[MUSIC PLAYING]
Stanford University.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you, Ryan.
Thank you everyone for
coming this evening.
And for me, coming
from New York,
it is getting in
the evening hours.
And I'm usually a day person
and work better during the day.
So I hope you'll forgive
me if I fall asleep as I'm
doing some of the presentation.
But what I'm going to be
doing today is share with you
much of the work and
research my research team
and I have been doing
at Teachers College
at Columbia
University, where we've
been studying the manifestation,
dynamics, and impact
of microaggressions,
everyday microaggressions,
upon marginalized
groups in our society.
I'm concentrating
this evening primarily
on racial microaggressions.
But almost any marginalized
group in our society
can be subject to
microaggressions, women,
LGBTQ individuals,
people with disabilities.
They can all be subject
to microaggressions.
Microaggressions have similar
psychological processes
and dynamics.
But what distinguishes
one group from another
are the themes that
come with them.
For example, what we find is
that microaggressions directed
towards African Americans have
many instances of criminality,
dangerousness.
For LGBTQ individuals,
we have a theme
that is quite unique to it,
that deals with sinfulness.
And so the themes do differ.
Although the dynamics that I'm
going to be talking about today
are some things that are
very similar when we began
to study microaggressions.
Now, I know it's shameless of me
to have my two books-- actually
it's three books.
But I'm showing it.
Microaggressions
in Everyday Life
is the book in which the
content of this evening
comes, primarily from that book.
For some of you who want
more information on it,
you can get hold of that book.
Microaggressions and
Marginality is the book
in which many of my
research team members
began to talk about other
marginalized groups.
And it's an edited book, with
many other groups, all the way
from international students,
to poverty and class
microaggressions.
And there are individual
chapters in case some of you
really want to get into
other forms and expressions
of microaggressions.
And then lastly, this
came out today by the way.
Actually it was released early.
It's the culmination of our
microaggression research
that studied why people have
so much difficulty honestly
talking and dialoguing on race,
gender, and sexual orientation.
What hangs them up?
Why are they so
anxious, defensive,
and protective in terms
of talking about that?
And we naturally progressed
to that because what we found
was that almost all difficult
dialogues on race, whether it
be in the classrooms,
in the public forum,
watching it even in interactions
among neighbors, what we found
was that all difficult
dialogues were
triggered by microaggressions
unbeknownst to the people.
And this, using much
of the work, when
I work with educators,
teachers, about how
to understand and facilitate
difficult dialogues on race.
Because there is another whole
area, layers of understanding,
that are important
for us to look at.
I am dedicating almost
all my presentations now
to Maya Angelou.
And she has had a profound
influence upon my life,
reading her writings,
her poetry, hearing her
speak, and so forth.
And many of you know
that she passed away
in May 2014 of last year.
And oddly enough,
it was on that day
that I did finish my Race Talk
and the Conspiracy of Silence
book.
And it was almost
like she was telling
a future generation of other
people to carry on her work.
I also am very indebted
to her because one
of things that doesn't
get acknowledged
is that the concept of racial,
gender, sexual orientation
microaggressions are
not something new.
These observations of behaviors
have been made by everyone.
In fact, Chester Pierce,
African American psychiatrist
at Harvard, was among
the first to talk
about racial microaggressions,
to publish articles on it.
But like I was
telling one of you
earlier today, that he was
the victim of microaggressions
in the sense that
his work was ignored.
And no one knew much about
it because they did not
consider it legitimate
or worthy of exploration.
But microaggressions
are very common.
And I'd like to share
with you where I first
began to hear this,
with two passages
of a poem from Maya Angelou.
And many of you know
it, Still I Rise.
And these are the
two passages that I
think are very important
and significant.
"You may write me
down in his story
with your bitter, twisted lies.
You may tread me
in the very dirt.
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
You may shoot me
with your words.
You may cut me with your eyes.
You may kill me with
your hatefulness.
