Lindsay Pérez Huber:
One other quick example that I’ll also give is some research that’s happening right now by a colleague of mine. His name’s Dr. Ken, just Watson. He, he just finished his dissertation actually a year or two ago at UCLA, and he examined the telomere length. So telomeres are these caps on our chromosomes, like in our DNA. And so he used this kind of biological data to document the telomere length of African American male college students. And what he found is that the telomere length of African-American college students right in, in late teens, early twenties, were actually the same length as women in stage four breast cancer. Right. and, and telomere length is important because it tells our chronological age. So essentially how long we’re going to live. Right. And so what he found was that it’s this, it’s these everyday racial microaggressions that are connected to the physiological kind of consequences of racial microaggressions over time. And so he’s doing some really important work as well.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Hello and welcome to Student Affairs Now. I’m your host, Dr. Glenn DeGuzman. I’m excited about this. This is a very unique episode as our panelists that are here today are joined in the taping was several staff members from Western Washington University. So in a way, this has kind of recorded you in front of a live audience. The topic is microaggressions and how as student affairs professionals, we come to understand and address microaggressions on our college campus. And in the workplace, this topic was suggested by Western Washington’s Residence Life department and housing, and supported us in the development of the questions that we will post in the panelist today. Student Affairs Now is the premier podcast and learning community for thousands of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs.

Glenn DeGuzman:
We hope you’ll find these conversations make a contribution to the field and are restorative to the profession. We release new episodes every week. So you can find us studentaffairsnow.com or you can also find us on Twitter. Today’s episode is sponsored by Anthology, which is formerly campus labs is your goal to engage in effective assessment, boost, data fluency, and empower staff with strategic data collection, documented analysis, and the use of results for change, no matter where your campus is in the assessment journey and Anthology can help you figure out what’s next with a short assessment, you’ll receive customized results and tailored recommendations to address your most immediate assessment needs. Learn more about how anthologies products and expert consultation can empower your division with actionable data by visiting campus labs.com/SA-Now this episode is also sponsored by EverFi. How will your institution rise to reach today’s socially conscious generation. These students rate commitment to safety, wellbeing, and inclusion, as important as academics and extracurriculars. It’s time to reimagine the work of student affairs as an investment, not an expense.

Glenn DeGuzman:
As I mentioned on your host, Glenn DeGuzman, I’m the associate Dean of Students and Director of Residential Life at University Of California, Berkeley. I use the he series as my pronouns, and I’m hosting this conversation today from my home in Livermore, California, which is the ancestral homelands of the Aloni people. We also have many folks who are here listening in from Western Washington. Our guests are coming from us, live from their main campus in Bellingham, Washington, which is one of the ancestral homelands of the coast, Salish peoples specifically the Lemmy nation and Nooksack tribe. So let’s get started and let’s meet our guests. And I’m going to start off by introducing Andrew.

Andrew Hua:
Hi everyone. Good good morning, good afternoon, wherever, whatever timeframe you’re watching this. My name is Andrew Hua. I serve as the student affairs case manager and outreach specialist at the University of California, San Diego. I use the he series as my pronouns. I’m participating in this conversation today from my home in San Diego, California, which is on the unceded territory of the nation and my work I support graduate and professional students and distress and addition to training the UCF community and on how to identify and provide support to those students. Also wanted to share that I do lead initiatives and efforts here on this campus that related to students with dependents and beyond my institutional role. And then the work and the topic that we’re talking about today. I serve on the NASPA AKC leadership to the leadership team as a region six representative. So excited to be here with all of you.

Lindsay Pérez Huber:
Good morning when I’ll see us. My name is Dr. Lindsay Pérez Huber, and I am an associate professor in the college of education at Cal State Long Beach. Cal State Long Beach is a land of the Tongva people. My pronouns are she her hers, and I’m really excited to be here today for this conversation with you all. Thank you to Student Affairs Now, podcast, thank you to Western Washington. I was actually sharing, I have a really good friend. Who’s also faculty at Western Washington and Woodgreen college, Dr. Veronica Velez. And so I’m really happy to be here. I’m going to be talking today a little bit about my work around race racism and education, and specifically around racial microaggression. So I’m looking forward to this conversation.

Jen Siecienski:
Hi everyone. I’m Jen Siecienski. I am coming from UC Berkeley, which sits on the unceded land of the Aloni tribe. I also use the she hers series and I am the associate director for graduate and family living at UC Berkeley and I’ve been here for about 15 years now.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Thank you panelists. So let’s go to Lindsay Lindsay, let’s start with you. I know that you in your book, racial microaggressions, using critical race theory to, to everyday racism, you adapted the definition of microaggression with your colleague, Dr. Daniel Solorzano. Can you set the stage for this conversation? I think so. We can have this conversation with Western Washington, what exactly is microaggression and especially microaggressions as it relates to our work in higher education and on college campuses. And what are the implications of everyday racial microaggressions, particularly if they’re unchecked?

