Microaggressions: Taking the Onus off the Victim

What is a microaggression?

As defined by the American Psychological Association, microaggressions are verbal, behavioral, and environmental slights that are as common as hurtful to a specific section of the population, typically referred to as marginalised or subordinated groups. Microaggressions, however, are often delivered without any malice and take the form of avoidance or aggrieved looks, facial expressions, hand gestures, voices, and even postures. Such encounters are frequent in day-to-day discussions and activities, and it is not surprising some people fail to notice them or regard them as trivial or nothing serious. And yet these micro-aggressions can equally well be the deliberate, purposeful undermining of one being victimised due to the prejudices held by the perpetrator against those belonging to different dominant groups. In other words, microaggression is used more about the personal aspect of aggression. In contrast, macroaggression is used more regarding aggression as frustration down the societal array as well as through the social institutions and structures.

So, it has to be added that when being used, this term means behavior of importance to subgroups caused by their race, ethnicity, or even culture and other causes, which were first mentioned by Chester Pierce in 1970 aimed at the African American community. However, it has since developed to include a myriad of marginalised groups.

Types of microaggressions

Derald Wing Sue et al classified microaggressions into three types: assaults, insults, and invalidations.

Microinsult

This undermining action is classified as microinsult in communication when a very rude, abusive language or act, instead of building up, actually hinders the development of a person's status construction. Microinsults are not simply overlooked but somewhat undermined instead. For example, when a white employer says 'the best candidate will get it, regardless of their race' to a prospective colored employee, this statement is microinsult since it hints at multiracial workplaces and that colored people seek help. Other examples of Fondling Stereotpying include Grom/offending assimilated individuals by eluding and socialising as the majority group, excluding ethnic, linguistic minorities, and isolating people of different sexual orientations, for example.

Microassault

Disguised aggressiveness again brings us back to the earliest typologies, as it has existed for as long as societies have. It is extreme, and this is the core of the term, an accent that uses a racially motivated attack evidenced mainly by some verbal or nonverbal markers like threat gestures, name-calling, other avoidant acts or rituals, and a range of discriminatory acts performed willfully upon individual discerning them. Some other examples are: Addressing others as 'coloured' or 'Oriental' or throwing out why would such backward people hold an 'anti kobra flag,' using hate words offensive to people of certain races, and holding an 'anti-lesbian flag.

This can occur in the workplace and the quite a common form of a racist joke that a co-worker will tell intentionally and so while defending the content as "it is only a joke and is not at all serious." Others involve intentional disenfranchisement of and excuses to be dismissive about a specific race or a people of such race (feminism, or its subversion specifically, i.e., feminism or completely ignoring such movements), Making flips that trigger one's OCD on purpose.

Microinvalidation

Microinvalidation is a concept whereby a person's communications or gestures negate, oppose, or belittle the individual's feelings, convictions, or lived experiences. When, for example, British East and South Asians are praised for their mastery of English or asked where they were born, people are told that there is nothing British about them and that there is no such thing as British assimilation, which explains why they are always considered outsiders. There are also microinclusions to be found in all 'racism' or 'homophobia' statements towards people who have lived experiences of Massachusetts.

Adapted from Sue, Derald Wing, Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender and Sexual Orientation, Wiley & Sons, 2010

Discrimination may be a déjà vu fanged and tooth imagery for most, especially in the American workplace, as statistics recommend it. Discrimination is perhaps the most insidious social injustice phenomenon, one which has transformed from open hatred (that still to date exists) to covert bullying in the name of microaggression; that is the reason it is virtually everywhere at the very discourse that seeks to implement workplace diversity and inclusion. However, the statistics show the necessity of using, changing, and enhancing the culture of the organisation as a measure to fight discrimination.

• As The Equality and Human Rights Commission found, 3/4 of the people answered had been working sexually during the harassment at work, and nearly 100 percent of the people sexually harassed were females.

• A survey taken in the year 2018 by the trade magazine indicated that 59 % of the interviewees had come across the use of the word 'gay 'in a derogatory manner in the working environment, and 28% of the LGBT+ respondents were subjected to either sexual or gender-based harassment at their workplace.

• There is much prejudice held against disabled people by 31% of disabled people. Prejudice against disabled people was believed by 32% of disabled people and 22% of non-disabled people in 2017. 1/3rd of non-disabled people hold the view that disabled people are not as mobile as they are, and 1/3rd of non-disabled people also hold this view.

