Racial Literacy & Microagression
Racial Literacy
Unveiling the complexity of race is a necessary step toward understanding one's feelings and safely expressing them in educational settings. Developing such knowledge should not be a one-time activity, but rather a continuous path of exploring connections and increasing self-awareness.
Racial Microaggression
Racial literacy has been identified as a means of addressing microaggressions. It provides the context, insight, and knowledge to comprehend why an interaction was perceived as hurtful or offensive due to possible unhealed generational trauma.
Microaggressions are said to be common as underrepresented students try to adjust to the program environment. According to research, graduate students of color, including those underrepresented in doctoral programs, face an even more stressful environment due to microaggression. A 2020 study states that nearly all of the underrepresented graduate students in their sample (98.8%) reported having recently experienced microaggressions.
"After months or years, unhealed trauma can appear to become part of someone's personality. Over even longer periods of time, as it is passed on and gets compounded through other bodies in a household, it can become a family norm. And if it gets transmitted and compounded through multiple families and generations, it can start to look like culture."
Resmaa Menakem Author of "My Grandmother's Hand"
The following videos discuss mental health issues due to acts of racism, such as microaggressions.
