ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that shifting attention to White microaffirmations offers ways forward to decentre Whiteness from its current location within the axis of race power. It is beyond the scope of the chapter to engage deeply with the complexities of whether or not the premise that dismantling or transforming racial grammars is even possible. The students in a class were engaged in the task of designing a computer game, with one White student giving his game a racially disparaging and offensive title about Aboriginal people. Critical Whiteness studies (CWS) does not seek to essentialise all White people; however, as Gillborn notes, all White people do benefit from White supremacy. There is analytical and methodological merit for education researchers to draw on the conceptual underpinnings of microaggressions and to connect this with the underlying concerns raised by C. E. Sleeter's notion of 'White racial bonding'.
