Unveiling the Journey of Racial Microaggressions in Langston Hughes “One Friday Morning” and Nafissa Thompson Spires “Belles Lettres”

Abstract

This study aims to unveil the dual identity of African Americans and its psychological impact in the form of racial microaggressions in the two short stories: “One Friday Morning” by Langston Hughes and “Belles Lettres” by Nafissa Thompson Spires. Racism has been a malignancy in the lives of African Americans. Racial discrimination involves victimizing the target recurrently, which leads to racial stress and is evident in the form of microaggressions. To achieve the desired objectives, the texts are analyzed with the canon of W. E. B Du Bois’s theory of “Double Consciousness.” The study is qualitative, so the researcher employed closed reading techniques and textual analysis. The findings show African Americans have passed through old-fashioned mega racism and a new variant of racism is prevailing, in the form of microaggression. This study recommends that microaggressions of any kind are harmful for the psychological and social well-being of human beings irrespective of any geographical position.