21 Microaggressions in Photos

An artist playing with racialized photography tools.

This collage was created by an artist playing with a racialized photography tool. Click the photo for more details on the artist’s work. (Source: “The oddity of pretending to be another race ” by Tricia Wang, on Flickr. Some rights reserved.)

 

Microagressions aren’t just a term you read and theorize about. They happen everyday to people just like you and me. Buzzfeed has assembled a powerful set of photos about students at one university responding to microagressions they have experienced.

According to Buzzfeed:

The term “microaggression” was used by Columbia professor Derald Sue to refer to “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.” Sue borrowed the term from psychiatrist Dr. Chester Pierce who coined the term in the ’70s.

What is your reaction to this list? How would you respond to someone creating an uncomfortable environment on your campus? Leave a comment (or better yet, email me a response photo to eameen[at]apa[dot]org so we can create a new list).