What Can We Do About Microaggressions?
Estimated read time: • March 10, 2020
THE CONTEXT
"Microaggressions" continue to threaten inclusion in our places of work and in our communities. McKinsey & Company, for example, reports no real progress on microaggressions against women in the workplace over the years. Similar lack of progress has been reported for microaggressions based on race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, age, and disability.
THE PUZZLE
Why are we not making more progress addressing microaggressions? How can we help people to understand the issue better? How can we support more productive conversations about this topic?
A few years ago, a training I was leading got derailed. It didn’t go completely off the rails - no chairs were thrown - but the way we got stuck really stayed with me. It was a training on microaggressions. Most of you have probably heard this term before. It has been used since the 1970s to talk about those times when people with marginalized identities get hurt or excluded by well-meaning colleagues, friends, or family, who may be attempting to be curious, to bond, to be funny, or to compliment.
In this particular training, I asked people if they would be comfortable sharing microaggressions that they have experienced. One African American man, a people manager in a large corporation, was talking about how he is frequently called “articulate” or “well-spoken.” “Why does it seem like some people are surprised that I can speak well? What could it possibly be, except that they are making assumptions based on my race?” Those “compliments” were clearly impacting him deeply.
I thanked him and then explained to the group that this is exactly the kind of microaggression that keeps happening because of people’s unconscious biases. A white male colleague of his looked skeptical. “How can you say that it’s a microaggression when we don’t know what the person who said 'articulate' was thinking? We would need to know more about it before calling it a microaggression.” I tried to explain that it wasn’t about that speaker’s intent, but rather the impact that the words had on the other person. This guy wouldn’t budge. He dug his heels in. Other people tried slightly different tactics to convince this man that calling an African American man "articulate" is harmful. Nothing seemed to work. Everyone was getting exasperated.
In the coming months, I tried and tried to figure out that stubborn defensiveness. What could make it go better the next time? What did people need in order to more empathetically hear about other people's experiences and adjust their behaviors accordingly?
This is what we came up with:
In many ways, the book that Tiffany and I are launching today is a response to those questions. And microaggressions against people of marginalized groups keep happening with no improvement over the years. Tiffany and I came up with three strategies that we thought could help: (1) renaming microaggressions, (2) building deep understanding through real stories, and (3) giving people concrete guidelines to have different kinds of conversations. I’ll tell you a little bit about each of these.
Renaming the Concept
First, there’s the framing of the concept itself. What are the unintended consequences of calling an interaction a microaggression? It focuses everyone’s attention on the speaker’s intention, and implies that the intention is aggressive. I don’t know about you specifically, but most people I know are trying hard to be good people. They aren’t trying to be aggressive, and so maybe they’re almost forced into defensiveness by the term itself. Then, perhaps more importantly, everyone else, including people with repeated painful experiences and injustices, might get the impression that these aren’t a big deal, that they are “micro.” That’s not the message we want to be sending at all, because it's not true. They are a big deal.
Instead, Tiffany and I decided to just call these things what they are: subtle acts of exclusion (SAE). They are subtle. Granted, there is a wide range of acts that can insult, exclude, and harm. Many of these are not subtle at all, and those aren’t the ones we focus on in the book. But by calling the others subtle we hoped to shed light on the fact that they can be confusing, hard to identify, and challenging to speak about. Also, they are acts – things that people say and do (not intentions or judgments of character). By calling them acts, we can make them easier to talk about. And finally, the reason that they are a problem is that they cause exclusion. We’re using exclusion here as the opposite of inclusion. Inclusion is when people feel welcomed, valued, respected, and heard. Exclusion is when they don’t. These acts make people feel excluded and they also perpetuate systems and ways of thinking in which some groups of people are consistently marginalized and devalued.
Building Deep Understanding Through Stories
Our brains think through stories. In the case of subtle acts of exclusion, Tiffany and I realized that many people just didn’t quite get why these interactions were a problem because they didn’t know the context – how people were told or asked the same thing over and over, how it made people feel, what it would be like to walk in their shoes. We also realized that even people who were on board with the concept might have a vague feeling that something was insulting or offensive or inappropriate but often couldn’t quite explain why. Because of that, we tell a lot of real stories in the book. We hope these bring the concepts to life for everyone.
When we tell these stories, we use a framework to show what a person might feel given a particular subtle act of exclusion. For example, someone asks an Asian American where they are from. They say they are from New Jersey. Then the person asks, “Where is your family from before that?” That person, on the surface, is just being curious, wanting to learn more about a new co-worker maybe. But under the surface, this is implicitly conveyed: “You're not reallyfrom here. You don’t belong.” Or someone tries to show that they are comfortable with their co-worker who is in a wheelchair. They make a joke, "don't get a speeding ticket with that thing.” While that person may be intending to build closeness through joking, they might be implicitly conveying “you are not normal.” We looked at all the SAE examples we could find, across race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, age, and religion. We identified 8 of the most common types of implicit messages conveyed by SAE:
- You are not normal.