Lindsay Pérez Huber:
Sure. Thanks Glen, for that question. So racial microaggressions are these often subtle, but not always subtle. And I’ll talk a little bit later about what I, what I mean by that everyday forms of systemic racism that can emerge in the experiences of people of color. They happen automatically, sometimes unconsciously. And so there’s these kind of subtle racial assaults that people of color encounter and kind of their everyday environments. So microaggressions, although the, the kind of term micro is in there, it doesn’t mean that they’re small, right. Or that they’re insignificant what the micro and micro aggression means that they happen in the every day, right? That they’re everyday assaults that people of color encounter. I’ll talk a little bit about kind of the types of microaggressions, right? So my work is around racial microaggressions and when people of color experience racial microaggressions, it’s typically at intersections, right.

Lindsay Pérez Huber:
Which I know that we’re going to talk about also a little bit later. So a microaggression can be about someone’s race, but is it’s typically around some kind of intersection around race, class, gender, immigration status, CIS sexism phenotype, right? There’s a lot of different types of racial microaggressions, white women can experience gender microaggressions for example. And so one thing that is important to remember about racial microaggressions is that we have a language right to call these kinds of slights. Sometimes they feel that they can be something that happens in passing that, that, that we’re not crazy, right. When we think about these experiences happening to us. And so link the racial microaggressions kind of gives us a language to name these, these everyday slight. So one example racial microaggressions for people of color is when you give a presentation and someone comes up to you after the presentation to tell you how articulate you are, right.

Lindsay Pérez Huber:
Or when you’re in a space, maybe in higher education, and you’re in a group among other faculty and faculty may approach you, who doesn’t know you, and you tell them that you’re a professor and they, they do that. Oh, like that surprised, right. I didn’t expect that from you. And so those are a couple of examples of you know, racial microaggressions that can be, I think, easily dismissed. But I’m, I’m so happy that we’re here talking about them today because they have really important implications for communities of color. And so the way that I think of implications is really around consequences. And so Dr. Chester Pierce, Danny and I my, my coauthor of the book talk about how important Dr. Pierce’s work to the development and theorizing of racial microaggressions. So Dr. Chester Pierce was the first tenured African-American professor at Harvard in, in the medical school.

Lindsay Pérez Huber:
He was a psychiatrist and he actually coined the term in 1969. He began before he used the term racial microaggressions, he actually called them offensive mechanisms and he studied these offensive mechanisms in the experiences of black communities. He developed that he coined the term a few years later in the 1970s. So there’s actually decades and decades of research behind the concept of racial microaggressions, although it’s just kind of inter kind of the public discourse more recently. And the going back to the consequences of microaggression. So Pierce talked about the cumulative effects. So what are the cumulative effects over a person’s lifetime and experiencing these everyday racial slights. And, and you know, now that we have medical research that has kind of documented the, the cumulative effects of things like racial stress, racial discrimination, racial trauma, we can make these connections now to the cumulative effects of experiencing racial microaggressions.

Lindsay Pérez Huber:
So when I talk about racial microaggressions I showed this really powerful documentary. It’s a PBS documentary called unnatural causes. And in that documentary, you’ll hear a medical doctor. His name is Dr. Abigail Trautman, excuse me, talk about this concept of excess death in the African-American community. And what he’s talking about is the increased morbid morbidity in black communities that can’t be explained by biological markers or genetics. And so he studies the way that racial stress everyday racial stress impacts the physiological, right? The psychological experiences of African-Americans. And they have this really powerful image that they use in this documentary. And so he explains that the excess death that’s experienced in the African community equates to one full airplane, seven 47 airplane of PA black passengers falling out of the sky every day. And that’s what we’re talking about when we’re talking about the increased morbidity rates of everyday racial stressors in the African-American community.

Lindsay Pérez Huber:
One other quick example that I’ll also give is some research that’s happening right now by a colleague of mine. His name’s Dr. Ken, just Watson. He, he just finished his dissertation actually a year or two ago at UCLA, and he examined the telomere length. So telomeres are these caps on our chromosomes, like in our DNA. And so he used this kind of biological data to document the telomere length of African American male college students. And what he found is that the telomere length of African-American college students right in, in late teens, early twenties, were actually the same length as women in stage four breast cancer. Right. and, and telomere length is important because it tells our chronological age. So essentially how long we’re going to live. Right. And so what he found was that it’s this, it’s these everyday racial microaggressions that are connected to the physiological kind of consequences of racial microaggressions over time. And so he’s doing some really important work as well.

