{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.018381344307270234, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0021947873799725653, 'mean_word_length': 5.221843003412969, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Centering Communication in Our Understanding of Microaggressions, Race, and Otherness in Academe and Beyond

In 2016, I (Tina M. Harris) received an internal grant from my department to conduct a qualitative study on racial microaggressions (RMAs). I was inspired to conduct in-depth interviews with students of color regarding their experiences with racism on campus and in the local community after years and years of hearing the same stories about marginalization and alienation in both public and private spaces at the university and society at large. I wanted to acquire narratives that were a testament to the pervasive nature of racism, namely, in higher education. Shortly after beginning the interview process, I felt that it was imperative to coordinate a panel on racial microaggressions for presentation at the 2017 National Communication Association conference in Dallas, Texas. Not only would this serve as an incentive to produce a manuscript, but it would allow me to work with colleague-friends whose work I admire and respect and who are equally passionate about social justice in all of its forms. Our panel was an incredibly powerful experience. We each presented our findings, which resonated with many of the attendees in the room. As our respondent, Dr. Kimberly Moffitt (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) gave us all amazing feedback that undoubtedly informed our papers in this issue. She, along with the rest of us, recognized the deeper value of the work we had just presented. These were more than conference papers; these needed to be publications. Immediately after the panel, we approached Dr. Jennifer Samp, the editor of the Southern Communication Journal, about the possibility of having a special issue on racial microaggressions. Without hesitation, she enthusiastically supported the idea and, suffice it to say, we were thrilled when we received word that Taylor & Francis accepted our idea for this special issue. Though this would mean eventual publication of our work, we were more excited about the fact that a colleague and senior scholar recognized the true value of the scholarship we are producing related to otherness and marginalization. More important, we were making an important and logical contribution to racial microaggression work: we were (and are) explicitly addressing and highlighting the role of communication in perpetuating, identifying, processing, and responding to race-based interpersonal transgressions. Invariably, racial microaggressions scholars refer to them as communication behaviors, yet never cite communication scholarship to further support their claims. Thus, we center communication in each of these essays in order to illustrate how our theories and methodologies are vital to this and other areas of social science research. We are abundantly aware of the fact that Samp could have easily rejected the idea of a special issue and privileged mainstream scholarship over ours; however, she chose to go against the grain and provide a much-needed platform for scholars from marginalized groups to address the pressing issue of racial microaggressions within the communication discipline. We thank her for giving us this important intellectual space where otherness is moved from the margins to the center. This spirit of inclusivity has given us hope and a heightened commitment to doing scholarship that is transformative and is addressing the very pressing issue of racism and other related forms of systemic oppression that continue to adversely affect many overlooked and undervalued communities in our society. As you will see, each essay offers valuable