- You don’t belong.
- You are a threat.
- You are a burden.
- You (or people like you) are inadequate.
- You are a curiosity.
- You are invisible.
- You are not an individual.
Having this framework helps in two ways. It helps people understand more about other people's experiences. And it gives all of us access to concrete words we can use to have productive conversations about SAE when they happen.
Practical Guidelines
Third, we realized that some people had very little practice talking about these topics. While there are no simple guidelines that will ensure everything goes smoothly (because humans are complicated and emotional!), there are best practices that help. In the book, we lay out a set of guidelines for everyone - the person that said the SAE, the person who was the subject, and the observer. We’re all going to be in these different positions at different times. If we envision the whole dynamic, we'll be in better shape. A taste of these guidelines is below, and you can find more in the book and the digital module.
How We Can Do Better
[1] Speak up when you can, even if you’re not the one being excluded.Too often we just let these SAE slide. Sometimes we do this for good reason. Maybe it’s not an appropriate moment to speak up, or we don’t have the emotional energy to do it. But other times, we can push ourselves even if it’s awkward. Interrupting SAE is a critical component to making everyone feel included, at an organization or just in the world. It shouldn’t always fall on those people who are being excluded to be the ones speaking up.
[2] Speak up even if you don’t know what to say. You may feel like you have to say exactly the right thing, but you don’t! Let’s say that someone is talking about coronavirus and they mention “those Asian face masks." You’re not Asian American; you have the feeling this is not a good thing to say; but you’re not exactly sure how to reply. Instead of not saying anything (which is what most people do right now and why we are not making progress), you could signal that you are not complicit. “Hey, I'm not sure why, but that's not sitting right with me. Can we talk about this?”
[3] Assume good intent, until the intent isn’t good. If you’re the person speaking up, it’s helpful to assume good intent in the speaker and to put that into words when you speak up. “I know you didn’t mean anything bad by this” or “I know you had the best of intentions” can help inoculate against some of the defensiveness people feel when they get feedback about something they’ve said. Most of the time, people do have good intent. They may lack familiarity or comfort with others or they may have unconscious biases. Putting them at ease that you’re not judging them as “racist,” “sexist,” or “homophobic” can help these conversations be more productive. Of course, if you think the person did have ill intent, that’s another story. And if you have given a person feedback and they ignore it and continue making the same SAE over and over again, then that’s also a different story.
[4] Replace defensiveness with curiosity about impact. If you were the person getting the feedback about something you said or did, your first response is likely going to be defensiveness, to explain that you’re not a bad person. That’s understandable, and very human. What if you recognized that at some point you probably would be able to talk about your good intentions, but not as the first thing you do? First, try to understand the impact on the other person. Ask questions: “Can you tell me more about how this affected you?” “When has this happened to you before?” “Is there anything else I’ve said that’s made you feel this way?” If you’re able to get in a mindset of curiosity, you’ll make the other person feel heard and valued, and that will set the conversation up to be a much more productive one.
[5] Explain how the act made you feel. If you were the subject of the SAE, try to use the bullet points above to explain how the act made you feel. Focus on your own feelings rather than on the other person’s intention or character. If you’ve been experiencing a persistent SAE, sharing your feelings might be asking a lot. We hope this book contributes to an ally culture so you won't always have to be the one speaking up.
[6] Have patience but expect progress. You may have tried to explain a particular SAE dozens of times, but it may be the first time that the other person hears about it. If that other person is doing their part (not being defensive, asking questions about impact), try to be patient, and give them grace (as my colleague Gloria would say). But you should also expect progress. If they don’t work to change their mindset and behaviors around the feedback you’ve given them, then you are in a different kind of situation, one which might require getting additional support at work.
[7] Do the work. If you are getting feedback about an SAE you said or did, it’s your responsibility to learn more about the issue, to do some research. There are so many resources available at the touch of your fingers. You can literally type into google “why shouldn’t I touch a Black woman’s hair?” and get some excellent resources to understand the issue better. Have the conversation when it comes up. Go back and put in the work. Follow through and follow up. When you are able to do that, you are truly an active participant in creating inclusion for all. Inclusion doesn’t just happen in your mind. It happens through actions and behaviors. We share the responsibility to create inclusion.
We can do better at addressing subtle acts of exclusion.