But still, like air, I'll rise."
Now, this has so much symbolic
meaning to people of color.
Primarily because we
see that our lives have
been filled with biased
discrimination and prejudice.
And still we have been able
to rise and overcome it.
And that's what
she is saying here.
But secondarily, she actually is
talking about microaggressions.
You may write me
down in history.
How are people of color
portrayed in curriculum even
today represent
microinvalidations
microinsults, and microassaults
upon people of color.
But people doing it
are unaware of that.
She also talks about nonverbal
forms of microaggressions.
You may shoot me
with your words.
Those are verbal.
You can say things
that are hurtful.
Or you can cut me
with your eyes.
Your nonverbals tell us
how you disapprove of us
and are dismissive in
that particular way.
And this really goes to
the heart of something
that James Jones wrote about
in terms of an African proverb.
"The truth tale the
lion hunt will never
be told as long as the
hunter tells the story."
And what I would like to
talk about this evening
are microaggressions
that represent
the rest of the story.
The story that is untold,
unheard, unspoken, or attempts
to silence it.
That is the story and the racial
realities of people of color
that I would like to
share with you today.
Before I get to some concrete
examples of microaggressions,
let me briefly and
quickly define them.
Microaggressions are the
everyday slights, insults,
and validations
that people of color
experience in their
day-to-day interactions
with well-intentioned
individuals who
are unaware that
they have engaged
in a microaggressive
act that may prove
harmful or invalidating to the
person that is being presented
here.
And this is one of the
greatest challenges
of getting white brothers and
sisters to understand what
racial microaggressions are.
Because racial microaggressions
oftentimes are invisible.
They are invisible
to the perpetrator.
And one of our goals in terms
of education and training
is to make the
invisible, visible.
That is the ultimate goal.
Because you cannot correct
something if the person doing
that doesn't believe
that it has occurred.
Now let me give you three
primary examples that
outline the every
day expressions
of microaggressions.
And that on all three
of these, many of you
might think that,
big deal, these
are small, insignificant things.
Why make such a big thing of it?
They're harmless,
trivial in nature.
And what I'm going
to try to share
with you is that far
from being harmless,
insignificant, and
trivial, microaggressions
have major impact on the
psychological well-being
and inequities that occur in
terms of education, employment,
and health care.
It is not what you're going
to oftentimes think about
in racism.
It is not the overt racist,
the white supremacists,
those who directly--
I don't like them
and wouldn't want
to be around them.
But they are less likely
to have the impact
upon the standard of my
living than well-intentioned
individuals, who go
to the voting booths
and vote for candidates,
or who decide how
to educate people, who to hire.
These are the
individuals that are
unaware that their biases
are being delivered
in a way that is quite harmful.
One of the examples that
many individuals-- if you
go to the internet and
google microaggressions,
you will read many examples
given by Latinos, Latinas,
and Asian Americans
about language issues
of microaggressions.
And it happens to
me quite often.
I can tell you that years
ago, when I first became aware
of this was when
I was coming back.
I was flying into
Washington, DC.
I was getting out of
the cab and paying him.
He turned to me and said,
you speak excellent English.
And I said to him, thank you.
I hope so.
I was born here.
Now this is
something we're going
to talk about tomorrow
with the graduate students,
about how you handle
microaggressions
when they occur.
I'll come back to
the example shortly,
to give you some
idea about why that
represents a microaggression.
But this is built upon the
same thing that evening.
After I made a presentation
to the audience,
you know how people
from the audience
afterwards want to
come up and talk
to you about the presentation.
One white woman came up
to me and said, Dr. Sue,
that was really interesting.
And I'm involved in
adopting a Korean child.
And we got into it.
And then she said to
me, by the way Dr. Sue,
where were you born?
And I said, oh, I was
born in Portland, Oregon.
Then she said no, no, no.
Where were you born?
And I said Portland,
Oregon, doubting it.
And she said no, no, no.
What country were you born in?
