The term “microaggression” was first introduced in 1970 by Harvard psychiatrist Chester Pierce in an attempt to describe the constant insults and abuse Black Americans faced from non-Black Americans. Microaggressions were defined as individual acts of racism and Pierce differentiated such acts from the macroaggressions of racist violence and policies.
Since the introduction of the term, it has developed to include individual abuses inflicted upon people from all marginalized groups. Derald Wing Sue, a professor of counseling psychology at Columbia University, has played a large role in the broadening and popularizing of the term through much of his work, which focuses on multicultural psychology and education, as well as the psychology of racism and antiracism. Dr. Sue expanded the definition of microaggressions to the “brief everyday exchanges that send denigratiating messages to certain individuals because of their group membership.” In other words, they are subtle insults delivered either verbally or in the form of dismissive looks, gestures, and tones, directed towards people of marginalized groups. Oftentimes microaggressions are automatic or unconscious, but it is not about the intent of such actions but rather the impact they have.
While the purpose of the term was intended to give language to the daily injustices many people face, the common vocabulary of “microaggression” is itself an issue. Author and historian Ibram X. Kendi discusses this in his book How to be an Antiracist, arguing that the development of this term has become a way to avoid using language many consider to be harsher, specifically regarding racial injustices. After Obama was elected and became the first Black president, some people assumed our country had entered what Kendi calls “the so-called post-racial era”. Kendi writes, “the word ‘racism’ went out of fashion in the liberal haze of racial progress--Obama’s political brand--and conservatives started to treat racism as the equivalent to the N-word, a vicious pejorative rather than a descriptive term.” The term microaggression became a way to avoid talking about racism and distract from the severity of such actions and statements. Kendi does not use the term microaggression, but rather coins these actions as “racial abuse”. He detests the components, micro and aggression, because “a persistent daily low hum of racist abuse is not minor.” Kendi chooses to use the term “abuse” because it more accurately describes the action and its impact on those who receive it. The word “abuse” is synonymous with words like oppression and injustice, and results in “distress, anger, worry, depression, anxiety, pain, fatigue, and suicide.”
Addressing and giving language to what we now call “microaggressions” was a step in the right direction, but as it has developed it has become its own microaggression, positively intended yet negatively impactful. Whereas the term “microaggressions” was once relative to macroaggressions, it is now a term used to downplay the impact of such insults and avoid referring to them as what they are: racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic.
Sources
KENDI, IBRAM X. HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST. VINTAGE, 2020.
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