Microaggressions are really not that micro

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By Leah Mahon

IT’S A MONDAY morning and you’ve just arrived at work before your 9am start but as you make your way to your desk, probing eyes poke out from behind their computers in disbelief or utter confusion.

It’s not until lunchtime when a colleague finally sees you in the breakroom or walking from your desk to ask eagerly how your hair grew overnight or what you did to dye it. Or worse yet, their undying curiosity leads them to dangle the length of your extension, whether it be a braid or loc, in their hands with the same look of beguilement.

It’s a scenario that almost every Black person can relate to when navigating spaces where Black faces are scarce.

It’s an all too common interaction that makes up the reality of our existence as people historically marginalised as the “other” and how that manifests in our work spaces today.

Jenny Garrett is an expert on microaggressions and author of Equality vs Equity: Tackling Issues of Race in the Workplace which sets out to arm people with the knowledge that seemingly subtle forms of racism are still violence and provide them with the tools to deal with racial barriers as they advance in their careers.

“Microaggressions are statements or actions or incidents and often they’re indirect and subtle, and even sometimes unintentional, but they are discrimination against people from marginalised oppressed groups,” she tells The Voice

“Things like being mistaken for the other person from a similar background to you, even though you look nothing like that person…it’s the sort of judgments that people might make like, ‘Oh you’re married! That’s a surprise!’

“It’s that sort of judgement that Black women are probably single parents. Or that, as we know, the real stereotype which is when Black women may speak up passionately and be called angry. It’s the combination between these stereotypes, and indirect racism.”

Before being dismissed as one of the woke era’s newest buzzwords, the term microaggression was coined by Harvard University psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce in 1970 to describe insults and dismissals which African-Americans were regularly subjected to from people outside of marginalised groups.

The diversity coach and TEDx speaker, below right, says the most “annoying” part about microaggressions is that those on the receiving end might not notice they are experiencing one, because the discrimination is so subtle.

She warns that people could dismiss it as someone being “thin-skinned” or a defensive stance of “taking things personally” when racism doesn’t look like people shouting something derogatory in the street or in the workplace.

Ms Garrett says: “One thousand tiny paper cuts. One paper cut is irritating and annoying, but if you’re continuously getting them, day in and day out, it’s going to be really painful and something that’s hard to live with.”

A 2022 study by think-tank Coqal, called Being Black in the United Kingdom, highlighted how Black professionals were still deal ing with microaggressions and unfair treatment in the workplace.

In a survey of over 1,000 professionals, Black profes sionals are 81 per cent more likely than their white coun terparts to say their compa nies are “not at all” or only “slightly” fair.

More than two in three Black (68 per cent) and more than half (58 per cent) of mixed-race professionals reported they had experienced racial prejudice at their current or former companies, in comparison to white (28 per cent) and Asian (50 per cent) professionals.

Ms Garrett argues the hardest aspect is for marginalised groups to speak out against the racism in the risk that they are ostracised, passed up on promotions or managed out of their careers and their livelihoods ruined.

She advises that before confronting workplace microaggressions that employees need to feel safe.

“You need psychological safety, it might be that you speak up anonymously, some organisations have anonymous lines, or you speak up through your employee resource group,” Ms Garrett explains.

“The other way, which I think is key, is that you don’t need to be fighting all of the battles. People from the global majority need to find allies in that organisation, people from the majority group, so those who are more senior, who are white, and willing to advocate for them.”

She adds: “It’s not an easy thing to do, but find an ally. But there will be people in your organisation who notice that you’re being spoken over in the meeting, you’re never getting the correct assignment, that people aren’t bothering to pronounce your name properly… even those people could be your allies!”

In a post-Black Lives Matter era, organisations in the UK and around the world are yet to prove their support for racial equality in professional places, and most crucially how they treat their Black employees that deal with the reality of being othered.

However, Ms Garrett believes that amid convincing those that are not marginalised that microaggressions are a form of violence, she also urges Black people themselves to recognise the severity of it despite seeming worlds away from the brutal racism of yesteryear and racial trauma that can be left. “The truth is that they are not micro [microaggressions]. I think sometimes we minimise them by adding the word micro in front of these aggressions,” she admits.

“If we let microaggressions go in the workplace, I think it will just get worse and worse for us. I think that people don’t realise the toll it takes on individuals.

“The consequences of not tackling microaggressions are that you hold yourself back in so many ways.

“I think you hold yourself back psychologically. And that can bleed out into your personal life which can affect your mental health and well-being. But you hold yourself back in the workplace.

She adds: “That means things never change. You never go up the ladder, we never change the representation at the top of UK organisations.”