#microinvalidation

[tjeromebaker]

Understanding Microaggressions in Nursing

Credit: Texas Nurses Association Cource: Texas Nurses Association, Posted by Gabi Nintunze, February 20, 2024 Microaggressions can be defined as “the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group…

[kairoscareau]

Unmasking Subtle Racism

Subtle racism, also known as covert/implicit racism, refers to discriminatory attitudes, behaviours or actions that are less obvious and not easily identifiable compared to traditional forms of racism. Because subtle racism can be indirect, unintentional expressions of prejudice or unsconsiously expressed, they are often more challenging to recognise. Subtle racism can manifest in various ways, such as comments, actions or behaviours that subtly marginalise or demean individuals based on their race or ethnicity. Whether people might not be fully aware of their biases or actions or may even deny their racism when called out, subtle racism helps perpetuate discrimination and inequalities. 

Some examples of racially-based subtle racism are: 

Verbal: "Are you his nanny?" assuming that a person of colour is not a white child's parent; 

Action: a teacher not calling on students of colour; a server automatically serving white people first over people of colour; 

Racial profiling: stop-and-frisk policy meant to reduce crime but mostly targets people of colour.

Subtle racism is hard to detect at first glance unlike overt racism which is blatant and easily recognisable. Although subtle racism operates in a more covert manner, its effects may cause harm whether it was unintentional or not. Let's shed light into subtle racism, its impact on relationships and well-being, the challenge of recognition and how we can avoid being a subtle racist. 

Kinds of Subtle Racism: 

Colorblindness or Microinvalidations - ignores the unique experiences of different racial groups. For instance, the "All Lives Matter" as a response to "Black Lives Matter" may mean well, but can be considered racist as "Black Lives Matter" do not mean only Black lives matter or that Black lives matter more. The BLM movement only asserts that Black lives matter too, to address historical and current events, and some institutions' tendency to not treat Black lives as mattering equally with White lives. 

Stereotyping - assumes that someone's abilities, preferences, or behaviour are based on their race. For instance, assuming that an Asian woman is a mail-order bride, or a Mexican woman is a cleaning lady. 

Tokenism - including a person of colour solely to demonstrate diversity. For instance, hiring a person of colour to comply with diversity even though the role is essentially insignificant. 

Microaggressions - are small, everyday acts that communicate derogatory messages towards racial minorities, including: 

backhanded compliments (e.g. "You're beautiful for a dark-skinned girl.") 

cultural appropriation - loving a part of a culture (like Hip Hop) but fail to speak out for or recognise its people's struggles, or dominant groups erasing origins of certain cultures and taking credit for something they did not create (e.g. Elvis regarded as a pioneer of rock and roll but failing to credit Sister Rosetta Tharpe as an earlier rock and roll artist who influenced Elvis and referred to as Godmother of rock and roll). 

questioning someone's nationality or abilities. Saying, "You must be good at math" to someone with Asian descent or "I don't even see you as [insert race]". 

Effects on Relationships and Wellbeing: 

Subtle racism can erode relationships and negatively impact mental health. Constant exposure to microaggressions can lead to feelings of invalidation, frustration and stress. Over time, these experiences can strain personal and professional connections, contribute to a sense of isolation and introduce an atmosphere of negativity and even hostility in personal relationships, the workplace and community groups.   

How Do We Preserve Wellbeing and Avoid Being Subtle Racists: 

Self-education - recognise and acknowledge your own biases and actively seek to educate yourself and others about different cultures and experiences. 

Active listening - strive to create an environment where people feel comfortable sharing their experiences, and listen without being defensive or dismissive. 

Empathy - simply try putting yourself in others' shoes and strive to understand the impact of your words and actions. 

Language matters - choose your words carefully, avoiding assumptions or stereotypes. 

Speak up - if you witness subtle racism, address it respectfully to help raise awareness. 

Subtle racism is a pervasive issue that demands our attention. By shedding light on its existence, acknowledging its impact, and taking proactive steps to prevent it, we can create a more inclusive and equitable society. 

