Читать книгу Diversity, Equity & Inclusion For Dummies - Dr. Shirley Davis - Страница 29

Microaggressions are subtle verbal and nonverbal slights, insults, indignities, and denigrating messages directed toward a person due to their group membership, often automatically and unconsciously. Microaggressions can be seen as innocent, harmless comments, but they actually reinforce stereotypes and are a form of discrimination.

For example, if you ask the Asian member of your team to complete a task that requires extensive math because you know they’ll be great at it, you probably just made the statement without thinking. You don’t know the Asian member of your team; you just assumed they’d be great at math based on a stereotype. That’s the challenge with microaggressions — they often operate outside of the level of consciousness.

Throughout my career as a woman and a person of color, I’ve experienced many microaggressions at the hands of supervisors, senior leaders, and other authority figures who were from the dominant group of power and privilege in the organization. I’ve been complimented for “sounding white and speaking proper,” been told how articulate I am, and been used as a photo op for the company’s annual report or marketing brochure and as a token for meeting diversity goals. I’ve been present at the table but had my voice be invisible, been designated as the one to go get lunch for all male colleagues — the list goes on. These microaggressions left me feeling used, undervalued, emotionally exhausted, resentful, and hurt.

Similar to implicit bias, microaggressions are an unfortunate outcome of the human experience. Check out the discussion of microaggressions in Chapter 7 to help to raise your consciousness about these matters and how to mitigate them.