Bias and Microaggressions

Course Description

This course explores the problems of individual bias and microaggressions against our community members and patients. The course first defines key terms – including explaining how microaggressions are simply another term for everyday acts of racism and other forms of oppression, and discusses how microaggressions cause significant harm to those who experience them. It then explores the psychological processes that fuel microaggressions, and shares strategies to address and prevent bias and microaggressions at UW Medicine.

Objectives

• Understand the way medicine/science has been used to create and further racism
• Understand the history of the creation of racial categories and hierarchy, particularly by physicians, and how that framework is still used in modern medicine
• Recognize race as a social and political construct
• Explain how and why race is not biological or genetic

Course Offerings

Course References

• After Pierce and Sue: A Revised Racial Microaggressions Taxonomy – Monnica T. Williams, Matthew D. Skinta, Renée Martin-Willett, 2021 (sagepub.com)
• Why You Need to Know Your Emotional Temperature | Psychology Today
• Racial Microaggressions: Critical Questions, State of the Science, and New Directions – Monnica T. Williams, 2021 (sagepub.com)
• Research shows racial bias is real. Are we ready to talk about it? | Harvard Kennedy School
• 12.1 Social Categorization and Stereotyping – Principles of Social Psychology (umn.edu)
• 7 Aspects of Feeling Objectified and How to Overcome Them | Psychology Today
• Stop Asking Black People If You Can Touch Their Hair (forbes.com)
• Advancing Racial Equity: Ending the Dehumanization of Indigenous Peoples, Pt.1 | Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (nih.gov)
• Anxiety-Related Disorders in the Context of Racism – PMC (nih.gov)
• Stereotypes Harm Black Lives and Livelihoods, but Research Suggests Ways to Improve Things | Scientific American