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24 Tex. Hisp. J. L. & Pol'y 61 (2017)
Microaggressions: What They Are and Why They Matter

handle is hein.journals/thlp24 and id is 73 raw text is: MICROAGGRESSIONS: WHAT THEY ARE AND WHY THEY MATTER CATHARINE WELLS' I. INTRODUCTION Dr. Chester Pierce, the first African-American psychiatrist to join the faculty of the Harvard Medical School, invented the term microaggression during the 1960's.2 In trying to capture the distorted relationship between the races, he explained the concept of microag- gression this way: Most offensive reactions are not gross and crippling. They are subtle and stunning. The enormity of the complications they cause can be appreciated only when one considers that the subtle blows are deliv- ered incessantly. Even though any single offense can . . . be rela- tively innocuous, the cumulative effect to the victim and to the victimizer is of an unimaginable magnitude. Hence the therapist is obliged to pose the idea that offensive mechanisms are usually a microaggression, as opposed to a gross, dramatic, obvious macro-ag- gression such as lynching. He then went on to underscore the importance of addressing this form of subtle offenses: The study of microaggression by whites and blacks is the essential ingredient to the understanding of in what manner in the process of interactions must be changed before any program of action can succeed.3 1. Catharine Wells is a Professor of Law at Boston College Law School, where she teaches and writes in various areas of legal theory, including Pragmatic Legal Theory, Feminist Jurisprudence and Civil Rights Theory. The author expresses her gratitude to the students in her course, Advanced Topics in Civil Rights, for their candid and honest discussions. 2. CHESTER PIERCE, OFFENSIVE MECHANISMS (1970), reprinted in THE BLACK SEVENTIES 265, 265-266 (Floyd Barbour ed., 1970). 3. Id. at 266.

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