Racial Microaggressions: Critical Questions, State of the Science, and New Directions

Abstract

Racial microaggressions are an insidious form of racism with devastating mental-health outcomes, but the concept has not been embraced by all scholars. This article provides an overview of new scholarship on racial microaggressions from an array of diverse scholars in psychology, education, and philosophy, with a focus on new ways to define, conceptualize, and categorize racial microaggressions. Racism, along with its many forms and manifestations, is defined and clarified, drawing attention to the linkages between racial microaggressions and systemic racism. Importantly, the developmental entry points leading to the inception of racial bias in children are discussed. Theoretical issues are explored, including the measurement of intersectional microaggressions and the power dynamics underpinning arguments designed to discredit the nature of racial microaggressions. Also described are the very real harms caused by racial microaggressions, with new frameworks for measurement and intervention. These articles reorient the field to this pertinent and pervasive problem and pave the way for action-based responses and interventions. The next step in the research must be to develop interventions to remedy the harms caused by microaggressions on victims. Further, psychology must make a fervent effort to root out racism that prevents scholarship on these topics from advancing.