Glenn DeGuzman:
That is amazing information. And, you know, I never would have assumed that the cumulative effects of these everyday type of microaggressions would have that, that even really startling impact on just, you know, people and individuals at that level. You know, I think that the it, it’s also interesting because I think that, you know, we are in higher education where we’re in a unique time in our field. We are at a place where we have so many different and multiple generations in the workplace who represent diverse perspectives and values, and just in how we interact with, and around topics of race, culture, and intersection of identities. Jen, I’m going to direct this question to you, but what advice would you give on how to raise topics around learning and, or having discussion? When someone says that as an example, I don’t see color, you know, in response to, you know to conversation in conversations. And, and how do you raise these types of discussions without damaging the relationship? Because it is a working environment.

Jen Siecienski:
Yeah. And I think that’s a hard it’s I think particularly for white people of a certain age, we really enjoy that. I don’t see color. We’re all the same on the inside. We’re all one big human family. Right. and my only advice is that we have to always confront, even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it’s someone who is above you in the chain of command, you know, white people, fear, embarrassment, and shame. We are afraid of being accused of being a bigot. That’s our fear for black and other people of color they’re fearing harassment and violence up to death. Like Lindsay said, microaggressions are killing our colleagues and our students. So for us to stand idly by and say, well, I’m going to let this one slide, we’re perpetuating that. And we’re contributing to that. That doesn’t mean that we have to bring out the shame stick and, and basically be our colleague into the ground with that.

Jen Siecienski:
In fact, I do not recommend that because that’s going to make them double down on their feelings. Right. But come from a place of compassion or care and acknowledge that when we say stuff like we don’t see color, we’re saying, we don’t see you. We don’t see your full experience, nor do we want to talk about it. So for my white colleagues, we have to get comfortable with our discomfort and with acknowledging that all of the things that we don’t know and don’t have to experience, and if this is our value and not our hobby, we have to be okay with the discomfort of particularly confronting people who might be writing our evaluations, right. Might be our next supervisor. And just find our words and say, Hey, did you know that when you say this, this is how it’s being heard, or this is how I experience it. And so what are some ways that we can say something different? What might you want to be saying instead? It’s uncomfortable, it’s hard and it gets easier every time you do it.

Glenn DeGuzman:
So let’s, let’s, let’s actually go into that a little bit more. Andrew Jen, just spoke about, you know she just spoke about how oftentimes we have to address, particularly if there is a power difference. And so, you know, obviously in the workplace, how would you, or in your experience, what have you learned about bringing to attention microaggressions, especially if there is a power difference in the relationship? So for example, as well-intentioned professionals supervisor for example their statements and, or behavior may be very over, but I think majority time can be subtle. How do you, how do you bring this up?

Andrew Hua:
Yeah. Thank you, Glenn. You know, I just want to thank Jennifer putting it out there, like it has to be confronted regardless. Right. how are you feeling? The space that you’re in, I also do want to acknowledge that whether it’s a seasoned or new professional, each person’s going to be at different developmental stages of their, you know, EDI journey and how, how do you take that into account as well? Right. And how do you approach it in a way of, you know, creating a culture of care or a community of care and not trying to cause hostility. So in my, in my purview, in my experience, I just want to share contextually. I’ve worked in the Midwest, I worked in the Pacific Northwest and now I’m back in California. So I’ve had my fair share of, you know, colleagues, supervisors ex you know, exhibiting microaggressions towards me.

Andrew Hua:
And, you know, one of the things I want to that made me feel a certain way was when you know, Dr. Huber was talking about Oh, you’re, you’re a faculty member when you know, that example. And I’ve, I’ve had that many times where I’m sitting outside an office or I’m waiting for the next meeting. And the staff or the faculty member is walking by just as, Oh, do you need something? Do you need help? But they’re asking that lens of I’m a student. And I’m not seen as a staff member because of, you know, how I look my age. So oftentimes I’ve had to, you know, my own labor is I have to wear a badge or I have to, you know, wear something, you know, typically to show I’m not a student. And that gets exhausting sometimes because there are times where I’m like, I want to dress how I want to dress.

Andrew Hua:
So I can feel who my authentic self and also connect with my students in a way that they feel comfortable as well. So to answer the question, I would have to say that there are a number of ways for those who are not sure, not don’t want to put out in the public in, let’s say a meeting, I’ve done a number of ways where I just met with, you know, the individual one-on-one just sharing, like, and I think Jen is right. It’s just asking those questions. Do you know how this came off? This is how I felt, this is my experience when you shared this, did you see any other behavior reactions when you had said that statement? Right. I also recognize that sometimes it has to be addressed in the moment, right. There are trainings, long days, et cetera, especially working in ResLife.