And I said the United States.
And she turned beet red, was
embarrassed, politely excused
herself and left.
Now, these two examples,
both the cab driver
and the white audience member,
committed a microaggression.
First of all, it's important
to note that they were not
mean, evil individuals.
The cab driver was
complementing me.
The woman was wanting to make
a personal connection with me
in terms of finding
out who I was,
where I'd come
from, and so forth.
But the metacommunication--
and this
is the characteristic
of microaggressions.
There is oftentimes
a communication that
is quite conscious and overt.
But is undermined by
a metacommunication
that contradicts it.
The metacommunication in
both of these examples
are that you are a perpetual
alien in your own country.
Can you see that?
You are a foreigner.
You are not a true American.
Those are the messages
that were impacting me.
And when that happened, I began
to think about my childhood,
going to school.
How elementary
school teachers never
talked about Asian Americans,
the contributions of Asian
Americans.
But the only time they
talked about Asian Americans
were when they talked
about Asians in Asia.
And often my teacher would
oftentimes turn to me
and say, Derald, when they
were studying a unit in China,
Derald, what is it that
you people celebrate
during this holiday?
How do you do it?
And I would say I don't know.
And I felt like, should I know?
Yeah, I am Asian.
It really got in my head.
But the teacher did not
recognize in some sense
that I was an American as
well, as much as she did.
But these are all
messages that are given.
Now, microaggressions
can also be nonverbal.
And we'll talk
about a lot of them,
especially when we give the
example of Barack Obama.
How we can respond nonverbally
that indicates bias
and insulting in nature.
But I'd like to
move to this example
of an environmental
microaggression.
I gave this as an
example earlier
to the medical school
deans and administrators.
And what I gave was an example
that years ago, I did training,
an all week-- I
didn't do all week.
Mine was a half day.
But it was a all week event,
that included many people
that they called in.
And they had seminars.
They had films that they showed.
There was dances.
Food always came into play.
My role was to talk to all the
deans about diversity issues.
But I remember, as I
stood before the group
and looked around
the room, I noted
that every single one of the
deans, unless I was wrong,
appeared white, and
primarily white men,
except for women, who were the
assistant deans in the room
as well.
And so when it got
time for me to speak,
I remember getting up in
front of the group and saying,
as I stand before you this
morning and scanned the room,
I noticed that the
majority of you,
or a overwhelming number
of you, are white.
And they shuffled about.
And I said this is not white
male bashing or anything.
But do you know
the message you are
sending to a prospective
faculty or student of color?
And there are three messages
that environmentally
you are sending.
You are not welcome here.
Two, if you choose to come here,
you will not be comfortable.
Three, if you persist
in coming here,
there is only so far up in
the hierarchy you can go.
As a student of color,
you may not graduate.
As a faculty of color, you may
not get promoted and tenured.
Whether you intend
it or not, that
is the environmental
microaggression.
And that that environmental
microaggression
may create a hostile,
invalidating campus
climate for people of color.
And so it can be verbal,
nonverbal, environmental.
What is the impact of
racial microaggressions?
I want to read these narratives
for you, two of them.
Because these narratives
will point out what
I consider to be one
of the primary dynamics
of microaggressions.
That they represent a
clash of racial realities.
Let me read this one.
This come from an
African American male.
"It gets so tiring, you know.
It sucks you dry.
People don't trust you.
From the moment I wake up, I
know, stepping out the door,
that it will be the
same day after day.
The bus can be packed, but
no one will sit next to you.
I guess it may be a good
thing because you always
get more room.
No one crowds you.
You get served last.
When they serve you, they
have this phony smile
and just want to get rid of you.
You have to show more
ID to cash a check.
You turn on the TV.
And there you always see someone
like you being handcuffed
and jailed.
They look like you and sometimes
you begin to think it is you.
You are a plague.
You try to hold it in.
But sometimes you lose it.
Explaining doesn't help.
