By Clarissa Koh
Microaggressions are the everyday slights, indignities, put-downs, and insults that people of color, women, LGBT populations, or those who are marginalized experience in their day-to-day interactions. We hear about all the seemingly larger experiences of discriminatory acts, such as racially motivated assaults but, we rarely hear of the subtle discrimination many face on a daily basis that is equally as damaging.
When an aggressive fight between two young boys is justified with “boys will be boys” while a fight between two young girls has no justifying reasons as they did not “act like a lady”, when a person of colour is told that his successful university application is to thank for by affirmative action, when a transgender individual is turned away from opportunities so as to not “confuse” the audience, or when someone battling with a mental illness is told “but you seem so normal”, it all creates seemingly small cuts on the receiving individual. Fast forward, the body now battered by microaggression is covered by a myriad of unhealed cuts. When shown to the world the damage it has done and the pain that has been inflicted, the only response is “weak”, “sensitive” and “fragile”. How wrong does that sound?
Microaggression is harmful because the slow escalation and exponential damage it exerts often snowball into something a lot bigger. In an interview by British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) with one of Columbia University’s Professor in Psychology and Education, Dr. Derald Wing Sue, Dr. Sue, respectively, told BBC that a student complimented his presentation and added that his English was very good even though Dr. Sue was born in Portland, Oregon. Although probably done with good intentions, the message sent to Dr. Sue was that he was an outsider in his own country. With many repeated similar occurrences, these comments made him feel like a foreigner in his own home. The intent of the student and the setting where the discrimination took place is not the main driving factor of the “cut” rather it is the impact on the victim. The student did not comment hoping to ostracize Dr. Sue, however, the impact still took place. Showing that the purpose of the comment does not matter because the black and white fact is that it still inflicted pain and hurt. Hence, microaggression is not to be ignored, for it is only a matter of time before the thousandth cut takes place.
Photo credits to original owner
In the medical world, Dr. Onyeka Otugo is an attending physician in emergency medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. During her consultations, she experienced patients asking if she was taking out the trash or asking when the doctor was coming in, experiences that a white male doctor would not have gone through. These innocuous-on-the-surface comments and actions were examples of microaggression. Sex-based biases in the medical community along with societal expectations of medical physicians to be of the male gender is being more evident in society. When female physicians have their medical orders questioned and challenged or are addressed with less respect or mistaken for a nurse continuously, it can erode the confidence of the individual, possibly leading to anxiety, stress, loneliness and an increased likelihood of depression. According to Dr. VJ Periyakoil, Professor of Medicine in Primary Care and Population Health at Stanford University Medical Center, four out of ten female doctors go part-time or leave medicine all together within six years of completing their training. Other than the lower pay, it is suspected that subtle sexism and microaggression in the medical workplace could be another factor contributing to that statistic.
Microaggression is much more than insensitive comments or surface-level jokes. The remark, comment or action is hurtful as it questions one’s membership in a group that is marginalized by society. In fact, the subtle discrimination might be more consequential as compared to overt instances of discrimination due to several reasons. According to Dr. Sue who also written two books on microaggression and helped the term “microaggression” reach the global scale, microaggression is more likely to occur because the perpetrators are usually well-intentioned individuals who are unaware of their biases, the microaggression is outside the level of conscious awareness of the perpetrator. With its high frequency, the build-up and accumulation of the “cuts” are at a rapid pace, along with the damning dismissal of the victim’s experiences. This invalidates the victim's feelings and reinforces the power and privilege differences. The reply to the microaggression that, “it is just a trivial comment”; well, “it” occurs in the victim’s life every day from the moment they wake up until they go to bed, “it” is a constant reminder that the individual is a second-class citizen, “it” symbolizes past historic injustices like the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, I personally think that “it” is a big deal.
Microaggression with macro impacts. Microaggression can unintendedly encourage the “cookie-cutter” culture to avoid standing out. It is a culture in which conformity to any and all trends with no exceptions is valued over intelligence and individuality, leading to the loss of one’s culture and identity. Microaggression can cause lost job opportunities due to the interviewer’s implicit biases that he did not know he had. In the early 1970s, a team led by Carl Word at Princeton University carried out an experiment. A group of white students were tasked to grade the quality of job candidates through an interview process. It was found that the students subconsciously gave non-verbal cues such as sitting further away from candidates who were black, less eye-contact with them and spent 25% less time with them than with other white candidates. The black candidates were at a disadvantage because of the colour of their skin which they are born with. Additionally, microaggression can catalyze a loss of self-esteem, feelings of exhaustion, anxiety, depression, sleep difficulties, helplessness, intrusive cognitions and diminished cognition from constantly dealing with and experiencing the comments and actions.
