People in Florida continue to experience racial discrimination on the job despite long-standing civil rights laws prohibiting the practice. Once, racial discrimination was extremely overt. More recently, however, different types of discrimination, harassment and mistreatment have come to the forefront. Microaggressions are one example of a type of behavior that can create a comprehensively hostile work environment, usually for non-white employees. In one online post, 12 Facebook workers discussed the company culture in their workplace, saying that racial microaggressions were a common factor amounting to serious discrimination.
Microaggressions are different types of slights, insults, invalidation of others’ experience and denial of dignity, typically directed at marginalized groups of people, including employees of color. In one 2019 study of 3,000 workers across the country, many respondents said that they had experienced workplace discrimination. Of those, 83% reported that the discriminatory behavior took indirect, subtle form, often expressed through microaggressions. These can include allegedly complimentary comments praising women or people of color for being “articulate,” different treatment based on beliefs about employees’ culture or comments that continually cast these workers as outsiders or non-Americans. Because each of these statements may seem minor on its own, it is all too easy for human resources departments to brush off such incidents, and many go unreported.
However, workplaces that tolerate microaggressions may also be prone to material expressions of the same approach to race, gender and other protected classes. People of color, women or people with disabilities may be less likely to receive promotions and raises. Workers may feel discouraged from reporting discriminatory practices as well.
When workers face discrimination and harassment on the job, they can lose out on thousands of dollars as a result of lost wages and opportunities. Employees may seek Boca Raton, Florida, workplace racial discrimination legal assistance to help them pursue justice.
