Racial Microaggressions—Responses and Effects: Undergraduate Student Stories of Experiences on Campus Residential Spaces

• In Event: From Micoaggressions to Microaffirmations: Healing Frameworks in Educational Spaces

Abstract

Using narrative methodology, we explore microaggressions that racially minoritized, undergraduate students experience in residence halls. We focus on two components of the Critical Race Theory (CRT) microaggression framework – responses and effects. We show how students respond by confronting, being passive, and engaging others. We discuss ways that the students' responses shape the effects that microaggressions have on students’ perceptions of campus race dynamics. Effects include a) revealing the permanence of racism on their campuses, b) illuminating the salience of their racial identities in how they are treated on campus and in what they need to do to navigate their campuses, and c) highlighting the predominance of whiteness and the ways they can be rendered as out of place.

Authors

• Rosalie Rolon-Dow, University of Delaware

• Sade S. Williams, University of Delaware