Workplace discrimination often hides in office dynamics

Q: (The owner of my workplace) is from Africa. She hired an African-American woman to be director and then that woman hired the additional office staff the same. The original staff is not black. (We are) left out from office conversations, lunches, meetings and just plain daily talk. Curt speaking and lack of eye contact and plain impatience with conversing has been happening more frequently. Reverse discrimination is amazing. Never had this happen before. How does a person deal with it? — S.P., Las Vegas

A: Some of what might happen next depends on you and how you’re thinking about this. Sometimes, the breakdown of workplace relationships is nothing more than another sign that it is time to move along. Other times, it is a call to become proactive and intentional about being an agent of change in the workplace.

Do you like your job? Do you make a significant investment of “self” in your current employment? Or could you do your job just as easily at any number of places?

Is this, for you, a justice issue? Are you called to stand up and confront a significant wrong?

Let’s say you want to stay.

Racial discrimination fits broadly into two types. There is “quid pro quo” discrimination, such as if you sat at your cubicle and found “White Girls Must Go” written in lipstick on your desk, or if you intercepted a management memorandum describing the corporate plan to phase out white employees. In this case, I’d go to my lawyer and discuss my future as the owner of this company, or to my travel agent to discuss which Caribbean beach I’ll be basking on in early retirement.

But most of the racial discrimination in the workplace is more subtle. Interpersonal. It hides in office dynamics, where it’s difficult to diagnose. It grinds you down piece by piece. Demoralizes you.

In fact, any attempt to identify reverse discrimination often costs you even more credibility among your peers and supervisors. Trying to “backload” the accusation of discrimination to explain unhappy behaviors often takes employee relationships to the point of no return, even if the corporation officially vindicates your accusation.

If you want to stay, and if you’re motivated to improve workplace relationships, not to mention your level of workplace satisfaction and happiness, here’s my abiding prejudice: begin with strategic naivete, which means pretend to be naive.

For starters, proceed as if you don’t notice tactics that exclude, as if you don’t notice lack of eye contact and curt replies. And simultaneously barge right into relationships and conversations as if you are unaware of the cues that tell you to stay away. Live out the script that it would be more likely for your co-worker to eat her own foot than to not like you because you are white.

For especially problematic relationships, barge right in with naive, self-deprecating questions:

Are we OK?

Are you unhappy with me?

Have I made you angry or disappointed you in some way?

But never, “Do you reject me because I’m white?”

If the co-worker denies any problem, she will have a harder time justifying crummy treatment of you. If the co-worker says, “No, why do you ask?” then you have the perfect segue to say, “You just seem curt and impatient with me,” or “I often feel not included.” Now the covert is made overt, and that strengthens your political hand.

Should the co-worker identify some alleged deficiency in you or your work, you listen attentively, thoughtfully, as if grateful this person is taking her time to “help” you. Because now your co-worker has walked right into the trap. She has as good as admitted that, yes, she has been treating you less than hospitably. Your response then is: “Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. What would improve our relationship?”

These tactics force the issue. They push your co-worker into paradoxical discomfort. Either she is forced to say, “I’m a big baby xenophobe who would sacrifice you in a heartbeat if it would buttress my ego-illusion of self-importance,” — which she is not going to say because, even if it’s true, it’s probably unconscious — or she will be obliged to engage you in a relationship, which she doesn’t want to do but will find it increasingly difficult to justify not doing.

Or she will deny everything and escalate her behavior. At which time you have to decide how much you can trust your middle manager or supervisor. If you do, I still wouldn’t begin the conversation with an accusation of discrimination. Stay focused on relationships.

Short of quid pro quo discrimination, I think accusing, suing or threatening litigation is a loser here.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling and Wellness Center in Las Vegas. His columns appear on Tuesdays and Sundays. Questions for the Asking Human Matters column or comments can be e-mailed to skalas@reviewjournal.com.