Andrew Hua:
You might be in training like all week. And how do you address it in the immediate sense, for instance, the misuse of pronouns, right? And mis-gendering when an I speak up for others in that space, even though it’s, you know, a small, like step forward, it also shows allyship, right? That that person who may be feeling the harm is not having to always do the work of correcting others. Right. And even though the harm is not done to you, how can you step in and, you know, support your colleagues? So there are a number of times I’ve done it, you know, just in one-on-one in closed spaces, understanding of time, place, and manner, but also in the moment, there are times you just have to address it there so that no additional harm can be caused. Right. I also want to recognize, you know, as a new going into mid-level professional there are times I was fearful right.

Andrew Hua:
Of doing so. And I want to recognize that there are resources on campus to help move, navigate those tactics. For me, I use the ombuds office. There are times, right. I didn’t want another supervisor, another colleague to know what I’m feeling. So I go to the ombuds and work, you know, tactics on best addressing it. And I also want to, there are times as an Asian American male at the various institutions I’ve been asked, like, is this just me? Right? I’ve, I’ve questioned my own self. Like it’s just me. And that just causes more harm to myself and also to some of the colleagues and it doesn’t hurt to do some coalition building and also looking for someone as a soundboard, right. I’ve often gone to colleagues like, Hey, I just heard this from director assistant director. Is this just me?

Andrew Hua:
Or am I, you know, how, how do you, do you think we can approach this? And sometimes my colleagues have her poached together with me. Right. so I think the last piece I would share is that anytime as, as a young new professional approaches, someone with that’s hired has a power dynamic always coming into removing the intent and focusing on the impact. I know there’s a philosophy of let’s focus on intent and impact, but in this sense, I will say entering any space. I think the perpetrator will say, you know, that wasn’t my intention. Here’s why, let me explain. And I will say, like, I, I didn’t say you had any bad intent. I’m just talking about the impact, right? How do we move forward? So there’s a number of ways to kind of address it. Hopefully one of those fit how the individual is feeling during their stage of development.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Andrew, those are wonderful tips on how to manage up, but let’s reverse it now. Right? So this next question is really for Jen and Lindsay, Jen, you know, you’re an administrative leader on at UC Berkeley and Lindsay is a faculty. You both hold perceived and real positional power. In fact, you know, for me, as well as a director of a department, I know that I engage with a lot of people who are from diverse backgrounds and experiences and, and I’m oftentimes on the spotlight and I will have stepped in it, right? Like I have said something and made a microaggression. I know that I made errors for example, with pronouns and I’ve had folks give me that feedback. But the question is for us in these position roles, what role do people in power or perceived positionality power should play? When responding to microaggressions in the workplace, especially in front of others and Jen I’ll have you go first?

Jen Siecienski:
Okay. So I think, I think with, with the power that we might have both perceived and real, we have to use it to speak to our values and we don’t get to cloak ourselves in our values when it’s convenient and then take off that cloak when it’s not otherwise, the message that we’re sending is that we will only speak to our values when it doesn’t come at reputational risk. And I would tell everyone to say, then that’s not your value, that’s your hobby, right? So if this is your value, then you have to be willing to take a step out there and to confront. And even more than confront, really set up your team in a way that from day one, everyone knows that this is your value and what the expectation is for your department and how you’re going to show up and how you’re going to show up for them.

Jen Siecienski:
You know, I think that sometimes what I’ve seen my colleagues struggle with, particularly my other white colleagues have a position of power is fully understanding and backing up our new professionals. When they’re saying that they’re experiencing something, I have heard other colleagues of mine say, well, did that really happen that way? And no, I can’t believe that person would say it this way. I don’t think that might’ve been how maybe that’s how you felt, but I don’t think that person really meant it that way. There’s such a good person. There’s such a good ally. Believe your staff and how your colleagues show up with you is really different than how your colleagues show up with people who are below you in the hierarchy. I believe really strongly that my job is to make my staff’s experience as positive and as easy as possible because we do hard work already.

Jen Siecienski:
And so if that means my team doesn’t have to confront my peers, I’ll do it for them. That’s what I’m going to do. If that takes away their voice and they want to confront my colleague, then I’ll stand next to them. I’ll have a follow-up meeting with my colleague about how I expect them to show up with my staff later. This isn’t always a guns blazing, let’s bury this person conversation. You can have this conversation with care, but it’s really important to draw your lines in the sand of what is acceptable behavior and what isn’t.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Thanks, Jen. Yeah. Let’s pivot to Lindsay. Lindsay, what are your thoughts?

Lindsay Pérez Huber:
Sure. I think as a faculty member where I hold kind of power is I think a student perception, right? So I, so I think about my, how I protect students of color in my college. I’m we teach it’s mostly graduate students in the college of education where we have graduate programs and my students. So, so I teach my program is called a social and cultural analysis of education. We’re actually transitioning to a new program name to equity education, and social justice actually modeled a little bit by the, the name of the education and social justice minor at Western Washington University. And some of the great work that’s being done directed by Dr. Veronica Villas and, and thinking about right, our students are kind of in this bubble, right?

