Racial Bias in Our Communities: Understanding Microaggressions

“Where are you from?”, “Where were you born?”, “You speak good English!” 

If you’ve ever been somewhere where you didn’t ‘look’ or ‘sound’ the part, you will have no doubt been asked these questions. In Western culture, it’s common for anyone who isn’t part of the dominant white groups to be asked these questions almost daily. Even when individuals advise they were born in the country and raised in the local area, the questions likely persist:

“But where are you really from?”

These subtle questions might seem harmless, but they’re a form of microaggression that can leave POC and migrants with a clear message: you’re not from here, so you don’t belong here. 

What is Microaggression?

The term microaggression was coined by psychiatrist Chester Pierce in the 1970s, who described it as a form of “subtle racism.”

Psychologist Derald Wing Sue, who’s written widely on microaggressions, defines it as:

“The everyday slights, indignities, put-downs and insults that people of color, women, LGBT populations, or those who are marginalized experience in their day-to-day interactions with people.”

3 Types of Microaggressions

Microaggressions appear in three forms: microassault, microinsult, and microinvalidation.

• Microassault: Microassaults are defined primarily by verbal or nonverbal attacks. These attacks are targeted and designed to hurt the intended victim through name-calling, avoidant behavior, and other purposeful, discriminatory behavior.

• Microinsult: Microinsults are verbal and nonverbal communications subtly convey rudeness and insensitivity and aim to demean a person’s perceived racial heritage or identity.

• Microinvalidation: When a person’s comment invalidates the experiences of a group of people. A classic example is when a white person tells a black person that “racism does not exist in today’s society.”

Mental Health Across Different Communities

It’s crucial to consider how a community experiences racism – in all forms – to be able to develop and design services and interventions that best meet the needs of that community. 

In the US, racial and ethnic communities experience racism differently because of historical and social structures, specific policies and practices, and other socioeconomic contextual factors.

It’s essential as professionals to be aware of things we may think of as harmless, such as ingrained microaggressions or unconscious biases influencing our thinking and responses.

When thinking about microaggressions in therapy, it is essential to remember that:

1. Therapy sessions are likely to represent a microcosm of race relations in our larger society.
   
2. Mental health professionals often inherit the biases of their predecessors.
   
3. The clinical process represents a European American definition of normality and abnormality that clashes with diverse worldviews and life experiences.

Challenging Microaggression in Mental Health Practice

One of the most significant challenges facing mental health practitioners is how to become culturally competent in delivering relevant services to people of color, women, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and other marginalized groups such as those with disabilities, religious minorities, and immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.

Traditional training, such as courses, workshops, and professional literature on diverse groups in our society, may be helpful. Seeking in-depth multicultural and implicit bias training is one way of taking your professional (and personal) development in this space. 

These types of training are usually delivered by highly skilled and experienced individuals who can help you safely explore, understand, and change your biases around different community groups.

I think it’s incredibly important to remember that having unconscious biases is not wrong and does not make you an inherently ‘bad’ person – they’re ingrained ideas developed from our personal histories and experience.

The worst thing we can do is ignore that we might be carrying unconscious biases and not act to uncover what they might be to resolve them once and for all.