A student sits in a common space working on English homework. A teacher comes up to them and, seeing their traditionally Hispanic name on the side of a novel, begins speaking to them in Spanish.
During a history lecture on Japanese internment, all eyes turn towards the one Asian student in class, regardless of whether or not they are Japanese.
These are examples of day-to-day microaggressions. According to Vox, microaggressions occur when a person’s implicit or explicit biases towards a marginalized group results in discomfort or insult. Microaggressions can take the form of stereotypes, snide remarks, or even talking over someone else in a discussion.
“When I first arrived at this school, I did face some microaggressions related to my ethnicity and last name. Some people at the beginning assum[ed] my last name was Hispanic and jok[ed] about it,” senior Ben Macedo said.
These microaggressions can take their own prevalent forms within the school system. According to Enrique Espinoza, an instructor in the counseling program at UC Riverside, the most common microaggressions against students of color include name pronunciation, low expectations, and the myth of meritocracy. The myth of meritocracy is the idea that if one works hard enough, they’ll succeed no matter their social position. However, this is not inherently true. Due to institutionalized concepts, like the opportunity gap, it can be incredibly difficult for POC students to gain equal footing when it comes to achievement.
Espinoza states that these problems can cause students to feel humiliated, disengaged, unsupported and devalued. These issues can also lead to psychological stressors like racial battle fatigue and impostor syndrome.
Within school, combating microaggressions can be a challenge. It can be difficult to battle covert prejudice that is sometimes hard to recognize, especially when it comes from peers, leaders and educators.
These are tangible social and academic symptoms of microaggression. However, the true problem, the root of microaggressions, is implicit bias. Implicit bias, according to the National Institutes of Health, is “the subconscious feelings, attitudes, prejudices, and stereotypes an individual has developed due to prior influences and imprints throughout their lives. Individuals are unaware that subconscious perceptions, instead of facts and observations, affect their decision-making.”
According to a study done by St Olaf College, of the students who experienced racial microaggressions in the classroom, 33.3% felt uncomfortable asking a professor for help outside of the classroom, 57.9% reported having less desire to socialize with their classmates and 54.6% alreported feeling less motivated to participate.
Implicit bias leads to the subconscious judgments students and faculty make about other community members, which in turn leads to disciplinary bias, microaggressions, and curriculum decisions.
However, there are steps one can take to fight against these moments of racism and combat bias.
An effective starting step is to name the problem. Address the presence of microaggressions, and ensure students and teachers are educated on the meaning and impact of them.
“The best way to combat microaggressions is education; that’s [also] how microaggressions are [perpetuated],” junior Phillippe Cristobal said.
If a situation arises that requires immediate attention, impactful steps include addressing and intervening when microaggressions arise.
Teaching community members the skills to properly speak up when they hear or see something that raises alarm bells will help combat the lasting effects of harmful language.
It is a step that has the potential to automatically make students feel safer, help those involved examine the situation, and ensure the perpetrator understands why what happened was harmful.
“I think more of the problem arises from people unintentionally having these kinds of things happen. From my experience, these microaggressions come from more uninformed people,” Macedo said.
An important aspect to acknowledge is that not all groups experience microaggressions the same way. Marginalized groups experience different stereotypes that can affect individuals with that identity differently. The racial microaggressions experienced by Black, Hispanic, or Asian students are unique, and it is impossible to compare them.
Microaggressions often go unspoken and unnoticed, yet for students of color, subtle but regular acts of discrimination have a lasting impact. From assumptions about language to cultural stereotypes, these moments affect confidence and a sense of belonging. By addressing these biases and empowering each other to speak up, a welcoming and healthy environment can be fostered for all.
Violent acts, slurs and hate crimes are clear indicators of discrimination, which remains all too prevalent in the world. Yet, beneath these overt actions, even compliments, a passing remark, assumptions, and everyday interactions can carry subtle undertones of unconscious racism.
Colorism, or prejudice towards individuals with a darker skin tone, is prevalent — often among members of the same ethnic group. Differing from racism, colorism operates within communities rather than being driven by discrimination between racial groups. Even in the beauty standards of many cultures, colorism remains an underlying bias. For instance, in Western beauty ideals, having light or moderately tanned skin is often seen as more attractive while darker skin tones are associated with a lower socioeconomic status or a lack of education.
However, while darker skin tones are often stigmatized, tanning has become a popular beauty practice in the Western world and is associated with health and affluence, creating a double standard in relation to colorism.
The trend highlights how privilege allows certain groups to selectively adopt aspects of appearance while people of color continue to face discrimination for naturally dark skin tones.
