Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life

Racial microaggressions are brief and commonplace daily
verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether
intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory,
or negative racial slights and insults toward
people of color. Perpetrators of microaggressions are often
unaware that they engage in such communications when
they interact with racial/ethnic minorities. A taxonomy of
racial microaggressions in everyday life was created
through a review of the social psychological literature on
aversive racism, from formulations regarding the manifestation
and impact of everyday racism, and from reading
numerous personal narratives of counselors (both White
and those of color) on their racial/cultural awakening.
Microaggressions seem to appear in three forms: microassault,
microinsult, and microinvalidation. Almost all interracial
encounters are prone to microaggressions; this article
uses the White counselor – client of color counseling
dyad to illustrate how they impair the development of a
therapeutic alliance. Suggestions regarding education and
training and research in the helping professions are discussed.

Because White therapists are members of the larger
society and not immune from inheriting the racial biases of
their forebears (Burkard & Knox, 2004; D. W. Sue, 2005),
they may become victims of a cultural conditioning process
that imbues within them biases and prejudices (Abelson,
Dasgupta, Park, & Banaji, 1998; Banaji, Hardin, & Rothman,

1. that discriminate against clients of color. Over
   the past 20 years, calls for cultural competence in the
   helping professions (American Psychological Association,
   2003; D. W. Sue, Arredondo, & McDavis, 1992) have
   stressed the importance of two therapist characteristics
   associated with effective service delivery to racial/ethnic
   minority clients: (a) awareness of oneself as a racial/cultural
   being and of the biases, stereotypes, and assumptions
   that influence worldviews and (b) awareness of the worldviews
   of culturally diverse clients. Achieving these two
   goals is blocked, however, when White clinicians fail to
   understand how issues of race influence the therapy process
   and how racism potentially infects the delivery of services
   to clients of color (Richardson & Molinaro, 1996). Therapists
   who are unaware of their biases and prejudices may
   unintentionally create impasses for clients of color, which
   may partially explain well-documented patterns of therapy
   underutilization and premature termination of therapy
   among such clients (Burkard & Knox, 2004; Kearney,
   Draper, & Baron, 2005). In this article, we describe and
   analyze how racism in the form of racial microaggressions
   is particularly problematic for therapists to identify; propose
   a taxonomy of racial microaggressions with potential
   implications for practice, education and training, and research;
   and use the counseling/therapy process to illustrate
   how racial microaggressions can impair the therapeutic
   alliance.