The Normative Nature of Racial Microaggressions in the Legal Field: Exploring the Communicative Experiences of U.S. Attorneys of Colour

ABSTRACT

In the midst of heightened racial tensions across the United States, this study documents the prevalence of racial microaggressions as reported by 17 attorneys of colour (African American, Asian American, and Latinx) from across different national regions. Qualitative data provides insight into to how these race-based messages are situated within assumptions of inferiority, similarity, and criminality. Through a co-cultural theoretical lens, the study also highlights the diverse, nuanced, and conscious ways in which attorneys responded to such problematic interactions – including the strategic response of “doing nothing.” In doing so, the findings reported here extend existing research on microaggressions generally and contributes to the growing literature on how people of colour negotiate the prevalence of racial microaggressions in different professional contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Race
• United States
• attorneys of colour
• legal field
• racial microaggressions
• co-cultural theory

Acknowledgments

The author is the sole person responsible for all of the data generated and analyzed for this specific study. He would like to acknowledge the two other researchers, Leslie Culver and Robert Razzante, who were central to co-creating the foundations of the larger national study, including the university-approved IRB documents.

Disclosure statement

The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.