time, it is very easy to make assumptions about that person without knowing anything about them at all. We’re all human, we all do this. In her essay, “A Prostitute, a Servant, and a Customer-service Representative: A Latina in Academia,” Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies, Carmen Lugo-Lugo claims that what students assume about their professors advocates their attitude toward their education. Racial stereotypes challenge us to consider our own expectations of what we should get out of a college education, and who or what constitutes a college professor. She vigorously uses emotional appeals and establishes her tone of voice using style and word choice in a concerned, direct manner to argue that students make personal or racially-biased assumptions about their teachers/professors, resulting in a lousy attitude towards education.

Given that a university is typically a microcosm of a larger community, the popular discourse about Latina/os can influence the campus climate for Latina/os. This was evident when Calculator and Baileyboy discussed their reactions to the statements a political candidate made about Latina/os. While Calculator and Baileyboy characterized these as false and defamatory, it is possible that these comments resonated with other students on campus. This was evidenced when Maria heard the comment that “Mexicans should go back their own country” and “Mexicans steal all our jobs.” These comments communicated hostility towards Latina/os and may contribute to a hostile climate for Latina/os.

Several participants described their conceptualization of experiences with microaggressions, and it appeared as though they engaged in an appraisal process to determine if they had experienced a racially discriminatory event. This is congruent with previous empirical and theoretical findings related to experiences of discrimination. For instance, in the stress coping model created by Lazarus and Folkman (1984) the initial step is to appraise the event that has transpired. Lazarus and Folkman theorized that this appraisal happens in two stages. First, one engages in primary appraisal, which allows an individual to categorize and event as irrelevant or deleterious. Second, secondary appraisal allow for a determination

The Latina/o students’ Coping with Racial Microaggressions theory is a theory grounded on participants’ experiences of racial microaggressions at a Hispanic Serving Institution. The theory is congruent with Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) Transactional Model of Stress and Coping, due to the importance of appraisal in the context of coping with discrimination. Lazarus and Folkman noted that when encountered with a stressful event, individuals engage in primary and secondary appraisals of the event, and eventually engage in problem focused and emotion focused coping strategies. However, discrepant from Lazarus and Folkman’s model, the key component of the current theory is the extreme importance of context in the experience of discrimination and

Racial microaggression is happening mostly all over North America, even in the 21st century, where I thought racism would have ended. It would happen in schools, on the streets, and in many more places. Dr. Derald Wang Sue, a professor in Columbia University and the leading researcher on this field, describes microaggressions as “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral and environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative racial slights and insults to the target person or group” (Graere, 2014). The word “racial microaggressions” was penned in the 1970s, by Dr. Chester M. Pierce, a professor of education and psychiatry in Harvard University, and then used by race theorists and sociologists in the later years. (Vega, 2014). Actions, such as a Caucasian (or white) woman clutching her purse when passing by a noticeably African (or Black) person; and having a few people from a minority group amongst a group of Caucasian people in a school play, and statements, such as “The reason you are able to get into this institution is that you’re black” ; “The government feels bad for you”; “You speak English so fluently. Don’t you have an accent?” ; ”I don’t see you as a Latino [or] Asian [or] Black [or] Middle Eastern” , “You’re Asian! You must be really smart”; and “Rapping suits you as you’re black. You should be a rapper!”, to name a few, do affect heavily and negatively on the targeted racialized minority groups.

Student demonstrations is in the press because institutions fail to acknowledge the experiences of marginalized students. Universities and colleges hate bad press. The student demonstrations that make the media are not single-isolated incidents. Campus administrators are aware of these frequent incidents that occur on their campuses. Unfortunately, higher education officials ignore these incidents on their campuses, and as a result incidents spiral out of officials control. Racism is systematic and institutional, college and university officials have to demonstrate to the student body that they are indeed committed to their mission statement of diversity. Higher education officials should provide campus healing to their students. In addition,

Mark A. Chesler, a professor of Sociology, conducted a study consisting of 15 student focus groups about the classroom experiences of students of color. The students were asked the following questions: “Have you ever been made uncomfortable by assumptions or comments in the class related to your race and/or ethnicity? Do your instructors expect you to do well? Are there ways in which the faculty could make the subject matter of certain courses more meaningful to you? Has an instructor done something constructive about race relations in or out of class?” The themes found in the student responses were: faculty’s low expectations of students, lack of understanding of the backgrounds of students of color,

In a publication titled ‘Black Women in Academe’, author Yolanda Moses describes how “isolation, invisibility, hostility, indifference, and a lack of understanding of the Black women’s experiences are all too often part of the climate Black women may face on campuses” (Moses, 1989). The detrimental environment surrounding these women frequently results in sullenness, lack of social assertiveness, and belief that they are less competent than male students. Even if time spent at an academic institution is minimal, with this kind of prejudice faced at an early age, any woman- black or otherwise, would suffer the rest of their life. In response to the discrimination faced at universities, some have created programs to aid black students and other minorities; these programs tend to generalize the needs of all its black students and do not fully support black women specifically.

“Racism, belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one 's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others”(Merriam Webster Dictionary 2015). Racism limits student success by causing violence; racism limits students by creating judgement,causing depression, and creating a world wide conflict stimulates hate and anger between students;racism forms a disconnection between races, and causes a ,horrible separation between communities.