Abstract:
The presence of macroaggressions, or obvious, overt, system-wide racial offensives and abusive acts evidenced in
organizational systems and structures (e.g., confederate flags; signs in public places that read: “we only speak
English”), have continued to penetrate American society at an unparalleled rate. The onslaught of violence toward
racial, ethnic, and cultural minority citizens—in particular Black Americans and the disproportionate death
rates of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color linked with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) underscores
an urgent need for broad-based systemic action. While microaggressions are well-documented in the psychological
literature, less attention has been directed toward macroaggressions and how to address the ever-present
forms of racism that propagate inequity within all aspects of organizations and larger systems (e.g., health care,
legal, education). We propose a six-step conceptual framework to address macroaggressions evinced in these
systems. Additionally, we introduce macrointervention strategies and illustrative examples that can be deployed
and tested in diverse ecologies by institutional leaders, changemakers, advocates, allies, and targets of bias. We
recommend well-designed empirical investigations to evaluate the proposed conceptual framework and to what
extent it can affect changes at the macro-level.
