“What Are You?”

Abstract

This research uses intersectionality theory to examine the experiences of students of color at a predominantly White university in the southeastern United States. Through nine focus group interviews, overlooked systems of power that perpetuate inequalities associated with the intersection of Brown and Black skin, and other categories of identity, are illuminated and explored. The counternarratives of 31 students expose subtle and unnoticed ways in which race, sex, sexual orientation, and perceived immigrant status, separately and combined, induce a set of expectations, assumptions, and treatments from White tudents on and around campus. The roles of structure and dominant ideologies in these students' experiences and interactions are also explored. Findings show that these students of color face racialization, stereotyping, objectification, pathologizing, and policing of behavior, which occur mostly through microaggressions, and which work to reinforce White privilege. These processes vary according to the particular combination of intersecting identities.