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What do these incidents have in common? How does Maya Angelou's poem relate to these two cases? In both examples, individuals with power deliver subtle, perhaps unconscious, microaggressions. In ssss1, a well‐intentioned professor delivered racial microaggressions, and in ssss1, a commuter on the train and the vice president both delivered gender microaggressions. “Still I Rise” represents resilience of the targets. Before we analyze these two examples in greater depth, let us first define microaggressions in greater detail.

Standing before his classroom, Charles Richardson, a White professor, asked for questions from the class. He had just finished a lecture on Greco‐Roman contributions to the history of psychology. An African American male student raised his hand.

When called upon, the student spoke in a frustrated manner, noting that the history of psychology was “ethnocentric and Eurocentric” and that it left out the contributions of other societies and cultures. The student seemed to challenge the professor by noting that the contributions of African, Latin American, and Asian psychologies were never covered.

The professor responded, “Robert, I want you to calm down. We are studying American psychology in this course, and we will eventually address how it has influenced and been adapted to Asian and other societies. I plan to also talk about how systems and theories of psychology contain universal applications.”

Rather than defusing the situation, however, Professor Richardson sensed that his response had raised the level of tension among several students of color. Another Black male student then stated, “Perhaps we are looking at this issue from different perspectives or worldviews. Just as language affects how we define problems, maybe we all need to evaluate our assumptions and beliefs. Maybe we are ethnocentric. Maybe there are aspects of psychology that apply across all populations. Maybe we need to dialogue more and be open to alternative interpretations.”