Remember that change begins with each individual's commitment to unlearn biases and treat all individuals with respect, regardless of their background.

[journalbymariru]

Under the category "Alien in Own Land," many Asian Americans and Latino/Hispanic Americans report that they are commonly seen as perpetual foreigners. or example, a female Asian American client arrives for her first therapy session. Her therapist asks her where she is from, and when told "Philadelphia," the therapist further probes by asking where she was born. In this case, the therapist has assumed that the Asian American client is not from the United States and has imposed through the use of the second question the idea that she must be a foreigner. Immediately, a barrier is created in the helping relationship because the client feels invalidated by the therapist (she is perceived as a foreigner, not a U.S. citizen)... We contend that clients of color are at increased risk of not continuing in the counseling/therapy session when such microaggressions occur. Worse yet, they will not receive the help they need and may leave the session feeling worse than when they first sought counseling. Because it is unlikely that clinicians intentionally create hostile and unwelcoming environments for their ethnic minority clients, it can be assumed that these biases are being expressed through microaggressions.

Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Implications for Clinical Practice, Derald Wing Sue, et. al.

[femonomics-blog]

What Exactly is A Microaggression And How to Deal with It?

What Exactly is A Microaggression And How to Deal with It?

Microaggression Let’s say there are two friends — one Caucasian, the other African-American—who are going for a late-night walk around town. This was something they often did, so it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Just as they are about to make their way back home, they hear a police siren, and next thing you know, the cop pulls up beside them and asked them some questions. However, the…

[thesociologicalcinema]

Examples of Racial Microaggressions

[shannon-jeanna]

So let’s talk about one of the big contributors to Asian Americans’ cultural stress: Microaggressions.

What are some microaggressions that we Asian Americans face that might cause us to experience mental (as well as spiritual, and physical) health challenges?

I’ve compiled a list of microaggressions that make us feel more “othered” and aware of our distance from cultural belonging.

These slights can drive us to experience bi- or multi-cultural stress or what is often referred to by Asian Americans writing or speaking about their experiences as identity crises (search “Asian American identity crisis” into your search bar and check out the number of results. It’s wild).

1. Non-Asians acting as if they are more familiar with our “native” culture(s) than we are as Asian Americans.

I am frequently asked questions like, “do you know how to make curry? Can you teach me?” and “are you familiar with the origins of yoga practice?”

I’m clearly “brown,” and people read me as Indian. And so, of course, I also always get that mildly irritating (depending on who’s asking it) question of “where are you really from?”

People have diverse responses to expectations that they are an automatic authority on some culture that others associate with them, often based just on their physical appearance.

These questions don’t necessarily bother me in the sense that they assume that I’m un-American. Asian Americans are, after all, immigrants to a colonized land, and so should be more reflective of how our claims to belonging and American-ness can normalize colonization and invisibilize Native displacement.

But they bother me because they heighten my sense of cultural dysphoria, or, feeling like I don’t belong to any culture because I represent an ugly, rejected mixture of both.

2. Being told that we’re not really Asian because we grew up in or were born in the U.S.

We don’t only experience cultural rejection from white people, but from other Asians as well.

Often, Asian Americans speak about going back to our “native” land(s) — usually meaning one or multiple countries or regions in which our ancestors lived and had descendants — and feeling like total outsiders. This might be because we can’t culturally relate, or we have trouble speaking the native language.

Because many of us are also considered outsiders in the U.S., we may expect to automatically feel accepted in [insert country or region here] when we travel or meet people from there. The sense of: finally — my people!

But, turns out, we might even be outsiders to who we think are “our people.”

We can be told in many ways that we’re not properly Asian. In my culture (I find it humorous to say this because I have none), people like me are called ABCDs (“American Born Confused Desis”) and coconuts (brown on the outside, white on the inside).

All of these labels, while admittedly sometimes funny, emphasize our outsider status, and thus our distance from genuine cultural belonging.

As a result, we can grow more, as I name it in an earlier article, culturally dysphoric. Indian scholar, Homi Bhabha, refers to this experience as being “unhomed.”

