discrimination and microagressions

Question 1

discrimination

Answer 1

Is unfair treatment on the basis of some aspect of identity or group membership
* *perceived or actual

ETHNIC-RACIAL DISCRIMINATION
Is the behavioural component of racism

Question 2

microaggressions

Answer 2

Brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to people of color because they belong to a racial minority group

Question 3

what are the four dilemmas created by microaggressions?

Answer 3

(1) Clash of racial realities
○ Individuals differ in their perception of race relations depending on their place in the social hierarchy
○ Ex. 2019 study shows that white people think that black people are treated more fairly than black people think they are being treated

(2) Invisibility of unintentional expressions of bias
	○ People act with good intentions (or think they are)
	○ A lot of microaggressions are subtle and unintentional
	○ How to "prove" a microaggression has occurred?
	
(3) Perceived minimal harm of microaggressions
	○ Perpetrators often don't see that microaggressions happen constantly/can have very negative consequences - they look at individual events as isolated incidents
	○  can make a response to a microaggression seem like an overreaction 
	
(4) Catch-22 of responding to microaggressions 
	○ Microaggressions can be ambiguous, making it hard to determine if they actually occurred
	○ Victims can  connect the dots from a pattern of past experiences - perpetrator often can't - this is an isolated event for them What will happen if the victim responds? What will happen if they don't?

Question 4

microaggression ambiguity and emotional reactions

Answer 4

Study that assessed perceptions of racial microaggressions using video vignettes of white professor-black student interactions.
- 4 conditions - none, very ambiguous, ambiguous, overt

There could be 4 outcomes:
- Positive emotional reactions
- Negative emotional reactions
- Positive view of student
- Positive view of professor

Found that relative to all other groups, overt microaggression condition resulted in the least positive emotions, the least positive view of the prof, and the most negative emotions

Compared to the ambiguous condition, more people in the overt condition said that the prof was biased