Racial Microaggressions: Using Critical Race Theory to Respond to Everyday Racism

Daniel Solorzano University of California, Los Angeles

Presented to:

East Los Angeles College Townhall

September 30, 2020 Racism Pandemic

Economic Health Pandemic Pandemic

Environmental Pandemic “Call to Action” 3. Campuses must audit classroom climate and create an action plan to create inclusive classrooms and anti-racism curriculum.

Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley & 10 Members of His Cabinet What are Racial Microaggressions and Microaffirmations

Why They Matter Brief History of How I Got Here 1972

1990 My Introduction to Asset-Based Community Research Manuel R. Solorzano, Sr. Las Dos Banderas Bakery 1968 to 1972

1964 1972 1970 Use the Q&A What Were the 1st Tools You Found to Help You Recognize and Understand Racism? Race, Ethnic, & Gender Studies

Critical Race & Freirean Gender Pedagogy Theory 1993 A Working Definition of Critical Race Theory in Education Critical race theory is the work of scholars who are developing an explanatory framework that accounts for the role of race and racism in education. CRTE works toward identifying and challenging racism in its historical and contemporary forms as part of a larger goal of identifying and challenging all forms of subordination. Centers Race and Racism

Challenges Challenges Dominant Ahistoricism CRT in Frameworks ED

Commitment Centers to Social Experiential Justice Knowledge Using Critical Race Theory, I Examine Everyday Racism Racial Microaggressions are one Form of Everyday Racism 1994 Chester M. Pierce

Microaggressions

Professor of Psychiatry and Education at the Medical School and Graduate School of Education at Harvard University Microaggressions

In F. Barbour (Ed.), The Black Seventies (pp. 265-282). Boston, MA: Porter Sargent, 1970. How Do We Define Racial Microaggressions? • Racial Microaggressions are one form of systemic everyday racism used to keep those at the racial margins in their place. Racial Microaggressions are: • Verbal and Non-Verbal Assaults directed toward People of Color. • Layered Assaults, based on a Person of Color’s race, gender, class, sexuality, language, immigration status, phenotype, accent, or surname. • Cumulative Assaults that take a physiological, psychological, and academic toll on People of Color. 1940’s W.E.B. Du Bois

. . .[A] lady in a Pullman car ordered me to bring her a glass of water, mistaking me for a porter, the incident in its essence was a joke to be chuckled over; but in its hard, cruel significance and its unending inescapable sign of slavery, it was something to drive a man mad. (Dusk of Dawn, 1940, pp. 136–37) 1950’s Jim Crow De Jure De Facto

Gordon Parks Department Store, 1956 1960’s Downtown L.A. Alameda St. Huntington Color LinePa rk

South Central ELAC L.A. South Gate Campus 1970’s Chester M. Pierce “I notice in a class I teach that after each session a white, not a black, will come up to me and tell me how the class should be structured or how the chairs should be placed or how there should be extra meetings outside the classroom, etc…One could argue that I am hypersensitive, if not paranoid, about what I know every black will understand, is that it is not what the student says in this dialogue, it is how he approaches me, how he talks to me, how he seems to regard me. I was patronized. I was told, by my own perceptual distortions perhaps, that although I am a full professor on two faculties at a prestigious university, to him I was no more than a big black n….r. I had to be instructed and directed as to how to render him more pleasure!” (Pierce, p. 277, 1970, emphasis mine). 2010’s

Models for Understanding Racial Microaggressions

“But “I I meant have a i t 1 asst a “I think you Amendmentcompliment” Right to misinterpreted“Alma, you're…Inst differentthat’s i tutional fromsay what those IRacis please” m othernot what Mexicans I meant”…You’re good in science” Secondary Target

Racial Primary Perpetrator Allison Microaggression AlmaTarget

“Then, how do you think of me?” “How else do y ou think of Mexicans?” “You’re being Did she “Don’t act li ke a victim” just say too sensitive” “You’re taking this too serious” that? “It was just a joke” Secondary Target

Racial Primary Perpetrator Microaggression Target INTENT IMPACT A Model for Understanding Racial Microaggressions

Types of Racial Microaggressions Effects of Racial Context of Microaggressions Racial Microaggressions • Pain, Hurt… • Anger, Stress (Racial Battle Fatigue) • Self Doubt (Imposter Syndrome) • Poor Academic Performance • Poor Health Outcomes