Basically, we get mad stressed and unsure about where we fit into different cultures because the reality is that we’ve grown up with multiple — we’re complex!

3. Experiencing rejection or exoticization from non-Asian people

I was reading through an old Skype chat that I had with my white girlfriend when I was 15 years old. At first, I was really moved by the amount of care we were expressing to one another. But then I came upon a list of “100 things I love about you” she wrote about me.

Sounds cute, right? Not so much. One of the one hundred things was, “you’re my Princess Jasmine,” and another one was “you’re a hot Indian.” YIKES. She was definitely exoticizing meas a lot of my white partners have in the past.

Anyway, many people of color have a complicated relationship with feeling desired, for a number of reasons. Whether it’s our labor, our citizenship, or our attractiveness, the way that we are desired often feels fleeting and sometimes even exploitative.

An example of this for (especially femme) people who are Asian American is the perception that we are exotic, fetish objects — basically, that we are attractive based on eroticized racial or cultural stereotypes projected onto us.

Exoticization isn’t genuine attraction. It means we’re deemed both attractive, and disposable.

We’re again cast as outsiders — or, “other” — rather than being accepted into a mutually respectful space that doesn’t slap racial and cultural assumptions onto us before considering the many other aspects of our personhood.

While it’s important to talk about the anxieties that can arise from feeling distant from our “native” culture(s), we also need to keep in mind that we can’t responsibly claim to be insiders to a place where we have not lived or spent much time.

If we do, as Janani writes in “I’m the ‘Safe Kind of Brown,” we could perpetuate stereotypes about life in our “native” regions, because those stereotypes may actually be what we’re most familiar with as people in the diaspora.

Instead, we need to have more conversations about what it looks like for us to be embracing our hybrid identities — straddling the borders between multiple cultures and regions.

But, embracing this reality is hard work. And, unfortunately, the vast majority of Asian Americans who write and speak about this issue overlook that it’s even more difficult for people with multiple marginalized identities (like, being trans or queer) to do this. Because we’re often rejected from multiple cultures on the basis of our queer and trans identities.

And, contrary to what this video discussing Asian identity crises suggests, we can’t simply “forget” about what people think about us in order to accept ourselves.

That sort of practice of just forgetting about it seems like it requires us to suppress our emotions, and neglect our health. It reads as a privilege that isn’t as simple as it’s depicted — especially for people who are multiply marginalized, and who are anti-racists resisting assimilation into whiteness.

There is an urgency for greater attention to mental health care for Asian Americans based on these and other social factors. They cause us to not only develop identity crises, but also further feelings of alienation, confusion, and loneliness.

Mental health care doesn’t have to just look like therapy sessions.

It can be strong digital communities for people across Asian diasporas, or physical spaces for community healing. It can also look like increased media representation that depicts conflicts like ours.

Many Asian Americans hold privilege, but we also deserve to heal from our pain as marginalized people. I don’t think these two things need to exist apart from one another.

There is an abundance of healing potential in recognizing our potential harms done as privileged people, and unlearning the destructive mentalities that we have accepted for ourselves out of a need for survival.

Mirza puts this well. They say that our sadness holds the legacies of our trauma. And, if it goes unexplored, because we “become so wrapped up” in sorrow resulting from our oppression, we can neglect to be critical of our privileges and the ways we can do harm.

So, let’s talk about our sadness, and legitimize our trauma from the microaggressions that have worn on us over time. For diasporic, bi- and multi-cultural people, let’s try to embrace our hybrid identities in whatever ways we can, because always striving to fit is really exhausting.

