noun

• 1A statement, action, or incident regarded as an instance of indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group such as a racial or ethnic minority.

  ‘students posed with dry-erase boards documenting their experiences with microaggressions on campus’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Enduring such microaggressions can damage one's mental health, Franklin says.’
  • ‘I also include a definition of racism as the system under which daily racial insults, or microaggressions, are perpetuated as "entertainment."’
  • ‘Recent work by an associate professor of psychology at Kent State University shows how such microaggressions often produce anxiety in African-American women.’
  • ‘These slights, or "microaggressions," as Franklin calls them, can build over time and ultimately explode, as it did for Bill when trying to hail a taxi.’
  • ‘It's hard to not read that as a microaggression, because some days I am indeed practically living on caffeinated fructose.’
  • ‘Calling affirmative action "racist" is an example of a racial "microaggression," says the University of California administration.’
  • ‘Will discussion of evolution in a biology class be a microaggression against a creationist?’
  • ‘Keep on raging against the machine and protesting every single microaggression you witness.’
  • ‘This sentence is an extremely problematic microaggression enforcing the perpetual foreignness of Asian and Latino Americans; that we do not "appear American."’
  • ‘Yes, one microaggression alone is a small event, but they don't wash away after they occur, they add up.’

  1. 1.1Indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group.
     ‘they are not subject to daily acts of microaggression’
     More example sentences

     • ‘She told me that many black students experience unintended racial insults (sociologists call this "microaggression"), and that racist expression, intended or not, often gets a pass.’
     • ‘Making assumptions about Asian-Americans as a "model" minority is also considered microaggression.’
     • ‘A street artist is responding to the microaggression of people feeling free to pass remarks to passing strangers.’
     • ‘When I read about microaggression and sexual assault on campus I question the lessons that we teach our children from the get-go.’
     • ‘This unintentional racism, typically exposed through questions treating a person as different from the norm, is microaggression.’
     • ‘Both of these conditions subject you to lots of microaggression in today's society.’
     • ‘Sue has been researching microaggression since 2007 and has written two books on the subject.’
     • ‘The researchers found that approximately 78 percent of the participants reported some form of racial microaggression within the two-week time frame.’
     • ‘While some of these experiences may seem brief and harmless, many studies have found that microaggression can trigger symptoms of depression and psychological distress.’