They don't want to hear."
Now, this is another
important point.
He is saying that
well-intentioned people
don't really want to hear.
And we can get to
that very shortly.
"Even when they ask, why do you
have a chip on your shoulder?
Shit, I just walk away now.
It doesn't do any
good explaining."
Now, I want you to
ask these questions
as we go on this evening.
Is life as hard as this
black man describes?
Is he exaggerating or misleading
the actions of others?
Is he oversensitive or paranoid?
Is he right in concluding
that others don't want
to listen to his explanations?
Why is he so angry
and resentful?
Do you believe him or not?
If not, what are your reasons?
And if we have time,
we're going to try
to address some of
these that represent
this clash of racial realities,
that oftentimes happens
to people of color.
Here's another one, from an
award-winning journalist,
Thomas Lee.
He says, "I went to
Fridley to interview
the president of a large
manufacturing company.
I arrived a few
minutes before noon
and told the receptionist
at the front desk
I was looking for
the president's
executive assistant.
Oh, are you delivering
food? she asked.
It wasn't the first time I was
mistaken for a Chinese food
delivery guy.
In college, I had arrived at
my girlfriend dorm with dinner.
And the front desk
dude assumed just that.
I was embarrassed to
be sure, but let it go.
That's the burden of
being a Chinese American,
with a penchant for baseball
caps, jeans, and takeout food.
Yet, the receptionist's
inquiry stunned me.
I was wearing a dress shirt,
black slacks, and a dress
shirt.
True, I was sporting a
backpack and sunglasses.
But how many food delivery
guys whip out Kung Pao chicken
from a Gap bag.
After realizing her
error, the receptionist
offered a rather
clumsy explanation.
I only asked because the
executive assistant always
orders food, she said.
Nice try, lady.
At least she didn't speak
extra slowly and offer a tip."
Now this is the experience
of many Asian Americans
in classrooms.
What happens is that their white
classmates speak real slowly
to them, as if they don't
speak English or have
a good command of it.
These are other questions.
Have you ever mistaken a person
of color for a service worker?
I think most of us have.
And what does it say
about us that we do that?
Or as a white
person, have you ever
been mistaken for
a service worker?
What were your reactions?
How did you handle
the situation?
Did you make up an excuse?
Were you offended?
Where microaggressions occur,
and you try to point it out
to the perpetrator, one
of the dominant reactions
is defensiveness.
And people try to cover
up, rather than recover.
And we'll talk
about these issues.
Now, one of the things
that I will again point out
is that if I was to give you
a survey about stereotypes
of African Americans,
Asian Americans, Latino,
Hispanic Americans, and
so forth, most of us
would cognitively say,
no, I don't believe that.
No, they aren't more
lazy, on and on.
But it is the unconscious,
insidious forms of bias
that are outside the level
of conscious awareness,
that comes out in the
behaviors and actions
that we experience here.
These are-- really, actually,
that should be number four.
These are four examples
of the macroimpact
of what I believe to be the
working of microaggressions.
The death of a Trevon Martin.
I believe that George
Zimmerman-- and this is not
a conscious belief that he
might have-- the thought that he
was a suspicious looking
person, up to no good.
The death of Michael Brown,
dangerous and violent.
Blacks are dangerous
and violent.
Death of Eric Garner and why
he was freed by the grand jury.
That African Americans
are less trustworthy.
Even the stand your ground
rules, favor-- police officers
oftentimes justify their
shooting issues by,
my life was in danger.
I feared for my life.
That situation
actually gives cover
to potential microaggressions
because many people
fear African American men.
And so the stand your
ground and the shooting,
that this gives cover, an
excuse, for these issues
to occur here.
Microaggressions are
brief and every day
daily verbal, behavioral, or
environmental indignities.
They can be both intentional
or unintentional.
Our research
concentrates primarily
on the unintentional
forms of microaggressions
because we find that
they are much more
powerful and potent in terms
of creating disparities.
