I once heard a colleague labeled another colleague as being “academic” (implying that the latter still lives in the ivory tower and is out of touch in the business world.) He said this in his face, rather than just said so without his presence.
Is this workplace microaggression or bullying?
This more likely happens when the former has been with the company longer and has served a more important role in a project, but the latter, even with a more advanced degree under his belt, has not had any “visibility” yet, just because he joined the company not long ago.
Bullying/“macroaggression”: You’re trans? Trans women are just perverted men in dresses.
Microaggression: You’re trans? Cool. Have you had the surgery yet?
With the former, I wouldn’t even engage. With the latter, I might ask if they ask everyone they meet about the state of their genitals, and point out that it’s not usually something I discuss except with people I know very well. And sometimes not even then. Sharing one fact about myself shouldn’t open me up to all forms of inquiry about the subject. I’m not an exotic zoo animal.
Yes, I’ve had both kinds of things said to me. In person, never mind online.
In New York State, there’s no law against a boss bullying employees in the workplace, or yelling at employees – let alone critiquing their work. As one of the partners I used to work for had the habit of reminding people on a regular basis! And yes, being in a protected class can play a role if an employee is being singled out for that reason.
I have seen another bullying event like this before:
A manager went to the cubical of a much younger engineer who worked for another department. This manager “exploded” on this junior engineer for several minutes and before the latter had a chance to respond, the former abruptly turned around and left the latter’s cubical.
The manager had been with the company for 8 or 9 years and the poor engineer had been with the company for only one year.
Totally inappropriate, if you ask me. If the manager wanted to take on somebody, at least he should take on someone whose position in the company is comparable to his - like that engineer’s manager or even his manager’s manager.
As an analogy, it is almost like, when there is a dispute between two families, the parent of one family goes to another family and bullies a kid in that family without informing the kid’s parents first.
This happened almost 3 decades ago but somehow I still remember it. (I am not that “victim”.)
“Your hair is so cool! May I touch it?” Microaggression. How are people meant to come to better understanding of other races and cultures if it’s taboo to mention any minor differences, even as a compliment, and unacceptable to try to learn more. I see this comment as friendly curiosity and think it’s sad that people find offense in this.
This actually happened to my daughter, in a sense. There was a child of a different race sitting behind her and I could see that he was quite fascinated by her very different hair. He didn’t ask permission, he just slowly reached out and touched it. I thought it was cute. I don’t think she even noticed.
Haha… This happened to DS when he was in high school;
For some reason, DS occasionally has some “white hair” on the back side of his head. He said a couple of his high school friends (girls, not boys) who sat behind him in a certain class would suddenly pull those few white hairs without asking DS whether he wanted her “help” or not. She must be very experienced in doing this because she could do it almost like a “surprise attack”, everything is done before DS had a chance to say no.
Is this Microagression or are these girls just naughty? (I even do not know which girl she is.)
In this case, DS noticed it of course because it hurts when the hair was pull out.
(The white hair gene must come from my wife. My wife often pull out her white hair so that she looks “younger”.)
Could you believe DS could get along with almost anybody? Nobody who knows him seems to have any lingering concern that he may get angry at him/her if he/she does this to him without any “permission”.
Maybe if it happened once to people, it would be innocuous. But it seems pretty easy to understand that having strangers touch black people’s hair because they think it’s exotic and wonder what it “feels” like can be very upsetting to them when it happens over and over again during the course of their lives. I don’t think white people would like it if strangers were continually touching their white faces because they wondered what they felt like. Not to mention that it’s an invasion of people’s personal space. Kind of like the complaints I’ve heard from pregnant women about people (especially strangers) wanting to touch their stomachs.
Here’s the kind of situation I think people find difficult to discern.
There were two kids at church this morning. One of them, biracial, has really cool dreads with blond ends. Is it okay to say to either child or to their parent, “I love X’s hair!” ? Is that a microaggression?
Every time I see her I think “What great hair!” But I’ve never remarked upon it to her (white) mother, with whom I serve on a committee, even this AM when we were having a conversation about organizing a potluck. Because I’m afraid it will seem like a racial thing.
On the other hand, her S, who is also biracial but with short hair, participated in our discussion in an amusingly sophisticated way, very self-possessed. I asked her how old he was after he ran off with his sister, and she said he was 6 1/2. I said “He’s very articulate!” and she said something like, “Isn’t he though? He’s turned into quite the negotiator.” and we both laughed. Some people would say that this was a microaggression on my part, despite the fact that my compliment was clearly directed at his age, not his race.
Ummm, I have no idea what world you guys live in, but when I was single guy having a girl ask to touch my hair was never creepy, regardless of their race
I was assuming this request was made by someone you know, not some random stranger. Yes, it would be creepy to have strangers asking to touch you all the time.
My biracial daughter has AMAZING hair. Pretty much everyone who sees her comments on it. It’s great. Who doesn’t enjoy hearing “You have great hair?”
So far no one has asked to touch it (she’s 2). If it were a close friend, it would be fine. If not, it would be creepy.
When we lived in Asia, another one of my daughters had white-blonde hair (she was 2-4). People were always trying to touch her hair. I became good at blocking her head from others’ advances.
In India, people rubbed their hands on my skin every day. I guess they wanted to see if the pastiness would rub off.
Things are becoming worse and worse. And worse.
My first inclination is to simply stop interacting with other people any more than is necessary. It’s just too difficult, LOL.
Just live and operate with kindness and decency in your dealings with people. Good intentions will usually shine through. Bad intentions too.
I don’t worry about offending anybody because I would never dream of saying anything deliberately hurtful. And if I do so accidentally, I am certain that people who know me would forgive it because they know what kind of person I try to be.
I was thinking about this example also. But I think this example also illuminates the issue about how receptive people are to personal questions, from strangers or even from people they know. When are you due? Do you know the sex? What kind of delivery are you going to have? Do you want to hear my horror story about my pregnancy? Some people hate questions like that, finding them intrusive, while others don’t. I think how you feel about privacy and personal questions is probably (at least partly) cultural–but the asking of intrusive questions may vary by cultures as well. It’s hard for people to get along, I guess.
That’s all well and good, but often these SJW-type people act on emotion rather than logic. More and more, we see them lashing out over petty issues, and many here on this forum believe it’s becoming a hobby for them, perhaps even a power trip of sorts.
Frankly after reading certain posts I am very disinclined to engage in ANY conversation with certain types of individuals. I would bring a curiosity to the encounter which would withI 99.5% guaranteed that I will peeve them off in some way…maybe even by simply breathing and standing in the vicinity. After all, it could be taken as a sigh, a snort, an eyeball or other obviously micro aggressive behavior. I simply don’t have the energy to maintain the proper manners in this environment.
Lucky I know a boat load (wait, is that a micro aggression towards migrant, refugee, land fearing individuals???) of rather thick skinned folk.
