Читать книгу Microaggressions in Everyday Life онлайн | страница 50

Many microaggressions are common across various marginalized groups, but there are differences in types, hidden messages, and impact. Manifestation of microaggressions is contingent upon context and conventional stereotypes that are supported in those contexts. For instance, women may experience a unique microaggression such as “sexual objectification” that is not present for heterosexual men, regardless of racial‐group membership. And there are distinctions within categories. In other words, racial microaggressions are not experienced in the same way by individuals across racial groups. In the United States, for example, Asian Americans and Latinx individuals are more likely to experience “alien in one's own land” messages than are African Americans, who are more likely to be seen as “criminals.” Please note that we elaborate on similarities and differences in microaggressive manifestations across group and context in ssss1, where we also address cutting‐edge research on the intersectional nature of microaggressions (within‐group differences).

The original racial microaggression taxonomy proposed by D. W. Sue, Capodilupo, et al. (2007) was later refined to include gender and sexual‐orientation themes. Here we present D. W. Sue and Capodilupo's (2008) revised taxonomy and describe some of the more common themes with their hidden messages.

Microinsults are characterized by verbal and nonverbal interpersonal exchanges that convey stereotypes, rudeness, and insensitivity and that demean a person's racial, gender, sexual orientation, heritage, or identity. Microinsults represent subtle snubs, frequently outside the perpetrator’s conscious awareness, but they convey an often‐hidden insulting message to recipients. Common microinsult themes are:

 Ascription of intelligence. This microinsult is related to perceptions of intellect, competence, and capabilities and plays out differently for members of different racial and ethnic groups. Saying to African American individuals, for instance, “You are a credit to your race” contains an insulting metacommunication (“African Americans are generally not as intelligent as Whites”). In her 2014 Ted talk, spoken word artist and social justice educator Dr. Jamila Lyiscott discussed how being referred to as “articulate” is not just an innocent utterance suggested as a compliment but rather an insult that ignores the historical context of racism. The belief that African Americans are intellectually inferior is a common microaggression (Jones, 1997; Mercer, Zeigler‐Hill, Wallace, & Hayes, 2011; Smedley & Smedley, 2005; Torres, Driscoll, & Burrow, 2010). When targets are Asian American, the microaggression often is the reverse—there is an assumption that Asians are highly intelligent, especially in math and science. Houshmand, Tafarodi, and Spanierman (2014) found support for this notion in a study with Asian international students in Canada. A Chinese woman reported, “Everybody thinks Chinese are good at math,” and a Chinese man stated that he felt like an anomaly as a history major because of others' preconceived notion about the interests and competencies of Chinese persons being focused on math and science. When considering gender microaggressions, we see ascription of intelligence at play when a male teacher expresses surprise at the math skills of a female student (“Wow, how did you get so good in math?”).