Workplace Microaggressions & PTSD

I was excited to start a new job in a well-paid position. It was in the field I enjoy most working in (mental health) and worked not only with private insurance but also our state's low income program OHP. I was really enjoying the atmosphere of the office but then I started noticing things that made me feel really uncomfortable.

During my training, one of the staff members told us a story about how she was alone on a street and there was a Black man walking towards her and how "Sorry to say, but I was scared". The trainer kind of made fun of her for it which was a nice way to defuse the situation. The folks at the training were all pretty cool despite that and never made weird comments about race or sexuality. They also warned me about my future office manager.

Once working my office manager asked me some inappropriate questions about my sexuality based on stereotyping my clothing choices. She also asked me about my religious beliefs which is also inappropriate (and illegal) when she invaded my desk space and noticed a keychain with a khamsa on it. On top of that, this same person made rude comments about "Mexicans" and how she was frustrated by their accents. This came up a few times. My coworker knew about my biracial background and corrected her but to no avail. You really can't win when people think they've got a right to say something. What was ultimately distressing was many people in the office's unwillingness to help people with thick accents. I know that phones can make hearing people more difficult, but it is no excuse to not help a person get the care they need because you have a more difficult time understanding them. Chances are they are having issues understanding you too. This is especially problematic for people seeking mental health care.

Not only did these situations arise, but the manager created an unsafe atmosphere for us to work with her negativity and her emotional dumping. I ultimately ended up quitting after two weeks. I told the supervisor during the exit interview about all of this and how I felt I could not work under those conditions. She surprised me by informing me that complaints had been made against that manager before. What doesn't surprise me is that she is still with the company.

New studies have shown that micro-aggressions (homophobia, misogyny, racism etc) can lead to PTSD in the long term. This is something I want to investigate in my research on therapy and PTSD. I have encountered ignorance before in the social work/mental health fields but nothing this blatantly illegal or negative. Have you had similar experiences?

Cultural Diversity & Portland's White Heterosexual Middle Class Monoculture: An Open Letter to Meg Descamp

Dear Meg, I recently received a copy of my alma mater's alumni news magazine and your article "Is Portland really Portlandia?" angered me. I am frustrated especially in light of the recent Blackface incident in North Portland. You detailed a "cultural diversity" here in our city that I don't agree with. You wrote, They [the young professionals] are committed to Portland and to all the city has to offer: cultural diversity, natural beauty, and a progressive political and social climate.The irony-cum-hypocrisy was especially poignant with the photo of all the lily-white faces at Ms. Tunstall's sewing factory. Seriously?

Please explain to me how a city that is 76% White is culturally diverse. A city where Mars Hill Church, an unabashedly homophobic and sexist religious organization set up shop in what was once a hippy heartland (the Hawthorne neighborhood). How is a city progressive when it can't solve its issues with homelessness, rampant gentrification and when the police force has admitted that it racially profiles? How can a city call itself "liberal" when it consistently votes against police accountability and statutes to assist the homeless?

The "cultural diversity" buzz phrase really angers me the most. Portland is home to a large DIY, sustainable/green, crafty organic type of culture, but it is still a monoculture practiced by mostly White upwardly mobile Middle Class heterosexuals who want to dye themselves as unique and progressive. It's still just a monoculture.

How does that qualify as diverse? That is not diversity. Bike lanes, pop-up shops and organic grocery stores are not diversity. This is especially true when they are here to serve the monoculture. To call Portland diverse insults the experience of the poor, the people of color and the queer folks who have to somehow exist within the phobic, classist and Whitewashed culture that Portland has created.

Please stop ignoring us.

Sincerely,
A community member.

Suffering from "-isms" in the classroom?

I've been very busy with starting college again for the first time in two years. It's very challenging, but I have been running into roadblocks I didn't expect to find in academia. As it turns out, my new department is very prescriptivist, which as a linguist, I find very troubling. However, there are even more things making me uncomfortable.