Lindsay Pérez Huber:
We talk about we, we, we study and theorize social justice and education, but to let them know outside of this program, they’re going to go into other classes that are not, that are not our classes. They’re going to go into a campus. That is, that is very different from the ways that we have discussions and perceptions of who they are in, in my classroom. And so giving them some tools, right. To be able to give them a language. I think that’s why racial microaggressions is so powerful because when they have these experiences, like Andrew was talking about where you, it just doesn’t feel. Right. Right. You know, like what was that right when you can’t name it, but you feel like something just happened, you have a name for it. And I think that’s one of the most powerful things that we can do when we think about how do we use our power is to to disseminate information about right, how to name the things that happened to, to our students and particularly to our students of color.

Lindsay Pérez Huber:
And so that’s one thing that I think we can do to kind of prepare them. The second thing, which both Jen and Andrew who talked about is how do we give them tools right. To confront. And so we, in, in the book, Danny and I talk about kind of this process that we go through in disrupting racial microaggression. So there’s this phase, this first phase of recognition, we have to recognize that there was a microaggression there that it happened. We then go into kind of a critical reflection, like how, and why did this happen? What, what was in place that allowed this micro-aggression, or that allowed the microaggression to be targeted towards this person of color. And then moving into this last piece of the process, which is action. So what do we do about it? And so Chester Pierce also talks about kind of a similar process in his work of just the importance of recognition.

Lindsay Pérez Huber:
But I think thinking about faculty and administrators and staff is the role of the institution, because a lot of times, right, taking action against racial microaggressions falls on the backs of people of color, right. To educate white folks, to educate right administrators and other faculty that may not know what a microaggression is, but we really need to kind of shift the onus of responsibility onto the institution. So the institution is able to recognize on their own what a racial microaggression is, and that there are systems of accountability in place, right? Where people of color in the institution, whether it’s students or faculty, or staff, or administrators of color, know that they can go to have access to some kind of remediation. Right. So having some kind of reporting system, for example on campus or within departments or different academic units within, you know you know, student support services, for example, or student affairs that, that people know that there’s some kind of reporting system to talk about what happened to you and to find some kind of resolve right, would be one kind of strategy that I would have institutions kind of think about very carefully

Glenn DeGuzman:
Lindsay and Jen, those were phenomenal answers and responses as to some of the strategies that people can leadership administrators can play in, in responding to microaggressions, we are coming to this very new part to this podcast where we’re going to be inviting some of our colleagues from Western Washington to pose and ask questions directly to the panelists. And so this next question is going to go to Andrew and I’m going to welcome Alice.

Alice Whitmer:
Hello, this is Alice Whitmer. I use she her pronouns and I am an apartment community director here at Western. And my question today is how can campus leaders stand in solidarity with marginalized groups and go beyond before motive performative to actionable?

Andrew Hua:
Thank you, Alice. That’s such a good question. And I think that’s a great segue from what you know, Lindsay has shared today is that action, right? How do we move towards that? And how do we also shift that institutionally? I think just to start off with campus leaders, it’s holding space and listening, right? There’s no need for response. I, I just want you to listen to some of the harms, some of the challenges that our marginalized groups are faced with. I think the other thing I come through is acknowledging those systematic barriers and naming actions that can address you know, those barriers now, what can be actionable now and what are additional steps that can be taken in the next couple months next couple years, right? Each institution division has strategic plans has you know, future goals. How do we integrate those voices and those experiences into those plans and make it you know, a stronger culture of care, culture of community you know, setting those milestones and revisiting them, holding the institutional institution division department accountable.

Andrew Hua:
I think the other piece I want to dive into is that as we think about the hate and violence that has been occurring, this, you know, this past year, and even before this past year, right, a lot has come to light this past year. But as I think about my own identity as an Asian American and how institutional data is being utilized, Asian is such a broad term, right. And how do we aggregate that data and hone in on those experiences? And if we don’t acknowledge the different types of ethnic groups within in the various racial groups, we already have do those stories get counted, right. And how do we recognize them and their challenges? I think one thing that comes to mind as well is pay for emotional labor, whether it’s giving a talk, whether it’s giving time. I think a lot of us are passionate about the work.

Andrew Hua:
A lot of us who are in these marginalized communities want to see change and give, but sometimes we are only asked, but there is no compensation. There’s no consideration of, you know, our time and energy that’s put into it. And I, and I hold this true, and I’m glad Jen’s here. I pass it along to many folks because I hear this from when I first was at Berkeley. And there was an opportunity on campus to work with Jen, Jen told me, don’t touch any of the work until you get paid. Don’t start anything until we have the paperwork and it’s approved and you get paid. And I love that, right. She protected my time and my ability. And I think that’s important as we continue to think about the work and the EDI work that we want to do. And then this past week, I was able to sit with faculty and talk about students in distress.

