Between Myths and Margins: Gendered Racist Microaggressions as Everyday Racism

Stories of women in various family structures, workplaces, education settings, and friend groups identify a common thread that ties each of their experiences together: the underlying structure of white supremacist patriarchy that informs the experiences of women of color in everyday interpersonal exchanges. Between Myths and Margins explores the systemic and macro implications of gendered racist microaggressions. To date, microaggression research has largely lived in the field of psychology, focusing on the interpersonal dynamics between aggressor and receiver. Left out of this conversation are the social factors at play that make microaggressions mere bricks in a larger structure of white supremacist cisheteropatriarchy. Through case studies of Black and Asian American women, Lackey unveils microaggressions as facets of everyday racism: commonplace and subtle behaviors, remarks, and beliefs that buttress the normalization of a supremacy of whiteness. Lackey identifies common perpetrators of gendered racist microaggressions—not just interracial perpetrators, but also members of our own communities—pointing to family members and coethnic friends and peers as adopters of a white racial dominant ideology. Stories of women in various family structures, workplaces, education settings, and friend groups identify a common thread that ties each of their experiences together: the underlying structure of white supremacist patriarchy that informs the experiences of women of color in everyday interpersonal exchanges.