Micro-aggressions are verbal, behavioural or environmental indignities that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults to the target person or group. These could be accidental or on purpose.

There are three main ways to react:

1. Let it go – this can be emotionally draining to confront. Yet silence places an emotional tax, making your ruminate on what happened and why.
2. Respond immediately – call it out & explain its impact while the details of the incident are fresh. Immediacy is important to correct bad behaviour. However, but this approach can be risky – the perpetrator might get defensive, leaving the target feeling worse.
3. Respond later – Here, the risk lies in the time lag, for it requires helping the person who committed the micro-aggression to first recall it and then to appreciate its impact. Bringing it up might be deemed petty — like someone who has been harbouring resentment or holding on to “little things” while the other party, having “meant no harm,” has moved on.

Framework for determining the best course of action:

Discern. If it is worth responding to. Knowing that you can choose to respond or not can also be empowering
Consider:

• The importance of the issue and the relationship : If either is or both are important to you, chose to respond. Don’t avoid.
• How strong is our feeling or emotion Honour the feeling, experience it and factor it into if, how and when to respond.
• How you want to be perceived now and in the future :There are consequences to both speaking up and remaining silent. Determine which holds more weight in this situation.

Disarm. If you choose to confront a micro-aggression, be prepared to disarm the person who committed it. One reason we avoid conversations about race is that they make people defensive. Explain that the conversation might get uncomfortable for them but that what they just said or did was uncomfortable for you. Invite them to sit alongside you in the awkwardness of their words or deeds while you get to the root of their behaviour together.

Dig-in. Challenge the perpetrator to clarify their statement or action. Acknowledge that you accept their intentions to be as they stated but reframe the conversation around the impact on you. Explain how you initially interpreted it and why. If they continue to assert that they “ /didn’t mean it like that/,” remind them that you appreciate their willingness to clarify their intent and hope they appreciate your willingness to clarify their impact.

Decide. You control what this incident will mean for your life and your work — what you will take from the interaction and what you will allow it to take from you. Let protecting your joy be your greatest and most persistent act of resistance.

Remember to

• Express yourself in a way that honours your care for the other party, and assert yourself in a way that acknowledges your concern about the issue.
• Allow yourself to feel what you feel, whether it’s anger, disappointment, frustration, aggravation, confusion, embarrassment, exhaustion, or something else. Any emotion is legitimate and should factor into your decision about whether, how, and when to respond.
• With more-active negative emotions such as anger, it’s often best to address the incident later. If you’re confused, an immediate response might be preferable. If you’re simply exhausted maybe it is best to let it go — meaning best for you, not for the perpetrator

When you maybe at fault, remember

• Intent does not supersede impact
• Seek to understand the other person’s experience
• Believe when they choose to share their insights; don’t get defensive
• Get comfortable rethinking much of what you thought to be true about the world and your workplace
• Accept that you have likely been complicit in producing inequity

sources

When and How to Respond to Microaggressions
emotional tax
Avoidance can be the wrong approach.