Racism, Emotions, Alienation, and Racial Microaggressions

Racial Microaggressions have been the purview of disciplines such as psychology and educational psychology. While these fields have certainly left a mark in terms of pushing the boundaries of understanding how individuals belonging to certain racial and/or ethnic groups cope with, and are mentally, physically, or physiologically affected by racial microaggression, missing are meso and macro level understandings of how racial microaggressions affect folks. Further, what are the cumulative effects of racial microaggressions over both time, space, and with respect to the totality of each of these level (i.e., micro, meso, macro)? In this paper, I bring back sociology theory to better situate racial microaggressions to account for all of these factors. In doing so, I specifically highlight the ways in which differential health outcomes among racial groups are deeply shaped by racialized emotions. Further, racial microaggressions (i.e., seen as acts of racial domination) produce positive health outcomes for perpetrators who may find solace in understanding their positions at the top of the racial (white supremacy) hierarchy.