Ambiguously (E)raced: An Intersubjective Exploration of Multiracial Microaggressions and Monoracism Within a Clinical Consultation Relationship

Abstract

ABSTRACT Racial microaggressions, or slights and insults against a person’s race, are a common experience for people who identify as multiracial. Mistaken identity, excluding, pathologizing, and exoticizing multiracial existence are examples of multiracial microaggressions. Various multiracial social theories provide a framework for understanding multiracial microaggressions as situated within a society that privileges monoracial people above multiracial people. There has been less attention given to the interpersonal dynamics at play when multiracial microaggressions occur. Drawing from Jessica Benjamin’s concepts of complementarity and surrender in a psychodynamic theory of intersubjectivity, this author seeks to understand possible driving forces behind a multiracial microaggression she experienced during a clinical supervision.