Racial Microaggressions Toward Students of Color at Historically White

InstitutionsPresented by Ashley R. Delgadillo

What’s a Racial Microaggression?

“…brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights toward people of color” (Sue et al., 2007, 271).

Why Racial Microaggressions?

▪ Inspired by a Menlo student▪ Research Questions:–How do Racial Microaggressions

impact the mental health and college experience of students of color?

–How can this information be applied in colleges to facilitate a positive college experience?

Experiencing Racial Microaggressions

▪ Racial slurs written in shared spaces, racial jokes & verbal comments, segregated spaces & unequal treatment= denial and minimization of racism (Harwood et al., 2012)

▪ Pretending to be “Colorblind” (Sue, 2004)

▪ Different Races & Different Ethnicities= Different Racial Microaggressions (Torres-Harding et al., 2012) – “You speak English well!”

Mental Health & Distress

▪ Lack of research studying Mental Health & Microaggressions (Revival in 2007)▪ Stress (Pascoe & Richman, 2009), Depression (Nadal et al., 2014), &

Binge Drinking (Blume et al., 2011) ▪ African-American students report higher

race-related stress at Historically White Institutions (HWI) than Historically Black Colleges/Universities (HBCU) (Greer & Brown, 2011)

▪ High levels of perceived discrimination are related to poor levels of mental health among of all ethnicities (Pascoe & Richman, 2009)

How Do Students Of Color Cope?

▪ Faculty play an important part in the conversation of race at schools (Sue et al., 2011)

▪ Choosing what’s least confrontational as a way to cope (Harwood et al., 2012)

▪ Different cultures cope in different ways (Armenta et al., 2013; Nadal et al., 2014)

What’s Missing in the Racial Microaggression Field?: Limits, Gaps, and Critiques

▪ No universal instrument to measure racial microaggressions (reliability+ validity)▪ Intersectionality : multiple oppressed

identities= experiencing multiple types of oppressions (Nadal et al., 2014)

CONTINUE RESEARCHING!PSYCArticles in 2001: 1 VS 2015: 147 (Wong et al., 2013)

So What Can We Do?

Counterspaces (Grier-Reed, 2010)

Student and Faculty awareness (Sue et al., 2009)

Broken Glass (lookdifferent.org, 2015) Tiny but significant

negative impact Dialogue= self

reflection of biases+ develop skills to educateWords have power

Sairanet- Women in The Workplace

References- Bentley-Edwards, K.L., & Chapman-Hilliard, C. (2014). Doing Race in Different Places: Black Racial Cohesion on Black and White College Campuses. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, n.v., 1-18.- Blume, A.W., Lovato, L.V., Thyken, B.N., Denny, N. (2011). The Relationship of Microaggressions With Alcohol Use and Anxiety Among Ethnic Minority College Students in a Historically White Institution. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 18(1), 45-54. DOI: 10.1037/a0025457 -Greer, T.M. & Brown, P. (2011). Minority Status Stress and Coping Processes Among African American College Students. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 4(1), 26-38. -Grier-Reed, T.L. (2010). The African American Student Network: Creating Sanctuaries and Counterspaces for Coping with Racial Microaggressions in Higher Education Settings. Journal of Humanistic Counseling, Education and Development, 49, 181-188. - Harwood, S.A., Huntt, M.B., Mendenhall, R., Lewis, J.A. (2012). Racial Microaggressions in the Residence Halls: Experiences of Students of Color at a Predominantly White University. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 5(3), 159-173.-Lookdifferent.org. (2015). MTV’s Look Different. Retrieved from: http://www.lookdifferent.org/ -Nadal, K.L., Griffin, K.E., Wong, Y., Hamit, S., Rasmus, M. (2014). The Impact of Racial Microaggressions on Mental Health: Counseling Implications for Clients of Color. Journal of Counseling & Development, 92, 57-66. DOI:10.1002/j.1556-6676.2014.00130.x -Nadal, K.L., Mazzula, S.L., Rivera, D.P., Fujii-Doe, W. (2014). Microaggressions and Latina/o Americans: An Analysis of Nativity, Gender, and Ethnicity. Journal of Latina/o Psychology, 2(2), 67-78. DOI: 10.1037/lat0000013 -Pascoe, E.A. & Richman, L.S. (2009). Perceived Discrimination and Health: A Meta-Analytic Review. Psychological Bulletin, 135(4), 531-554-Sue, D.W. (2004). Whiteness and Ethnocentric Monoculturalism: Making the ‘Invisible’ Visible. American Psychologist, 59(8), 761-769.- Sue, D.W., Capodilupo, C.M., Torino, G.C., Bucceri, J.M., Holder, A.M.B., Nadal, K.L., Esquilin, M. (2007). Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Implications for Clinical Practice. American Psychologist, 62(4), 271-286. DOI: 10.1037/0003-066X.62.4.271-Sue, D.W., Lin, A.I., Torino, G.C., Capodilupo, C.M., Rivera, D.P. (2009). Racial Microaggressions and Difficult Dialogues on Race in the Classroom. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 15(2), 183-190.- Torres-Harding, S.R., Andrade, A.L., Diaz C.E.R. (2012). The Racial Microaggressions Scale (RMAS): A New Scale to Measure Experiences of Racial Microaggressions in People of Color. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 18(2), 153-164.