ABSTRACT
Microaggression is characterized as "brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial, gender, and sexual orientation, and religious slights and insults to the target person or group". The author interests in exploring the social conditions around the epistemic border of thinking of oneself as paranoid and of being secure in one's perception of reality. She interests in several different sorts of encounters where women of color (WOC) cannot tell the motivation of the other or where we may experience attributional ambiguity. WOC have to guard our emotions, such that we do not lose credibility in the eyes of those who hold power over our careers. As a WOC, the author continually aware of the small percentage of non-Whites within her discipline, Philosophy in particular, and how this impacts WOC's ability to speak about their experiences with an expectation of being understood by our White and male counterparts.