They communicate hostile,
derogatory, or negative slights
and validations and insults to
an individual or group because
of their marginalized
or socially devalued
status in our society.
Microaggressions are subtle,
stunning, often automatic
verbal and nonverbal
exchanges that are put-downs.
They occur quickly.
In fact, when
microaggressions occur to me,
not only am I stunned
and think about,
did what I think
happened, really happened?
By the time I try to think
about what I'm going to do it,
its over.
And that's what some of our
studies find, that over 50%
of people of color
do not nothing,
primarily because
it's over by the time
they try to think about a
response that they would have.
They're described
as subtle insults,
delivered through dismissive
looks and gestures,
tones of voice towards
marginalized groups
in our society.
Simply stated, microaggressions
are brief, every day exchanges.
In the classroom, students
often describe microaggressions
as a pattern of being
overlooked, underrespected,
and devalued because
of their race.
And microaggressions
happen in the classroom.
Our studies also are
beginning to show
that a lot of
microaggressions are delivered
by well-intentioned
professors, more so, often
times, than the classmates.
That occur in this
particular situations.
When they occur, they
do several things.
They present a highly
charged situation.
Now people of color, when
they experience or hear
a microaggression,
know what it is.
Many of our well-intentioned
white brothers and sisters
have no idea what just happened.
But they sense something wrong.
They sense the
tension, the anxiety.
But they cannot put their finger
on what has just happened.
And if you are not just a
student, but a professor,
in which a
microaggression occurs,
and you want to make it
a learning opportunity,
if you do not understand and
cannot put your finger on what
a microaggression and
what just happened,
then you can't facilitate
a learning opportunity
for your students
when they come on.
There's another
interesting observation
I've made that students of
color often talks about.
When a microaggressions
occurs to a-- let's say,
in this case, a Latino
student-- and if you really
had a videotape taping
the reaction of the room,
it goes completely beyond the
head of many white students.
But students of color
will look at one another.
They make eye contact.
It's almost like, yes,
that really happened.
See, that's one of
things that we noted.
When a microaggression occurs,
the people who have the power
will say, no, you're
just being too sensitive.
Now the validation that
occurs, that prevents-- I means
maintains your
sanity-- is that you
can see the eyes of
students of color
making contact with each other.
And we know what it means.
That really happened.
What are we going to do or what
are you going to do about it?
This is a really
important element.
In fact, one of the
most common responses
that I have gotten
about the work
that we've done creating the
taxonomy on microaggressions
has been that they have
thanked me and my research
team for the work
on microaggressions
because it now provides
them with a language
to describe their experiences
and that they no longer believe
that they are crazy, that this
is something that is going on.
That's the power.
Because when I talk about
microaggressions to people
of color, it's not new to them.
They've experienced it.
But it feels so good,
doesn't it, to heard it
and to be able to label it.
Now many of our white brothers
and sisters don't like it.
Because in some sense, if
they accept the definition
of microaggressions, they
have to entertain the notion
that I have done it.
Now, if it was simply
changing a behavior or act,
that would be OK.
But it's more than that.
And this is one thing that
I don't like education
and training teams
teaching people
what a microaggression is,
preventing them from doing it,
and doing something else.
The primary reason is that
microaggressions are not
isolated from the world
views that one has.
In fact, microaggressions
are reflections
of world views of superiority,
inferiority, inclusion,
exclusion, normality,
abnormality.
But they are just simply
outside the level of awareness
of the individual here.
Like I was saying, perpetrators,
whether teachers or students,
are often unaware that
a microaggressive event
has occurred.
And this is part of what we need
to do in education and training
Gender microaggressions.
A female resident physician,
wearing a stethoscope,
is mistaken by medical
students for a nurse.
This happens at the
Columbia Medical School,
where women interns and
residents always say that.
That they're always
approached by,
may I speak with the doctor?
I am the doctor.
What?
Really?