[tarkatan]

@microinvalidations sometimes you have to trip over the hurdles rather than leap over them :pensive:

[darkmarxsoul]

“There’s a difference between something “being racist” and something “inconveniencing racial minorities” though.”

slightly off the subject of your, frankly, skewed argument (most things are not intended to be racist, but *disproportionately* affect POC in a way that creates harm. i genuinely don’t know what to tell you if you haven’t seen a VAST increase of this phenomenon in the treatment of shows that are about a black person’s experience, not to mention the importance of the narrative in creating empathy to ease the prolificness of ignorance. intent exists, but the outcome is the same)… specifically minimizing and ‘debunking’ the racism that multiple black people in the post are trying to explain is its own form of microaggression. the irony is that it probably wasn’t your intent, but the action itself has the same effect.

this is only one professional study on the physical emotional effects of microaggressions, specifically including downplaying and ‘debunking’ racism, but i think it’s a great starter read because it outlines specific types of microaggression, namely microinvalidation. there are many many more, just googling brings up long lists of studies. all studies i have found describe the effects as akin to being physically and mentally in a long-term traumatic event. what looks like an "inconvenience", as you say, doesn't act like one internally. the disproportionate increase for either black peoples' stories being ignored, or for others denying the prevalence and experience of it as racism, is what makes it what it is, racism. intent has no bearing on the outcome.

(www.) ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5342632/

"most things are not intended to be racist, but *disproportionately* affect POC in a way that creates harm."

I literally said this IN MY POST on the topic. I'm 100% willing to engage in respectful discussion but not when people mosey up and ignore stuff I wrote. This is what I said:

"Racism is an expression of bias or bigotry against racial minorities, and can manifest either in actions that reflect negative personal beliefs held by individuals, or can be the result of a systemic bias even if no individuals involved perceive that bias.

…

A job like firefighting having arbitrary physical standards for hiring that winds up excluding most women that would otherwise be hired with actual reasonable physical standards is a sexist system even if no firefighters doing the hiring are actually biased against women."

So, I know this.

If the stuff described in the original post actually happened to things written by non-white people more than it happens to things written by white people, then it would be racist. But the thing is, for this particular topic, the vapid fandomization of literary works does not "disproportionately affect POC in a way that creates harm". It happens entirely equally along racial lines, that is why I said intent matters. Intent doesn't matter when establishing a racist outcome to an action, but it does matter when there is no racist outcome to an action to be seen.

"i genuinely don’t know what to tell you if you haven’t seen a VAST increase of this phenomenon in the treatment of shows that are about a black person’s experience"

I've seen a vast increase of this phenomenon in the treatment of ALL shows EVERYWHERE, not just about black people. As social media becomes more and more focused on metrics and mass-consumption rather than on substance and in-depth consumption, this is inevitable.

Like again, it helps to remain on topic. It's patently obvious that shows about the black experience have been disproportionately ignored by the majority white populace of the Western world. Of course, and that is due to a racist undervaluing of black culture. But we're not talking about white attitudes towards black media overall, we're talking about fandom attitudes towards black media (in particular, white LGBT attitudes). That particular demographic doesn't give a shit what race a movie is about, they will devolve into shipping and relationship fanfics for literally everything. And if they do it for EVERYTHING, INCLUDING black media, it isn't racist dude, it just happens to include black stories along with everything else. Again, not every sleight or offense or harm against a black person is anti-black. Sometimes it's just neutrally bad.

"specifically minimizing and ‘debunking’ the racism that multiple black people in the post are trying to explain is its own form of microaggression"

Firstly if it actually was racist, I hardly think that would be a "micro"aggression, that would just be flat out erasure.

But secondly, not everything that minorities think is racism is racism. Racism is a social and psychological thing that happens in the world and must be detected intellectually; not every minority is going to have the nuance and depth of perspective to accurately determine what is and isn't racism every time, even if that doesn't change how it makes them feel. You can in fact be wrong and misguided about the actions of other people towards you or stuff related to you. Sometimes people who are (justifiably) very sensitive towards sleights from white people towards their culture are going to shoot too high and overcompensate in their response because they feel outraged. This is one of those times. That is my opinion and I'm not going to be convinced by you pointing out that some black people disagree with me, you're going to have to convince me by actually making sense.

You can't just say whatever you want and try to browbeat me into telling you you're right because if I don't I'm racist.

"the disproportionate increase for either black peoples' stories being ignored"

There is no disproportionate increase in black people's stories being ignored among fandom via flanderizing activity like shipping anymore than there is for stories written by white people. I have no doubt that the overall reception towards black media by white people is woefully low, but that's not what we're talking about. The people who are sucking all the life and culture out of Encanto by writing fanfic about gay ships are doing exactly that for everything else they consume too, because they're shallow, not racist.