Effects of Racial Microaggressions The Stress Related to Everyday Racism Has Negative Health Outcomes Everyday Racism Makes You Sick David R. Williams’ TED MED Talk: “How Racism Makes Us Sick” April 2017 A Model for Understanding Racial Microaggressions

Types of Racial Microaggressions Effects of Responses to Racial Racial Context of Microaggressions Microaggressions Racial Microaggressions Responses to Racial Microaggressions

• Denial • Self Policing (Hyper-Vigilance) • Prove Them Wrong • Resistance • Counterspaces (Academic & Social) • Various Art Forms • Microaffirmations The Micro in Microaggressions does not mean “less than.”

The Micro in Microaggressions means “in the everyday.” Use the Q&A Racial Microaggression Discussion What other examples of racial microaggressions can you share with the group that you have experienced or seen inside or outside of East Los Angeles College? A Model for Understanding Racial Microaggressions

Types of Racial Microaggressions Effects of Responses to Racial Racial Context of Microaggressions Microaggressions Racial Microaggressions Responses to Racial Microaggressions

• Denial • Self Policing • Prove Them Wrong • Resistance • Counterspaces (Academic & Social) • Various Art Forms • Microaffirmations Microaffirmations as a Response to Everyday Racism Nov. 19, 2015

Racial Microaggression

Professor Ronald Sullivan “For a lot of students, particularly students of color, it’s not surprising. It’s just more public. It’s a public manifestation of what we experience in the classroom every day.”

Derecka Purnell, Harvard Law Student But Here’s What Happened "My shock and dismay, however, were replaced with joy and admiration when I saw the lovely notes of affirmation and appreciation that Harvard law students placed on our portraits."

Racial Microaffirmation

Professor Ronald Sullivan Here’s What I Recalled

1994

Dear Maggie and Liza…Last summer, I sat at a sidewalk café in Italy, and three or four “black” Italians walked casually by…Each spoke to me; rather, each nodded his head slightly or acknowledged me with a glance, ever so subtly. When growing up, we always did this with each other, passing boats in a sea of white folk…Which is why I still nod or speak to black people on the streets and why it felt so good to be acknowledged by the Afro-Italians who passed my table at the café in Milan…Above all, I enjoy the unselfconscious moments of a shared cultural intimacy, whatever form they take, when no one else is watching, when no white people are around…And I hope you’ll understand why I continue to speak to colored people I pass on the streets. Love, Daddy Racial Microaffirmations

Often subtle verbal and/or non-verbal strategies (moments of shared cultural intimacy) that People of Color use to acknowledge and affirm each other’s dignity, integrity and shared humanity and that makes people feel seen and valued.

-Solorzano, Pérez Huber, & Huber-Verjan, 2020

Other Examples of Microaffirmations “My mother giving me a bendicion [blessing] when I leave the house or when she dropped me off at school.”

Latina Teacher “My morning ritual of combing my daughter’s hair and telling her how beautiful she is. Because I know that’s not how the world sees her.” African American Principal “Recognizing and speaking to the groundskeepers, custodians, cafeteria workers in Spanish.”

Latina Undergraduate @ UCLA “At its root, the nodWhite may be Supremacy Acknowledging another’s presence mostSocial useful gesture for or its greeting affirming role in the politics of Institutional R aci sm acknowledgment among black A gesture of men. American society remains respect reluctant to recognize our humanity. Or more Racial fundamentally, that Microaffirm we exist at ations all. The nod is a way of literally andA figuratively signal or saying, ‘I know “I appreciate you” you gesture exist. I see of you. I acknowledge your being.’” (p. 94) (Dyson,solidarity 2001). A very subtle “I see you” Use the Q&A Racial Microaffirmation Discussion What other examples of racial microaffirmations can you share with the group that affirm one’s dignity, humanity, and shared cultural intimacy inside or outside of East Los Angeles College? Is the Presence of People of Color (i.e. in a Space, in Text, in History…), a Microaffirmation? And, is the Absence of People of Color (i.e. in a Space, in Text, in History…), a Microaggression? These are Racial Microaggressions and Microaffirmations

This is Why They Matter THANK YOU [email protected]