• In 2018, a quarter of Black, Asian, or Minority Ethnic employees (25%) stated that they had witnessed or experienced racial harassment or bullying perpetrated by managers in the last two years. However, it is necessary to say that most people tend to keep silent about the facts of bullying and harassment by race. 

The ramifications of this include mental health problems and a toxic work environment. According to Mind, being LGBTQI+ increases the risk of having a mental health problem between two to three times compared to heterosexual people. There will be a common mental health problem among 23% of Black and Black British people in any week compared with 17% of the white British population. There are about 26 percent of women aged 16-24 years who have common mental health issues within seven days in a week than only 17 percent of the general population. The reason for the excess of those numbers among the displaced population is because of the social and economic imbalances, discrimination, lack of social cohesion, and Post-traumatic stress disorder. Ethnic groups that are targets of discrimination suffer adverse effects on their mental health, which, if left untamed, leads to a climate of unease, aggression, sorrow, and toxicity.

Combatting microaggressions

In cases of microaggressions within a workplace, they can cause a person significant distress and lead to a feeling of alienation or lack of support. Despite the significance of this issue, it has most often been dealt with (or not dealt with at all in most instances) by shifting scrutiny to the victim of abuse, by implying that they must have "taken it the wrong way"- and thus gaslighting the abuse victim- or telling them to "stand up" against the abuse. This dynamic encourages the coloniality of violence, where discrimination is overlooked by workmates or strategised and or unplanned. People do not have the privilege of speaking out if they are not in a privileged group, like people of color and other present-day minority groups. In doing so, they risk getting into a confrontation, which is what makes or breaks their job security or has made them not get promotions or be demoted or mistreated afterward.

After experiences of discrimination, it is even more disheartening to note the almost total failure to protect from further discrimination for already discriminated people, which is why most reports of discrimination are not made. Furthermore, it should be emphasised that any microaggression abuse should not be the responsibility of the abuse victim.

Employers, inclusion teams, and HR departments must take every possible measure to create discrimination-free workplaces for their employees. It is not the responsibility of the microaggressive individual to educate and inform employees in the workplace whenever there is a microaggression. Instead, we are expected to step up as employers, managers, and HR employees in EDI efforts and take our share of the blame.

There is also concern about how the number of managers with reported performance targets for the capability to attain the equality of people at the workplace has decreased from 41% in 2015 to about 32% in 2018. As stated in the BITC Race Report, one-third (33%) of workers confirm that their workplace has at least one senior leader or champion who actively promotes equity, diversity, and fairness. Only this time, it is the other way round; members of the lower level will learn the actions, priorities, and behaviours of the top Positions that the company says it stands for, and it will not be possible for any of these metrics to improve unless there is some effective do something about the attitudes and actions even to microaggressions, in the form of discourse and practice.

Some examples of measures that employers can take that have been adapted and developed from the BITC Report:

• Anti-racism and anti-discrimination aspects for everyone, including baby: This could be implemented by sourcing a professional EDI trainer or using internal resources.

• Continuous unconscious bias workshops for executives: Senior management teams, executive boards, and those involved in the recruiting process should go above and beyond by participating in more rigorous seminars that address bias and ensure their recruitment process includes individuals from different backgrounds to help eliminate bias. As a recent Guardian article has pointed out, we shouldn’t be seeing diversity and inclusion as a quick fix. In order to actually eradicate and counter systemic disparities and discriminatory systems, they must be tackled and classified as a multi-level initiative requiring multiple forms of intervention.

• Sponsorship: All diversity issues and concerns within large corporations should have designated board-level sponsors. This person must take responsibility for achieving the desired aspirational goals. For this purpose, it is possible to define the measures taken by Chairs, CEOs, and CFOs to change their annual statements and specify what they are doing to increase diversity.

• Making diversity a Required Key Performance Indicator: Employers should have a uniform diversity target embedded in all managers' year-end reviews to develop an action plan.

• Establishing networks and groups: E-employees should establish formal networks and allow employees to participate in them by incorporating the aims of the networks within the corporate aims.

• Surveying: Surveying every employee on all their professional or cultural experiences with the organisation. This necessitates including people who understand how to textualise that data from various points of view – the measurement of fairness.

• Provision of Resources: Concocting and providing materials of an informative nature and educational sent on a company round. Such microaggressions can only be eliminated by telling people what they are and why they are harmful.

• Recruitment diversity from entry-level: Employers should seek out the chances of offering employment opportunities for work experience to other classes of people than the usual social class (this includes also stopping considering unpaid or unadvertised internships).

Written by Yazz Bhandari

Edited by Tzeitel Degiovanni