That doesn't change the fact that black people are right to be pissed off that people are doing that to their media, but it's also their responsibility to respond to this with proportional accusations to avoid looking hysterical.

"intent has no bearing on the outcome."

The reason I said that intent matters in this case is because there is no disproportionate amount of "fanficization" going on for black stories, but even so, if sets of individuals did so because they specifically didn't value black stories, that would make it racist anyway. The truth is that neither the intent nor the outcome are racist in this particular phenomenon we're discussing.

[whentherewerebicycles]

when i talk with my mentees or students in my program about grad school, they are often like “i really love research and i want to get a PhD, but my professor / advisor / grad TA told me not to bother because there are no jobs.” and my reaction is always like... okay, yes, it IS important to know going in that there will likely not be an academic job at the end (and that this will have virtually nothing to do with your individual worth or value as a scholar and everything to do with luck, the vagaries of the job market that year, and a million other factors that are almost wholly outside your control). we DO have an ethical responsibility to help students understand and really think through the realities of grad school, including but not limited to: the terrible job market, the low stipends, the university’s exploitation of grad labor, the need to balance research obligations with several side hustles, the possibility that it may limit your ability to have a family (or to support family who are dependent on your wages), the often desperately inadequate mentoring/support structures (esp for BIPOC, women, queer and trans people, etc.), the ‘weed-out’ culture of many academic disciplines, and just in general the ways that academia can crush a person’s spirit.

but good lord! if you can get in & if you can go into the experience with your eyes open, with a good support network around you & at least a nascent critical consciousness around academic values/structures, then DO IT. there is no other profession, no other environment that i can think of, that gives you this kind of flexibility and freedom to pursue your own learning. you get to spend six to nine years of your life deeply immersed in researching, reading, writing, reflecting, and teaching. there are real tradeoffs -- mostly financial but also spiritual/emotional -- but my god, to have time, space, institutional resources, and a little bit of real intellectual freedom? it is a rare and incredibly precious thing. and if the idea of experiencing that truly lights you up inside, then by all means, you should go for it.

i try to communicate this to my students with just as much seriousness and passion as i communicate to them the realities of graduate school and academic institutions. i think it is especially important to do this with my little group of women mentees (all of whom are BIPOC, many of them queer-identified, all working in fields that are still underresourced or marginalized within our discipline). because after two years of working closely with this group of students, i see more and more of the ‘microinvalidations’ they receive from professors and advisors (usually white; usually but not always male), who often tend to gently advise these women out of the profession by encouraging them to aim lower (‘i don’t know if writing an honors thesis is right for your schedule this year’ or ‘i’m not sure you’re prepared to take X course, why don’t you take this [less competitive/rigorous] course instead’ or ‘why don’t you start with a masters degree and then see about the PhD later’), or by sharing only the worst parts of grad school in an attempt to dissuade them from applying, or just through benign neglect (such as giving only blandly positive feedback on their writing, instead of giving them the thoughtful, critical, rigorous engagement they need to continue growing as scholars).

idk man! academia sucks a lot of the time and i think we DO need to be upfront about some of the ways in which it sucks. but i believe fervently that we do NOT need to do that in a “here is a list of terrible, depressing, soul-crushing Facts, now run as fast as you can in the opposite direction and never look back.” there’s got to be a way to advise undergrads that focuses on introducing the realities of grad school while building their capacity to cope with and actively respond to those realities. how can we build that capacity? some thoughts based on my own experiences thus far:

teaching our advisees how to build strong support networks (and helping them understand how/why those networks are so crucial to perseverance in grad school)

fostering a critical consciousness towards academic institutions & norms (so that they can recognize and resist some of the invalidations they are likely to encounter in grad school)

introducing them to the work of grad students and scholars who are either pursuing 'nontraditional’ work within the academy OR have transitioned into fulfilling post-Ph.D. careers outside of the academy (so that they see the diverse range of career trajectories)

actively facilitating connections with current Ph.D. students who are working in their area of interest

taking them to professionalization panels and conferences, then setting aside lots of time afterwards to debrief and to discuss what they found exciting about the experience, what they found confusing, what they are worried about, what they were critical of, and so on.