And the hidden
message is that women
should occupy nurturing and
not decision making roles,
that they are less
capable than men.
And this is something
conditioned in women
from the time they are born.
I mean this morning, again,
I shared with individuals
those early studies
in elementary school,
pre-K through 12, where
teachers would ask a question.
And the students would
raise their hands.
Interesting, the study found
that the majority of teachers
asked the male students
to provide the answers.
And this was true even
for a female teacher,
that they tended to select male
students to provide the answer.
Now, this does several things.
It elevates what is it-- the
status and intelligence of men.
Males have the answer.
And it tends to say, women are
less competent and capable.
And these are the messages
that occur constantly
in microaggressions.
So that they may become
internalized or operate
in such a way that Claude Steele
called stereotype threat, which
is not an
internalization process.
But they can have
those impact here.
Male students in private refer
to a female teacher as bitchy,
while male counterparts
are described
as decisive and
confident teachers.
This is not just in
academia by the way.
In all the work that I've done
with business and industry,
women employees give
tons of examples.
One example they gave is that
if a white male manager comes
into the team and
is angry at the team
for not making a deadline, he
will pound the table and says,
no, we're going to work
through weekend unless you're
able to produce that report on
my desk by tomorrow morning.
And what they say is
that people may grumble.
But they'll say, what a
decisive, forceful leader
we have.
I want to be on his team.
When a woman does the very
same thing, and pounds a table,
have that on my report, and
on and on, what a bitch.
That's the perception.
Or even thirdly, if
you have a black man
do the same thing, what a
hostile, angry, impulsive, out
of control.
This is something very important
that we need to understand.
That even when the
behaviors might be the same,
they are perceived
quite differently
from certain forms of bias.
Another one, sexual orientation.
You've heard this term before.
One of my former students,
Kevin Nadal, Dr. Kevin Nadal,
wrote a book called,
That's So Gay!
Microaggressions Directed
at LGBT Individuals.
But the term "that's so gay" is
frequently used in education,
among young students to describe
things as being weird, strange,
deviant.
This one gets me, being
in counseling and therapy.
A lesbian client
reluctantly discloses
her sexual orientation to a
straight counselor trainee
by saying that she was, quote,
"into women," end quote.
The counselor indicates he is
not shocked by the disclosure
because he once worked with
a client who was, quote,
"into dogs," end quote.
Now, he's trying to
reassure this client
that he can work with her.
Do you understand?
And yet the analogy
he uses is bestiality,
the equation of the sexual
orientation with pathology
that goes on here.
Other socially devalued
groups, like I was indicating.
You've heard this.
When students bargain over the
price of a book, they'll say,
don't try to Jew me down.
Jews are stingy and so forth.
This one is very interesting.
A blind student reports
that teachers, staff,
and fellow students
raise their voices
when speaking to him in class.
This is common among visually
impaired blind individuals.
Richard Keller, director of
disability at Teachers College,
is completely blind, legally.
Just has no sight.
He says that when
he is introduced
by others as the director,
they will come up to him
and say, good morning, Richard!
How are you!
And he simply
responds by saying,
I can hear perfectly
well, thank you.
Because what is happening here
is that the person's disability
becomes defined to every
aspect of the person's life
and functioning.
These are some
microaggressive themes
that people-- students,
staff, and faculty, women,
and people of color report.
Experiencing the campus climate
as isolating, alienating,
extremely stressful,
risky, and invalidating.
A lot of this work comes
from Dan Solorzano.
Is that how you pronounce
it, a model at UCLA,
in terms of campus climate and
the hostility that goes on.
Often being the only one,
that leads to feeling
of isolation and loneliness.
And this happens in the
business world as well.
And the feeling of being
the only one and isolated
increases as you move up
the occupational ladder
because fewer and fewer
of us are at the top.
They lack mentors who possess
knowledge of the minority
experience.
They have their
intelligence, competence,
and scholarship devalued
and considered illegitimate.
