Racial microaffirmations as a response to racial microaggressions: Exploring risk and protective factors

The urgency of the Black Lives Matter movement, and societal inequities emerging amid the COVID-19 pandemic call researchers to better understand the implications of racism in the lives of People of Color. In this paper, we utilize Critical Race Theory (CRT) to extend theorizing on the concept of racial microaffirmations as a response to everyday systemic racism—racial microaggressions. We reframe the psychological concept of risk and protective factors to illustrate the relationship between racial microaggressions and microaffirmations. Our findings identify types of racial microaffirmations experienced by Students of Color at a public four-year institution in California. We explore how these microaffirmations are experienced and the effects they have on the students well-being.