demystifying and explaining the different implicit structures, expectations, norms, etc., of Ph.D. programs -- talking seriously with them about the different phases of a graduate program (coursework, qualifying exams, service work, publishing, dissertation writing, etc.), helping them understand what is challenging and what is rewarding about each phase

helping them create structures of accountability, like scheduling regular check-ins with advisors, setting deadlines for themselves, setting measurable goals and developing plans for reaching them, making decisions about self-pacing, etc. -- just practicing all the “study skills” type stuff that grad students are often expected to just intuit or come into the program knowing how to do. also having them regularly talk & write through their own practices of researching, writing, revising, etc. (teaching metacognitive reflection skills to help them learn to describe how they work, and how they can work more effectively).

helping them understand what effective, engaged mentoring looks like, both through modeling it as best i can AND through explicitly discussing what a professor's responsibilities are/should be to their advisees. essentially i want them to leave our advising relationship with the following things: 1) an understanding of what engaged mentorship can look/feel like; 2) a clear sense of the kind of advising/feedback they personally find most useful or generative; 3) a clear sense of what advisees are 'allowed’ to ask of their professors; and 4) lots and lots of practice asking different professors for the feedback they need (bc experience helps dispel fear/anxiety around communicating with professors).

[amemoirofmemories]

If this is how it feels as an educator, I know it’s 100s times worse for our youth who have to live through high school and the constant microaggressions, microinsults, and microinvalidations, etc that come from these institutions, the other students, teachers, counselors, deans, and other staff in the building.

[justnadiene]

Why you need to stop asking these questions and learn about racial microaggression

Why you need to stop asking these questions and learn about racial microaggression

*This post contains affiliate links

Microaggression are everyday verbal, non-verbal and environmental snubs or insults. This isn’t necessarily intentional, however it communicates hostile, derogatory messages to target a person based entirely on their group, particularly their racial group. The result is that it can invalidate their identity and communicate they are a lesser being. This…

[sammharris]

Microagression

From a simplistic viewpoint, racism lies on a wide spectrum, and can range from hate crimes to micro-aggressions. The latter can be so subtle that it may be difficult for either the perpetrator or victim of microaggressions to take in what has happened in that moment. Diving deeper into the microaggressions, we have microassaults, microinsults and microinvalidations. Essentially, these all consist of actions (commonly comments) that are meant to subtly negate, exclude, or nullify the thoughts, feelings or life experience of people of color. These kinds of remarks and gestures can be painful because they are meant to target people who belong to specific demographics that are discriminated against or subject to stereotypes. These demographics consist predominantly of African Americans, but include people of color, and women.

[luxraylauren]

@microinvalidations WHYD IT POST TWICE ??

[trooth]

@microinvalidations ty for telling me i thought it was a name she made up.

[detective-jay]

answer this question Microinvalidations encompass ‘‘actions that exclude, negate

answer this question Microinvalidations encompass ‘‘actions that exclude, negate

answer this question Microinvalidations encompass ‘‘actions that exclude, negate, or nullify the psychological thoughts, feelings, or experiences of people of color’’ (Sue et al., 2008, p. 331); micro-insults involve ‘‘actions… that convey insensitivity, are rude, or directly demean a person’s racial identity or heritage’’ (p. 331); and micro-assaults include expressions similar to old-fashioned…

[fredgeorge123]

answer this question Microinvalidations encompass ‘‘actions that exclude, negate

answer this question Microinvalidations encompass ‘‘actions that exclude, negate

answer this question Microinvalidations encompass ‘‘actions that exclude, negate, or nullify the psychological thoughts, feelings, or experiences of people of color’’ (Sue et al., 2008, p. 331); micro-insults involve ‘‘actions… that convey insensitivity, are rude, or directly demean a person’s racial identity or heritage’’ (p. 331); and micro-assaults include expressions similar to old-fashioned…