Victimhood Culture

I have read and fully understand the article Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life: the Implications for Clinical Practice. However, I must admit the article does not sit well with me and I have learned I have been a microaggressor since my early days; specifically, I have offered microinsults many times over without even realizing it. Through the years, I have thought of myself as one who consciously believes in equal rights for “all”; not just the American people, but people of all races across the entire globe. Granted, I have never

Microaggressions manifest in many ways such as, “You’re lucky that you're black”, “Don’t you wish you were white”, and “What are you”. These comments can be very insulting to a person. “Don’t you wish you were white” can be very insulting to an African American or Hispanic person. In other words, this example illustrates that the colored person is viewed down upon since they are not white. An African American is viewed down because they were slaves and since they are not white, whites are seen as rich and powerful. Sometimes a simple insult like, “You’re smart,” can offend a person without you knowing it. When someone says, “You’re smart,” people can start questioning themselves about their abilities and intelligence, but there is a way to respond.

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.

In the society we know today, we often believe that it has evolved above racism and all have grown to look past race and see someone only as the person they are. However, in a society where racist messages have institutionalized themselves to the underlying morals of its inhabitants, there is no logic in believing in this archetype of society. Existing since the 1970s when coined by Chester M. Pierce, the term micoaggressions went through serious refining at the hands of Derald Wing Sue, Ph.D., professor of counseling psychology at Colombia University. He has solidified the definition of microaggressions as “…brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that

One lesson I learned was definitely about the role of oppression in individuals who are asking for help. I realized that some of the problems I was facing was internalized racism. Many of the issues I was facing was because of not having enough money to take care of myself. I was struggling with being able to find a job in Washington DC and dealing with poverty. I felt that there were a very limited number of opportunities for me. Also, I had internalized a feeling of hopelessness. According to research by Leary, many African-Americans have learned to live with and survive oppression. However, this oppression can cause emotional responses of fear and internalized oppression where many African Americans feel that they are less than other and

Cultural racism uses the “they don’t have it altogether” statement (39). “The essence of the American version of this frame is “blaming the victim,” arguing that minorities’ standing is a product of their lack of effort, loose family organization, and inappropriate values,” stated Bonilla-Silva (40). Kara a MU student states, “black people that I’ve met…I don’t want to say waiting for a handout, but to some extent, that’s kind of what I’m like hinting at,” when asked what she thought about “blacks lacking motivation” (40). Other students used a kinder response to the above question leading to a family structure issue, a lack of education, and financially that blacks had to get a job at an earlier age than whites (41). Cultural racism is the basis of most racism today. The blame game is used in all situations. People’s egos don’t like to

Throughout the past few years people have started to become more cautious of what they say and do in public because everyone reacts differently to all kinds of things and it is not hard to offend someone. In the essay “Coddling of the American Mind” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, they discuss the rise of microaggression, which fosters a culture where young adults are sheltered from concepts that give offense. They focus on the idea of removing offensive words, ideas, and subjects from college campuses because they believe it is disastrous to protect the words and ideas that may cause “microaggression” from college students. In order to persuade the readers that colleges are distorting and coddling the minds of their students, Lukianoff and Haidt use modes of persuasion, examples, and definitions.

You may not know any bigots, you think “I don’t hate black people, so I’m not racist”, but you benefit from racism. There are certain privileges and opportunities you have that you do not even realize because you have not been deprived in certain ways. Racism, institutional and otherwise, does not always manifest itself in a way that makes it readily identifiable to onlookers, victims, or perpetrators; it is not always the outward aggression typically associated with being a hate crime. Racial microaggressions are a type of perceived racism. They are more subtle and ambiguous than the more hostile or overt expressions of racism, such as racial discrimination (CITE). Microaggressions are everyday verbal, visual, or environmental