This prejudice extends beyond Western cultures to other ethnic groups, even those with a lighter array of racial skin tones.
“Colorism is perpetuated through beauty standards [where] being lighter is more favorable for many people, and oftentimes, colorism is masked through dating preferences which inherently are harmful and full of stereotypes,” sophomore
Anessa Herzi said. “Having a preference that excludes darker complexions pushes forward a message that being lighter is a positive trait while being darker is a negative trait.”
In everyday life, unconscious colorism can manifest through casual conversations, where people compliment lighter skin without understanding the deeper implications, or in professional settings where individuals with darker skin may encounter unconscious discrimination in hiring practices.
A seemingly small, passing remark can promote unhealthy beauty practices, including skin bleaching, an industry estimated to make over $15 million this year in product revenue according to GlobeNewswire. It involves toxic substances like mercury that ultimately lighten skin tone — even as they harm consumers.
“I’ve seen progress in my own community where African stores who used to sell skin bleach have stopped because the demand has gone down,” Herzi said.
Understanding the impacts of colorism allows society to challenge biased beliefs and promote critical thinking. It fosters empathy and reduces stigma, encouraging self-acceptance and respect for all skin tones.
Technology racial bias refers to the unintentional or systematic discrimination against specific racial or ethnic groups within the development or use of technology. Algorithmic discrimination can stem from a number of sources including underrepresented data sets, lack of diversity on development teams or even implicit biases developers carry that subtly influence their work. Since technology is developed by humans, the implicit biases of its creators eventually get passed down to the final product.
“[Unconscious racism] just happens a lot due to the STEM space also being primarily white, so testing on yourself so you only have that data,” senior Adam Ebert said.
Automatic paper towel dispensers and facial recognition software are common examples of racial bias in technology. Dispensers often fail to detect darker skin tones due to inadequate testing, while facial recognition has higher error rates for people with darker skin, leading to misidentifications—particularly harmful in law enforcement. Because AI-driven technology depends on data sets that may lack diverse representation, these systems can reflect unconscious racial biases.
In recognition of this racial bias, Ebert’s Advanced Technology Projects class project utilized various sensors to detect the presence of a human being, with part of his engineering process intentionally involving simulating darker skin tones to test whether his robot could operate accurately and without errors.
“Because I was using a LIDAR sensor, if [the robot] didn’t detect your legs, it would hit your legs. And I realized ‘Wait, was it not working when I was wearing black pants?’” he said.
His solution? Scrap the entire design and start over. “Because when you’re trying to make something that’s going to work for everybody, you’re going to have to test on everybody,” Ebert said. “You can’t just test with a small group of people, especially for things that are going to be implemented beyond a small niche.”
Ebert’s line of thinking exemplifies a mindset that all engineers can adopt: designing inclusively to ensure that technology works for everyone. By redesigning his project to account for diversity, he demonstrates the importance of proactively addressing bias in technology development.
On-screen, in literary media or plastered on a billboard, unconscious racism lurks in the subtle perpetuation of racial biases within mainstream media including through societal biases reflected in stories and characters or imagery that marginalize, misrepresent or exclude certain minority groups. White savior narratives, tokenism and fetishization of non-Western cultures don’t exist in isolation; cultural marginalization stems from deeper systematic tendencies in media production.
Media often falls back on stereotypes when depicting certain racial groups, which consequently leads to limited and repetitive narratives. Much like technological advancements, authors, filmmakers and content creators bring their own limited worldviews and inherent biases to their work, which shapes the content they produce.
Another aspect of unconscious bias in media representations is the underrepresentation or complete omission of racial groups. Notably, in literary media, there is often an unspoken assumption that characters are white unless specified otherwise—a phenomenon known as white normativity. Such patterns occur when minority groups are completely excluded or merely play minor, background roles, therefore reinforcing that their stories and experiences are less important.
“I often notice that some ethnic groups are still being mocked as a source of humor in some shows and movies, such as normalized stereotypes and racism against Asians and especially South Asians,” junior Ethan He said.
In a real-world context, a lack of or incorrectly portrayed narrative of people of color results in misinformation while fortifying a sense of inferiority or danger associated with certain groups. Over time, such misrepresentations compound systemic inequalities, hindering social progress and mutual understanding.
While explicit acts of racism can be easy to recognize, unconscious bias operates quietly, silently shaping perceptions in subtle ways that go unnoticed. Whether in everyday interactions, technology or media representation, bringing attention to these hidden patterns allows for questioning assumptions, challenging stereotypes and encouraging open dialogue. Recognizing unconscious racism isn’t assigning blame, but rather fostering awareness and sparking meaningful change to build a more inclusive society.