Andrew Hua:
And one of the biggest things that the faculty had shared is how do we expand this knowledge? Or how do we get more faculty staff, students to know that there are support systems on this campus. And one of the biggest things is how can we set those standards and expectations for faculty staff to be participants in trainings. This is a requirement of your onboarding. This is a requirement for you to know the experiences and the language and the practices that you hold and your academic environment and how that can impact a student, a marginalized group. So I think those are pieces that come to mind. You know, I also want to highlight that the fact that constantly vigilant about your own biases, right. And acknowledging them and beyond biases, your fears, right. Being on top of your own biases and fears, you know, helps you prevent being defensive. When someone brings something towards you, someone, you know, shares, you know, I’m feeling this way because of what you said, you’re taking that in and saying, I I’m going to process, I’m going to learn. I want to move forward. Right. So as I think about these campus leaders, institutionally, I think those are aspects, you know, in addition to what Lindsay had shared about actionable steps,

Glenn DeGuzman:
Andrew, that was amazing. There were so many pieces that I just, I just had to jot down just because there’s, you were so specific in, in somebody’s response that I, I thought that I loved the idea and I think it’s a key, important thing that I know I try to do is the advanced planning as, as a leader, like how do we integrate it into strategic planning or departmental planning in advance and not waiting until the moment? I also love the fact that, of how you speak about data. Going deeper into the data particularly you know, if you can break down the data and look at how marginalized populations are particularly impacted, not just looking at the big number or the big overarching data, I think that’s really creative. And I love the fact that you shared kudos about Jen. That was actually a nice story for me to hear as well. Let’s go to another colleague from Western Washington and this have this question go to Lindsey. So I’m going to introduce Laquay.

Laquay:
Hi, my name is Laquay from Western Washington Iniversity as an assistant resident director, and I use pronouns. And the question for you is how would you recommend responding if a person who used it, making a statement that is a microaggression is from an underrepresented group and is targeting underrepresented person from either another group or their own group. We know that there can be multiple identities that are intersecting. And so how do we ensure all identities are supported? So for example, the staff member is impacted by situation based on their identity as a person of color or in another person who’s impacted due to gender and sexual orientation ability, et cetera. But how do we navigate means intersecting things?

Lindsay Pérez Huber:
Thank you for that question. The clay, I think it’s a really important one. And something that we talk about in the book as well, is what we call inter and intra group conflict. So conflict within and among marginalized communities, right? How do we deal with that? And so when we talk about that conflict I think it’s important to go back to this metaphor of symptom and disease. So this metaphor came from judge Robert Carter, who was actually one of the NAACP lawyers in the famous Brown v. Board of Education case, right? The famous desegregation case of 1954 and a few decades after the Brown decision, he was interviewed to talk about the impact of, of the case on segregation of public schools, which as we know, look pretty much the same right, as they did in 1954. And so you know, Carter in this interview is talking about what happened and what he says is that the lawyers in the Brown case aired in their legal strategies and Brown, that those strategies focused on racism and segregationist practices and policies which are symptoms, right.

Lindsay Pérez Huber:
And he said, what we failed to do in Brown was to address the disease of racism, which is white supremacy. And so I think what I think about these conflicts that arise and the defining feature of white supremacy is how it functions to set up hierarchies, right. Of making some people be better than, and some people be less than whatever those hierarchies are. And so I think thinking about how we internalize those hierarchies is really important and then how we reproduce those behaviors and ideologies, right? The ideologies of white supremacy that uphold that idea of being less than and better than and those are really difficult conversations to have with our, with ourselves, right, as, as Andrew was saying, right, is to be constantly vigilant of how we participate in white supremacy. How today did I participate in white supremacy?

Lindsay Pérez Huber:
Right. Because it is something that shapes everything that we do, our, our, our everyday experiences, our worldviews and they can translate to action. And so I think that that’s a really important question, kind of a starting place to begin. And what can we do and thinking about how do we collectively move towards disrupting these internalizations right. These biases that we all have. And I think that that leads to some really important dialogue work that we can do among marginalized communities, right. Is understanding and learning how our experiences are tied to a larger system that is meant to do this work right. That is meant to divide and conquer, right. We go, which goes back to kind of processes of colonization for centuries a very effective strategy. So I think the collective dialogues are important. I think this question of how we participate in white supremacy is important.

Lindsay Pérez Huber:
And how do we come together to understand each other? Right. And, and again this is so important, kind of some of this everyday dialogue work that we can do. So for example in, in my department right now, we have our faculty meetings. So we have kind of general faculty and staff meetings that we have once a month. And so we have designed these faculty and staff meetings to be focused on critical dialogue around race and racial microaggressions so that everyone in our department has an opportunity to learn about microaggressions, that they don’t know about them to talk about our identities. Right. And how are our identities are implicated in those larger systems of power and then moving towards disruption, right. Is where we’re trying, trying to go. I think we’re, we still have some work to do on that end as we all do. But, but I think having those discussions institutionally are really important and, and a place to start, I don’t know if it’s going to solve right, but it’s a place to start.