The powerful, negative effects of frequent—or even chronic—microaggressions have been well documented for various target groups (see Sue, 2010b, for a review). The cumulative impact and stress from the chronic nature of microaggressions can trigger painful psychological stress responses and reduce students’ sense of belonging on campus (Smith et al., 2007). Furthermore, microaggressions have been shown to assail the mental health of recipients (Sue et al., 2008), create a hostile and invalidating campus climate (Solórzano et al., 2000), perpetuate stereotype threat (Steele et al., 2002), create physical health problems (Clark et al., 1999), and lower work productivity and problem solving abilities (Dovidio, 2001; Salvatore and Shelton,

An intelligent Black boy, who dumbs himself down to avoid criticism. The Hispanic girl who stays at home to take care of her family, instead of going to school. The Asian who pursues a career in medicine, despite wanting to be an actor. All of these strange actions can be explained by the Critical Race Theory. In short, the Critical Race Theory examines how victims of racism and stereotypes counter prejudice. Under the Critical Race Theory falls stereotype threat in which victims assume the roles that they think are prescribed for them based on popular stereotypes. The aim of stereotype threat and the Critical Race Theory is to explain both negative and positive ways minorities are effected by their race and how this reflected in our society as a whole.

Racial Microaggression can be lead back to our country's heinous history of slavery. One writer explains a situation when she was waiting to board the New York City subway, as the doors open a “young white male” exited the train wearing a shirt that said “If we had known it was going to be this much trouble, we would have picked the cotton ourselves.” The writer then says “As a young black woman, you can imagine my total offense to his shirt and the message he sent to anybody and everybody who could read.” Another writer explains how she who is of color and her mother who is white were at Target. Her mother was approached by a white male “as if I was trying to take something from her”. In addition to slavery many more common practices have

What we see at first glance and our stereotypes only scratches the surface of who people truly are and the depth of their culture. Beneath the surface lies what most would define as the most significant attributes of an individual: their values, perspectives, and experiences. While stereotyping can be useful, we must always remember its detriments; by judging based off of only preconceived notions that may or may not be true, we overgeneralize a diverse group of people, therefore forfeiting our understanding of that group. Moreover, stereotyping can be immensely upsetting to a person. Seeing stereotypes based upon who I am has opened my eyes to the unfair judgement I may cast upon others on a day to day basis. Think about it: how would you feel if came to you and said, “You’re an American. All Americans are stupid, so you must be stupid too, right?” As someone who wants to go into a research based field, I can only imagine the embarrassment I would feel if a European colleague disregarded my findings based upon the fact that I am American; although this seems like an extreme example, unfortunately, things like this happen every day. Misunderstanding or not completely understanding a person’s culture has consequences, whether it be as small as offending them with a hand gesture or as big as ostracizing a skilled and competent person based on mere

The knowledge I have gained this week about micro-aggressions, prejudice and racism helps me be aware about my everyday attitudes. I am a more conscious woman and I have changed my attitude when interacting with people of other target groups. I noticed that I have to change my attitudes because sometimes I unconsciously have commited microaggression towards other people. Watching the video and reading this weeks resources I realized that some of the comments I have made to my colligues or students are microaggressions. For example, I used to ask my Asian colligues why they speak Spanish or any other language they speak besides English, I believed that asking that kind of questions were like a compliment for them. Also I used to make a surprized

The microinvalidation with both the waitress and the Caucasian couple intentionally add to oppression and discrimination that exists because both women model behaviors that are acceptable. The waitress pays less attention to a table that she believes is less likely to tip, but she rationalizes it by saying the table never asked for coffee so she didn't need to check on them as frequently. The Caucasian woman grabs her husband's arm to give him affection and because she is cold, it has nothing to do with the younger black men she saw. These behaviors intentionally invalidate the microaggression because it is near impossible to distinguish the truth, did she really grab his arm because she was cold? These behaviors also unintentionally further cause oppression because they invalidate the target group and lead them to question whether it is truly a racist act or they are overreacting.

A key term to understanding implicit forms of racism comes from the term microaggression. According to Dareld Wing Su, racial microaggression can be defined as “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental hostilities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights or insults to the target person or group” (Sue, et al. 273). This definition of microaggression demonstrates the