Levy, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University's Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society. The fact that microaggressions are often subtle can make them harder to shake off than more overt forms of discrimination, says psychologist Dorainne J. 'Everyone, including marginalized group members, harbors biases and prejudices and can act in discriminatory and hurtful ways toward others.' 'No one is immune from inheriting racial, gender and sexual orientation biases,' says Derald Wing Sue, PhD, a professor of psychology and education at Teachers College of Columbia University, who studies multicultural counseling and racism. In a study published in Educational Researcher in 2015, for example, psychologist Carola Suárez-Orozco, PhD, of the University of California, Los Angeles, observed microaggressions in almost a third of the 60 community college classrooms she and her team studied, most committed by instructors.
Microaggressions-the brief statements or behaviors that, intentionally or not, communicate a negative message about a non-dominant group-are everyday occurrences for many people. 'You'd be pretty if you lost some weight.'