Glenn DeGuzman:
That’s a phenomenal answer. And it makes me think as as a director, you know, I have, I have standing meetings with my staff and how can I infuse and integrate more consistently. So it’s almost like it would be an everyday conversation and, and engaging in dialogue of of white supremacy and, and my participation in it, or our participation in it. And just kind of never losing sight of the top because it’s something, it can also be something that we can kind of gloss over and not think about. So that’s I I’d love the the advice and the thoughts. This last question is going to go to Jen and the question is going to come from Edward.

Edward:
Hi, my name’s Edward my pronouns are he him and I’m an assistant resident director at Western Washington University. My question is about what advice would you give to leaders who want to address microaggressions, especially at a predominantly white institution with our end goal of being to shift or to begin to shift the culture.

Jen Siecienski:
Hi Edward. So I’m going to really focus on changing the culture because that’s what we really need for microaggressions to stop, right? So I think that really where you want one place that we need to start is really strong education and education and expectations for every single member of your staff on your team, not just our entry level, brand new to campus staff, everybody particularly around campus specific issues. The issues that come up on each campus are different. How they play out are different, the coded language that each campus uses and what it means is different. I approach training. So I work at an institution that has a really long history and reputation around social justice. And so what I find is sometimes our staff don’t feel comfortable saying that they don’t know something because they think they should. And so, I don’t know if any of you watch Grey’s anatomy, but when Christina, who was the superstar intern she was brilliant.

Jen Siecienski:
And then she had a teacher Teddy who said, no, you have to start at the basics because you know how to do all these really advanced things or talk about these really advanced things, but the basics are missing. So let’s not gloss over the basics. Let’s really make sure all of our staff members have a strong foundation with this. I really recommend doing long-term trainings. You are not going to change culture in a three hour intensive training, no matter how great the snacks are, no matter how powerful your keynote is, this has to be a conversation that does not stop, and it has to build right. You can’t throw people in to a conversation that is really hard to have without some basic trust, without some basic ground rules, without some basic understanding of where everyone is coming from and trust to be vulnerable with each other. So really this has to be a departmental value that doesn’t go away, or it doesn’t just show up in training, or when there’s been an incident, this is something we talk about all the time. Who’s providing the training, pay your as well, even if it’s your staff members who are doing the training, this takes a lot of work, you know particularly for our staff of color, there comes a lot of labor and a lot of pain for a white staffer to have their aha moment. So acknowledge that, make sure that people have time and space to process. I also think

Jen Siecienski:
Sometimes we do this thing where we say, Hey, if you need this extra space to have your moment, take it while the work continues. There are some things that happen that whether or not individuals need the space or not, your department needs the space to honor that moment or that tragedy. So I would really encourage leaders instead of saying, Hey, this let’s go to the verdict that happened, right? This was a big moment. This was not justice, but it was an acknowledgement that something that, that was in fact murder, that’s a huge moment for our country. Instead of sending out the message to yourself that, Hey, if you need some time to process, take it while we continue the work, stop the work, the work can wait. We can all take this moment. This is not an other time when some people need the moment. And some people don’t, if this is a departmental value, we all need the moment.

Jen Siecienski:
Really look at your budget. I’m going to apologize for being the white lady who quotes Martin Luther King, but a budget is a moral document. So if this is your value, you have a line item that doesn’t get chipped away when the boiler breaks, or there’s an apartment flood. Other, other sections of every budget need to be tapped in for this, if this is the value, that’s your line item. And if anything, you spend more, not less. The last thing that I would say, particularly at big clunky campuses is we oftentimes hide our bias in policy. And then we say, well, but that wasn’t the intention, but that was the policy. Once you’re a leader, you have this amazing ability to change policy. And if you’ve ever sat in a. Meeting with legal or with risk, you know, really the standard is you follow the policy. As long as you follow the policy, as it’s written, it’s defensible. So if your policy is excluding certain members of your community, or has a disparate impact on certain members of your community, don’t make assumptions. Don’t say, well, here’s the second form that you can appeal for this change the policy in a perfect world, we will move universal design, where there are no exceptions, or there’s this special way that you can go around this policy. The policy needs to work for all members of our community. And if they aren’t, then all we’re being, our gate are gatekeepers. And that’s what we can’t be if this is our value. So that’s what I would say.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Thank you so much. And that’s a great way to close out the the Western Washington questions. I can’t believe this, but we’re at a time and we need to wrap up. And the question that we always ask on this podcast, because we’re called student affairs now is, you know, what are you thinking about now? If you could summarize what you’re pondering, what you’re questioning, what you’re excited about or what you’re troubled by. If you could take 30 seconds to 60 seconds to kind of answer that question, and we’re going to go and start with Andrew.