They have their racial or
gender identities assailed.
They experience elevated
levels of stress and distress.
They are subjected
to what they call
biased criteria for graduation,
promotion, and tenure
decisions.
And they have many--
and this comes primarily
from black faculty
that talk to us--
they have many
more white students
and colleagues question their
qualifications, or credentials,
or status to hold the
title "professor."
These are things that occur.
And they are never said
as to what's going on.
A black participant in
our study talked about,
when he was lecturing
in his class,
that this white female
student would constantly
look through her book and
say I can't find that here.
You're giving us
that information.
Where is it in the textbook?
And he felt that unless it
was written in the textbook,
his credibility was something
that was being questioned here.
There are six basic
assumptions that I
want to quickly
talk to you about,
that form the basis
of microaggressions.
One of them is that we
have all been socialized
into a society in
which there exists
individual, institutional,
and societal biases associated
with race, gender,
sexual orientation.
If you look at the history
of the United States
on issues of race and racism,
it is the history of racism.
That strong.
People get sometimes
very angry with me.
But I tell them that racism
is not individual acts here.
How else do you explain
the enslavement of African
Americans, the
taking away of land
from the indigenous people of
this country, the incarceration
of Japanese Americans?
These were whole
governmental actions.
And as a result, it
is very important
that we realistically
acknowledge
what our history is like.
Now in all fairness,
we also have
to balance it with
the issue that there
has always in the United States
been groups and individuals who
have been anti-racist,
fought against it.
So that there is a balance.
But what I'm trying to do
is get people to realize
that these things happen.
And that we, in some sense,
live in a society in which many
of those biases and
assumptions are communicated
to us through the mass
media, through education,
through significant
others in our lives,
not necessarily by words, but by
actions and deeds in which this
occurs.
And this leads to really
the second basic assumption.
None of us are immune
from inheriting
the biases of our ancestors,
institutions, and society.
And I make this a
very important point
because for me to believe that
I had been born and raised
in the United States for
decades without inheriting
the racial biases of this
society, my ancestors,
and the institutions, I believe
is the height of naivete
or arrogance.
And that these things
are important for us
to begin to acknowledge,
to break down
the defensiveness when we are
confronted with individuals who
tell us that we have just hurt
them through a microaggression.
And we try to defend it against.
No.
I'm a good, moral,
decent individual.
Now, I believe that.
I believe that all of us
are good, moral, decent
individuals.
But we have been
socially conditioned
and inherit biases
that hurt others.
And rather than fighting
that, if somehow we
can begin to
acknowledge this, this
becomes very important
for us to look at.
The third basic assumption
is that it is not
old-fashioned racism,
sexism, and heterosexism
that is most harmful to people
of color, women, LGBT persons,
but the contemporary forms
known as microaggressions.
Most of us, like I was saying,
when we think about racism,
we think about
the overt racists,
the white supremacists,
the Klan, the skinheads.
These are the individuals
that we think about.
And granted, these
individuals can do harm.
But they don't do the harm
that microaggressions do.
And I'll get to
that very shortly.
And I don't ever want to meet
a white supremacist by myself.
But I am less really
scared of that individual
than the impact of
well-intentioned individuals.
The fourth one is that
the characteristics
of these forms of bias are their
invisible, unintentional, and
subtle nature, usually
outside the level
of conscious awareness.
Remember, in our taxonomy
we identified three forms
of microaggressions.
A microassault that is most
common to old-fashioned racism,
calling someone a Jap, a Chink,
nigger, or something like that.
They're direct, overt,
and fairly conscious.
Microinsult, which strikes
at the core of one's
racial ethnic identity.
And microinvalidation,
which invalidates
the experiential reality
of the person of color.
What we find is that the most
damaging types are those that
are outside the level--
in fact, there's
been a number of
studies done about
and people saying that they
have an easier time dealing
with an overt racist who
is clear about the status
of people of color than
a white liberal, who you
don't know where they're at.
