For any person of color, living in America involves constantly being gaslit.

Call out a callous comment? You’re being too sensitive. Call out a slur? You’re making things up. Protest police brutality and murder? You’re focusing on the wrong issue.

“Minor feelings,” according to Cathy Park Hong, are the emotions one feels in response to this kind of gaslighting: “Basically the shame or melancholy or anxiety or frustration you might feel when you're living in a dominant culture that doesn't recognize your racialized reality.”