More Micros

How much is it the responsibility of the worker to keep up or accept microaggressions and adapt and overcome vs the employer (or dominant group) to ensure they are speaking in a non insulting and validating  manner at all times. 

In some situations its far more black and white and seeing that so many people have to be so professional in the workplace because most people want to make the best choice everyday all the time. I thought about something similar that happened to me. My managers and direct reports know where I went to school and know that I grew up in a more well off area of the city we work in. 

Despite this I paid my way through college, and got my master via the GI Bill, etc etc. When I got married my wife and I spent 3 years scrimping and saving to pay off over 70K in school loans she and I both incurred. We did it quite deliberately via debt loading and counting every penny every week. Despite this one of my managers when discussing pay and debt said “I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth and lots of family money like you?” 

Little did he know that I eschewed that lifestyle and that there was no family money that followed me. It lead to an interesting and enlightening conversation about choices I’ve made and about “debt loading” and the freedom that getting out of debt and staying out of debt can bring to families. But I did think it was funny that he confirmed that most of my direct reports had assumed my history based on zip code and didn’t know the true history of my life. I’m sure working as you did you ran into other times when you were a victim of misunderstanding and microaggressions, my question would be, were there any instances, or do you know of any instances, where the direction of the microaggression was in the other direction? As mine was? From a less dominant group toward the more? And is that a microaggression? If it goes that way? Or just a misunderstanding?

Or there is this perennial one. I was named after my grandfather. I don’t know if it was as challenging for him to have this name as it tends to be for me in today’s day and age. I keep the name however, despite these challenges, to honor him and his life an legacy. 

 

There’s one colleague who when I was hired warned me that she was going to have trouble keeping a straight face when using or hearing my name. She has correctly predicted her challenge. Even today, almost 5 years later, she still bursts out in guffaws or has to excuse herself from meeting with other leaders or with clients if my name is used couched in words that could be deemed inappropriate. In her defense she has this challenge with a multitude of words, not just mine. 

Despite the unprofessionalism and I’m sure the feedback, she can’t handle it and will go out of her way to tell me jokes that allude to my name, or find ways to ensure my name is used as a double entendre. The interesting thing is that this behavior highlights her own unprofessionalim, I guess, like Johnny Cash's hero in "A Boy Named Sue," I’m inured to it after almost 50 years of having this name. 

 

My question is more along the lines of wondering if these are microagressions. I was surprised by the power dynamic and the definitions of microaggressions that our texts and readings use. Goodman (2012) writing about microaggressions in Promoting Diversity and Social Justice: Educating People from Privileged Groups, defines microaggressions as "the unconscious and unintentional expressions of bias and prejudice toward socially devalued groups" (p. 25). Smith et al. (2016) write that microaggressions are "daily indignities, invalidations, and slights that are experienced by people of color" (p. 127). So, in my case, I’m in the more dominant group as a male, senior executive, and I’m not a ”person of color.” 

It brings up to me interesting thoughts about victimhood and microaggressions and would love to hear the groups thoughts on this trajectory. Of course my colleagues humor is inappropriate and both covert and overt, but how does it compare with others that are racial? And how or does this fit with those definitions?

 

References

 

Goodman, D. J. (2012). Promoting diversity and social justice: Educating people from privileged groups. SAGE Publications.

 

Smith, La, Mao, S., & Deshpande, A. (2016). "Talking across worlds": Classist microaggressions and higher education. Journal of Poverty, 20(2), 127-151.