And Jack Dovidio's work
is really crucial to this.
Again, read some
of his work where
he finds that when team
productivity-- I'm digressing
now-- team productivity,
if you have, let's say,
a racist and a employee
of color working together
and time then in terms of how
quickly they solve the problem.
Then they have two individuals
who are of mixed race,
but are working together and
don't have bias or prejudice,
and one white liberal who has
implicit bias and attitude
working with a person of
color, the groups that
have the least amount of bias
solve a problem quickest.
The group that solves
a problem second is
the overt racist
and the white-- I
mean overt racism,
the person of color.
The ones solve it least
are the individuals who
experience themselves as good.
And when they ask them,
well, why is it that you had
so much--- and the employee
of color would say, well,
I don't know.
We were dancing
around all these.
You are wasting time.
As opposed to the overt racist,
I know where you come from.
You know where I come from.
This is how we solve
the problem, which
was a very interesting
study that they did.
Racial, gender, and sexual
orientation microaggressions
create psychological
dilemmas for the perpetrator
and recipient because
they represent
a clash of racial, gender, and
orientation, sexual orientation
realities.
And again, I go to the fact
that the racial reality people
of color is simply different.
If you ask people of color
and ask white citizens
how far we have improved
in race relations,
the numerical
percent gap is huge.
During the OJ Simpson
trial, remember,
when they asked the
public, white and black,
whether police misconduct
came into it, overwhelming,
90% of white people
said no, it didn't.
Police misconduct, no.
But African Americans, over
80% entertained the notion
that police misconduct
has occurred.
You've seeing different racial
realities being played out
and racial microaggressions.
And going back, for example,
to the two opening narratives,
this black man is
saying that it happens.
And most people around him
say, oh, you're exaggerating.
You're just oversensitive.
You're paranoid.
And the last one,
microaggressions
create a hostile and
invalidating climate
for marginalized
groups because it
saps their spiritual
and psychic energies,
causes psychological
difficulties and problems,
and creates things.
Now, this is-- I'm going to
stop here after this slide
because I just got
notice that we've
got a Q&A session coming up.
But this is why when
we first published
the article and our taxonomy
on microaggressions,
many of my white
colleagues wrote in letters
to the American
Psychologist saying
that our research
team was making
a mountain out of a molehill.
That a put-down, an insult,
that a white man experiences
is no different from that
of a person of color.
And we went back to
the research literature
and we outlined a number
of different things.
What makes microaggressions
based upon gender or race so
harmful is that
microaggressions are
constant and continual,
without an end date.
If someone is rude to you
not because of your race,
it's over.
You're disturbed.
You're angry.
It's over.
But for people of color,
it's a constant experience
we have from the time we are
born until the time we die.
Microaggressions are cumulative.
Now, yeah, why should I get
upset when somebody said,
a Derald, you
speak good English.
I mean Derald, they may see you
as not a part of this country.
But let of it.
It's such a insignificant,
trivial thing.
Don't make a mountain
out of a molehill.
What we tried to do is
that microaggressions
are cumulative.
And any one can break the
camel's-- the straw that breaks
a camel's back.
That it's an ongoing,
cumulative-- microaggressions
are difficult because you have
to discern double messages that
are being sent.
No, I didn't mean that at all.
Why are you so upset?
And by virtue of that, you
create another microaggression,
which is invalidating
one's experiential reality.
Microaggressions are
constant reminders
of a person's second class
status in this nature.
And you get tired of it, having
to constantly be put there.
Microaggressions symbolize
past historic injustices,
the incarceration of
Japanese Americans,
enslavement of Afri--
all of these symbolize.
And to tell me,
Derald, let go of it,
is to tell your Jewish
brother and sister,
forget the Holocaust.
That is the important thing.
And that's what
makes microaggression
so harmful and damaging.
OK, thank you very much.
I appreciate you.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
For more, please visit
us at stanford.edu.
