Small things can soon add up. Yet, because they are individually minor, people often dismiss them as insignificant. This is true for many things, including acts of discrimination at work.
If your manager told you that they hated people of your skin color or race or if a colleague used a racial slur, most people would identify that as racial discrimination, even if not everyone called the perpetrator out over it. However, perpetrators of discrimination often opt for a lower-key approach. This might be to avoid getting in trouble, or it might just be that they have not fully computed that their comments or actions actually are discriminatory.
Microaggressions can take various forms
Here are some of the kinds of microaggressions you might encounter in your workplace:
- The strange compliment: “Wow. Your written English is excellent.” Excellent for what, you might be thinking? Excellent for the average employee here or excellent for someone who looks like they might not have been born in this country?
- The preemptive “defensive” action: You’ve noticed a particular colleague clearly does not trust people with your skin color. They’ve never said anything directly, but you’ve noticed how they moved their bag to the other shoulder when you got on the elevator with them.
- The assumption that you’ll be better or worse at a particular thing: Your boss asked you to take charge of decorating the office for the last party. They said they thought you’d be good at it. As you have never exhibited a trace of artistic ability in your workplace before, you can only deduce that what they really mean is “You are a gay man, so you must be good at decorating things.”
Not all harm requires one big action. Often, the damage to a person’s morale and feeling of safety at work is chipped away little by little. You don’t have to put up with discrimination at work, so it’s important to understand your options, whether it’s a notable act or a series of microaggressions.