Photo credits to original owner
It is worth noting campaigns such as I, Too, Am Harvard which is a photo campaign highlighting the faces and voices of black students at Harvard College, consisting of images of the students holding up examples of microaggression in an attempt to amplify their feelings of alienation, alleviating the issue of microaggression though not explicitly their main goal. Efforts such as the above are a pivotal motivating force to reach a better society, but another just as important effort would be from you. After reflecting, if you notice that you have exhibited some microaggression behaviour, your first step is to acknowledge it and check in with the receiving end of the behaviour. Additionally, human resource departments can also take complaints on microaggression more seriously and not treat it as a sensitive individual overreacting to a perfunctory comment. On the other hand, the receiver can educate the aggressor by offering another way to phrase the sentence or plainly informing the aggressor that his comment was hurtful and offensive. I believe by working together we can create a society that will never reach the thousandth cut and may even be “cut-free” one day.
Footnotes
1. (2018, April 9). How microaggressions cause lasting pain - BBC Worklife. Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180406-the-tiny-ways-youre-offensive---and-you-dont-even-know-it
2. (2021, May 18). Onyeka Otugo MPA 2021: Speaking up for people who haven't been .... Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://www.hks.harvard.edu/more/student-life/student-stories/onyeka-otugo-mpa-2021-speaking-people-who-havent-been-heard
3. (2020, August 11). The New York Times: For Doctors Of Color, Microaggressions Are .... Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/11/health/microaggression-medicine-doctors.html
4. (2018, May 11). Women Physicians Face Extra Challenges | Health Care | US News. Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://health.usnews.com/health-care/articles/2018-05-11/women-physicians-face-extra-challenges
5. (n.d.). CMHC Self Esteem - UT Counseling and Mental Health Center - The .... Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://cmhc.utexas.edu/selfesteem.html
6. (2019, October 31). Microaggressions common in the medical workplace, Stanford study .... Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2019/10/31/microaggressions-common-in-the-medical-workplace-stanford-study-suggests/
7. (2015, February 16). What exactly is a microaggression? - Vox. Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://www.vox.com/2015/2/16/8031073/what-are-microaggressions
8. (2021, March 30). Microaggressions: Death by a Thousand Cuts - Scientific American. Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/microaggressions-death-by-a-thousand-cuts/
9. (2018, April 9). How microaggressions cause lasting pain - BBC Worklife. Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180406-the-tiny-ways-youre-offensive---and-you-dont-even-know-it
10. (n.d.). The Impact of Microaggressions – An Introductory Training. Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://cehs.unl.edu/images/EdPsych/nicpp/NICPP_microaggression_presentation_2015-06-02.pdf
11. (n.d.). I, Too, Am Harvard - Tumblr. Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://itooamharvard.tumblr.com/page/3
12. (n.d.). I, Too, Am Harvard - Tumblr. Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://itooamharvard.tumblr.com/
Works Cited
(2018, April 9). How microaggressions cause lasting pain - BBC Worklife. Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180406-the-tiny-ways-youre-offensive---and-you-dont-even-know-it
(2021, May 18). Onyeka Otugo MPA 2021: Speaking up for people who haven't been .... Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://www.hks.harvard.edu/more/student-life/student-stories/onyeka-otugo-mpa-2021-speaking-people-who-havent-been-heard
(2020, August 11). The New York Times: For Doctors Of Color, Microaggressions Are .... Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/11/health/microaggression-medicine-doctors.html
(2018, May 11). Women Physicians Face Extra Challenges | Health Care | US News. Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://health.usnews.com/health-care/articles/2018-05-11/women-physicians-face-extra-challenges
(n.d.). CMHC Self Esteem - UT Counseling and Mental Health Center - The .... Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://cmhc.utexas.edu/selfesteem.html
(2019, October 31). Microaggressions common in the medical workplace, Stanford study .... Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2019/10/31/microaggressions-common-in-the-medical-workplace-stanford-study-suggests/
(2015, February 16). What exactly is a microaggression? - Vox. Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://www.vox.com/2015/2/16/8031073/what-are-microaggressions
(2021, March 30). Microaggressions: Death by a Thousand Cuts - Scientific American. Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/microaggressions-death-by-a-thousand-cuts/
(2018, April 9). How microaggressions cause lasting pain - BBC Worklife. Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180406-the-tiny-ways-youre-offensive---and-you-dont-even-know-it
(n.d.). The Impact of Microaggressions – An Introductory Training. Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://cehs.unl.edu/images/EdPsych/nicpp/NICPP_microaggression_presentation_2015-06-02.pdf
(n.d.). I, Too, Am Harvard - Tumblr. Retrieved May 30, 2021, from https://itooamharvard.tumblr.com/page/3
About the Author
Clarissa is currently an 18-year-old student from Singapore. She has an avid interest in Computer Science and hopes to enter the industry to help other people through her passion. Additionally, her interest in writing is a newly-formed one, having recently found the beauty in the art of writing and what it encompasses caused her list of pastime activities to grow to consist of running, drumming and writing. Although equipped with little experience, she hopes to step out of her comfort zone to help spread awareness on issues that she holds dear to through this platform.