Abstract
Racial microaggressions are brief, everyday interactions that send denigrating messages to people of color because they belong to a racially minoritised group. Compared to more overt forms of racism, racial microaggressions are subtle and insidious, often leaving the victim confused, distressed and frustrated and the perpetrator oblivious of the offense they have caused. Drawing on the counter‐narrative aspect of critical race theory that stresses the importance of understanding the role of race in the world through the experiences of people of color, I demonstrate the subtle but powerful ways in which racial microaggressions can manifest within a fictional academic setting and the consequences for those involved. It is argued that while engagement with overt forms of racism, notably through the recording of racist incidents, remains crucial towards the fight for race equality, this has tended within both education and wider British society to obfuscate understanding of these more nuanced, everyday forms of racism with which those of color must contend.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Stephen Ball, David Gillborn, Anton Lewis, John Preston and Carol Vincent for their comments on an earlier version of this paper.
Notes
1. Aesop fable cited in Dei, Karumanchery, and Karumanchery‐Luik (Citation2004, 8).
2. I am indebted to Derrick Bell (Citation1992), in particular his chapter on ‘The rules of racial standing’, for lending to the inspiration for this paper. ‘Unspoken rules of engagement’ can be regarded as a continuum of the hidden racial paradigms and ‘rules of racial standing’ that inform interactions and relationships across the divide between White members of society and people of color.
3. The Training and Development Agency is the government agency responsible for teacher recruitment and training in England.
4. Namely, those from Black Caribbean and Mixed White and Black Caribbean backgrounds. See Gillborn and Rollock (Citation2010) for full discussion of school exclusions and ethnicity.
5. I cite Giles, Hughes, and Bonner II (Citation2009, 635) who are making this point in relation to the American context.
6. Bourdieu describes méconnaissance (misrecognition) as relating to the ways in which ‘underlying [my emphasis] processes and generating structures’ of social spaces (fields) are ‘not consciously acknowledged in terms of the social differentiation they perpetuate even though they often operate in the name of democracy and equality’ (Grenfell and James Citation1998, 23).
7. ‘People of color’ is an American term used to refer to those from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds. I use the term here as an expression of solidarity in terms of the shared struggle for race equality.
8. One student with a strong track record in Mathematics achieved 95 in one of the first class quizzes. Suspecting the student of cheating, the professor called him/her into his office and insisted that s/he took the exam again. While the student achieved 98 in the second test, thus easily refuting the professor’s allegations, it is the suspicion of mal‐intent simply on account of naive beliefs based on the colour of the student’s skin and the fact that the student had to re‐sit the exam, that are central here.
9. Obviously such rigorous examination ought not to be limited to racism. Giles, Hughes, and Bonner II (Citation2009, 637) argue that: ‘issues related to race and systemic racism, gender, social class, religion–spirituality, language and literacy, and power dynamics live deeply embedded within all educational preparation settings, classrooms (and) administrative offices …’
10. For a fuller discussion of CRT see Bell (Citation1992); Delgado and Stefancic (Citation2001); Gillborn (Citation2008); Hylton (Citation2010).
11. While inspired by actual events the characters and the serum are fictional. All characters except Soray, Jonathan, his father and Derick are White.
12. A recent HEFCE report revealed that when examined by academic grade, ‘non‐White’ staff are least represented at professorial level (HEFCE Citation2008). In 2007–2008, there were only 50 Black or Black British Professors or heads of department, accounting for 4.8% of Black academic staff in higher education institutions. This compares with 13,530 Professors or heads of department who were White, accounting for 12.1% of White academic staff (ECU Citation2009). In 2002, a BBC documentary reported on the ‘Black brain drain’ of Black academics from British to American universities as they sought political spaces and support for their intellectual growth (BBC Citation2002).
13. Bell (Citation1992, 111) argues that statements by people of color about their racialised experiences are often deemed to lack objectivity or legitimacy. Deemed ‘special pleading’ they are not regarded as entitled to serious consideration.
14. A similar point is made by one of the African American students in Solórzano and Yosso’s (Citation2000) study of African Americans’ experiences of university. The student reports an incident that occurred when a group of Black students were playing football on a campus car park:
… it’s 11 o’clock [at night] and all of a sudden, [campus police] sweeps up …There’s a total of four or five cars, and then we have two cops on the bikes, all there for us who are not displaying any type of violence or anything like that … but we’re upset. And we’re saying at the same time, we’re feeling restricted because if we act in a way that we want to react – number one, we’re going to jail; number two – it’s just going to feed into the stereotype that we’re supposed to be violent … We actually just stood there out there and just really pleaded our case for at least a good 45 minutes. And they were not trying to hear us at all. We had to leave the parking lot … Once again, it reminded me I’m a Black man [on a predominantly White campus]. (Solórzano and Yosso Citation2000, 69, emphasis added)
Conventional modes of response are not permitted to people of color. Aware that they can be easily misread in line with stereotypical norms, they face the double indignity of not only being singled out on account of the colour of their skin but also, irrespective of the magnitude or transparency of the injustice, of nonetheless being obliged to proceed and manage the incident in a way that minimises the probability that they will experience even further racial mistreatment.
15. Financial Times Stock Exchange. A FTSE 100 company is one which is listed as having amongst the highest share indices of listed companies in the UK.
16. Such challenges to authority can be regarded as a further example of a racial microaggression.
17. Sue et al. (Citation2007).
18. Leathwood, Maylor, and Moreau (Citation2009); Maylor (Citation2009); Mirza (Citation2006).
19. Aveling (Citation2006); Dyer (Citation1993).
20. Kay (Citation2009, 682) contends that any ‘diversity initiative’ in schools should include a component that examines White privilege. A similar argument could be extended to other educational establishments.
21. Gillborn (Citation2008, 162) uses ‘WhiteWorld’ to encapsulate the various normalised layers of White supremacy as it oscillates, without warning, between named, explicit and aggressive acts and those which are more subtle and hidden.
22. Writing about the experiences of professionals from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds, Ballard and Parveen (Citation2008, 81) state: ‘To those who seek to enforce rules which have quietly been constructed to sustain their own position of advantage, such issues have long since been assimilated into common sense and hence rendered almost completely invisible.’ Although it should be added that such issues are far from invisible to those of color.
23. Kay (Citation2009, 680) describes this ‘literal and figurative tiredness’, one of the many cumulative consequences of racial microaggressions, as ‘coping fatigue’.
24. Obama, B. Citation2009. Obama remarks to NAACP, 16 July. NAACP Centennial, New York. Ladson‐Billings and Donnor (Citation2008, 373) describe these moments of racial Othering as ‘a regular reminder of the liminal space of alterity’. Rather than regarding this as a place of disadvantage and degradation, Ladson‐Billings and Donnor insist on the ‘perspective advantage’ those excluded from the centre can experience, as their analysis becomes informed by a panoramic dialectic that is positioned ‘beyond the normative boundary of the conception of Self/Other’.
25. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
26. Leonardo (Citation2002, 31) writes of ‘disrupting white discourses and unsettling their codes’ in order to ‘name, reflect on and dismantle discourses of whiteness’. This is particularly challenging for those of color who have to simultaneously ‘engage whiteness while working to dismantle it’.
