9.4c Racial Microaggressions
Racial microaggressions are intentional and unintentional everyday slights, insults, and indignities directed toward people of color (Sue et al., 2007). People who perpetrate racial microaggressions may be unaware that they are doing so. Microaggressions are small, like a tiny cut, and therefore easily dismissed by perpetrators and victims as accidental or not harmful. Each might not cause much damage, but a thousand little cuts do significant harm.
Ballinas (2017) interviewed 30 Mexican American college students about their experiences of microaggression at a public state college in the northeastern United States. Participants were born in the United States or had arrived between the ages of 5 and 14 years old. Ballinas (2017) found that they met peers who assumed they were foreign or “illegal” and who would tell those with lighter skin color that they did not “look Mexican” (see Photo 9.13). These microaggressions reminded the students of their lower status as “other” in the United States.
Photo 9.13
SofÃa Vergara Dyes Her Natural Blonde Hair Because Hollywood Did Not Find Her Believable as Latina With Blonde Hair (Phelan, 2024)
