Racial microaggressions are subtle and persistent insults that position people of color as “less than” – less intelligent, less American, less qualified, etc. In the presence of racial microaggressions, white people experience a “stereotype lift,” benefiting from comparisons to other racial categories (McGee and Martin). In this talk, I describe how the practice of responding to student writing can work to reaffirm the Americanness and intelligence of white students while de-Americanizing Asian American and Latinx students and positioning Black and African American students as inferior and less capable.

Bethany Davila is an assistant professor of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of New Mexico where she co-founded (along with Cristyn L. Elder) their Stretch and Studio Composition program. She is a co-editor of a forthcoming collection, Defining, Locating, and Addressing Bullying in the WPA Workplace (with Cristyn L. Elder) published by Utah State University Press. Her research focuses on the social construction of linguistic difference; written standardness and racial privilege; instructors’ perceptions of student writers based on written language features; and workplace bullying as it pertains to WPAs. Her publications appear in Written Communication, WPA: Writing Program Administration, Composition Forum, and Composition Studies.