Andrew Hua:
You know, what I’m feeling at this very moment is hopeful. And I will also say a bit of exhaustion, right? There’s a long ways to go. And I think as Jen has shared, you know, with the trial verdict, that is accountability, that’s one step, it’s not justice, it’s now a movement and how do we continue that movement? So right now I’m in a space of hopefulness. But also I know it’s going to be exhausting as the journey continues.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Let’s go to Lindsey.

Lindsay Pérez Huber:
Sure. I think one thing I’m excited about is, is thinking about kind of what comes in response to micro aggressions, right? So in one of the final chapters of the book that Danny and I wrote, we talk about this concept called micro affirmations. And so what are these kind of everyday moments that people of color engage to affirm each other, to validate each other right. To recognize our self-worth to reclaim humanity right. In a world that is constantly and perpetually seeking to dehumanize us. Right. and so there, there’s a couple of of examples of, of racial micro affirmations that we give in this chapter. One is from Henry Louis Gates Jr. Who has his own memoir that he wrote. And he has this really powerful example. The preface is written as a letter to his daughters.

Lindsay Pérez Huber:
And then the letter he’s talking to his daughters about why he talks to black people and black strangers on the street because the daughters think it’s so weird that their dad does this right. And so he tells this beautiful story of the black nod right. Of how the nod is used in African-American communities as the sign of acknowledgement to say, I see you that is, is just so powerful. The other day was watching, there’s a, there’s a a short film on YouTube. It’s called the nod a love letter to black Portlanders. And if you watch this going back to Andrew, like it just brings you kind of the sense of hope of how the nod has historically been used in African the African-American community, across generations, as this kind of commonly understood cultural significance of an affirmation. Other examples, I think are ethnic studies.

Lindsay Pérez Huber:
I find hope in ethnic studies as ethnic studies at our in our system, the California state university system we just passed a policy where ethnic studies is now a requirement for our undergraduate students. So for our students, which is so important for our student population, we have mostly students of color in the Cal state system. So for our students to learn their histories is such a powerful kind of affirmation, right. And to think about that, they get to at least take one, hopefully they take more, right. And as a student of ethnic studies and former professor of ethnic studies at my, my heart is very close to this. I understand that the difference that it makes in your life, because it changed my life. That’s something that I think is helpful. And, and so I guess I’ll leave there on kind of those, those words around hope and examples of racial, micro affirmations, and looking for those examples and thinking about how we can, how we can engage and also provide spaces for our students, for faculty, for our staff are people of color in higher ed to have those spaces of affirmations of micro affirmations for themselves.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Lindsay, I just learned some new stuff in what you just shared. Thank you so much for that. And I’m kudos to CSU Long Beach. That’s, that’s amazing about the ethnic studies requirement. And let’s close that with Jen.

Jen Siecienski:
Jen, who, after a year of this always forgets to go off mute. I’m really grateful to have the opportunity to participate. It’s been wonderful to see Andrew again. Lindsay, I really want to read your book now. And thank you all for asking really thoughtful questions. I, this, this was a little lift for me this week, which has been pretty tough. Yeah.

Glenn DeGuzman:
So I want to thank Jen Lindsay and Andrew for being my guests today and to what Western Washington university for really elevating this topic that you wanted to see on student affairs now, and then the double down joining us in this audience. And and so thank you for for engaging in this innovative approach to what we’re trying to do. It was fun for me. And then to all the listeners who are watching listening. Thank you. I want to make sure that I extend love and to our production assistant, Nat Ambrosey, who does all the behind the scenes work for us to get these episodes prepared and aired to our listeners. Just as a reminder, you can receive information through our Student Affairs Now newsletter, you can also browse our archives studentaffairsnow.com. We have lots of episodes on a lot of wonderful topics, and I’m sure you’ll find something.

Glenn DeGuzman:
We, we hope that you come in and visit again. I want to thank our sponsors today, EverFi and Anthology, please subscribe, subscribe to the podcast, invite others to subscribe. You know, we encourage you to share us on your social. And for those who download, definitely give us a five-star review content. Your support really helps conversations like this. Just reach more people and we are building our community and we want to continue to make this free for everyone. So with that again, my name is Glenn DeGuzman. I hope you learned something new and go out and make it a good day. Thank you everyone.

Websites: 

Western Washington University

Desmond-Harris, J. “What Exactly is a Microaggression?” Vox. 3/28/21.

Book: 

Solórzano, D. G., & Huber, P. L. (2020). Racial microaggressions: Using critical race theory to respond to everyday racism. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.