In my speech and language development class, we've been reading a textbook by a professor of speech language pathology (and a PhD) that I have found very troubling. He uses a lot of stereotyped examples when talking about cultural differences in language development (such as, "Asians are more reticent that Americans in speech") and without providing any evidence other than anecdotal items. That is not hard data! Also he uses "middle-class Americans" as a standard, while omitting race from the information unless he want's to differentiate between what he calls "middle-class Americans" and "middle-class African-Americans". I think he needs to incorporate White in his statements and so-called observations, otherwise his categorizations make no sense.

On top of this, I don't feel like my professor really respects my unease or disagreement with the way this author is presenting his information. I don't really know what to do, and I'm a bit tired of being the only dissenter in the class.

Furthermore my professor recently corrected my writing in a paper as not being "people first language", I had written 'deaf infants' where I should have written 'infants who are deaf'...meanwhile the professor allows a sociology major (!) in class use the term homosexual...which is very clinical and not people-first at all! (In case you are wondering, same-sex or gay/lesbian is more appropriate and "people first").

My last point, we were watching different videos of babies practicing a concept called joint attention with various caregivers. All of my classmates ooh-ed and aw-ed over all of the white babies but during a video of a very cute black girl, no one said anything or made any noises at all. I didn't think about this at first, but I was feeling odd and then it was all bit chilling to me upon further reminiscing. What are the implications of this? I'm not sure.

I'm not sure what to do, I feel like a black sheep in my department. This is all new to me, I've never encountered this in academia before. My undergraduate degree program was in a linguistics department that was very forward thinking, pro-feminist, anti-racist and anti-homophobic, very social justice oriented and active in our community. From what I have seen in this department, things are a bit different. I am not sure how to proceed.

Speaking up, speaking out

Lately I am running out of things to say, it seems. I have been harping on the same subjects over and over and to what end? There have been myriad encounters and stories like my previous post here in this city. It's something that doesn't seem like to change. I want to challenge people to think outside their privilege and see the reality of our society but at the same time I am having issues getting past the anger I feel when I am being discriminated against. 


I'm tired of being told that I'm demasiado intenso, that I just need to have a positive outlook, that I shouldn't be so mean. Most of the people telling me this are my White friends. It probably doesn't help that most of my friends here are White...but what do you expect? My cousin Armenia, on the contrary, reinforces me against giving in to complacency. She thinks it is a positive trait that I am so outspoken and that I will confront people who are being racist/homophobic/classist/sexist etc. 


I guess the issue is that I need to find some happy medium without giving up the fight. I think maybe that I don't have to be so combative, but I also don't have to stay silent.

Decolonization

I’m reflecting on last night, where again I have found myself the only non-White person at a party. Something in me urges to write about this experience, I’m trying to be nonplussed about it, but it’s hard. It’s always hard.  I realized today that I’m sick of letting myself be co-opted for whiteboyworld’s entertainment. I know I live in Portland, where it’s 85% Caucasian, but I’m still breathing, still a part of that other percentage that all the White activists ignore when they rail about classism.

Back to the party…I remember when me and two other of my companions sneak our way back up the stairs on a mission masquerading as a smoke break to really clear our heads. Some of the partygoers leak out after us and strike a conversation in the driveway. We all introduce ourselves. Predictably there is an audible silence after me and the quintessential nicewhitegirl says how she likes my name, how it’s a cool name. Oh yay, the tokenism has begun. At least they didn’t ask me where I was from. I just smile awkwardly and that’s the last time I speak directly to anyone I don’t previously know at this shindig. I realize it’s time to go when some newcomers have a side conversation about what’s the PC term for a Native American while one of them is wearing some Urban Outfitters shit with a “Navajo” design fluttering above her tiny midriff.

I can’t stand this world. I feel like more analogously Caucasian faces and thought-patterns are slowly blotting me out.  I’m tired of being the only coloured person at the party, the only Latino in the “Hispanic” food section of Fred Meyers, the only guy on my block who rocks a skullcap. I’m not a token, I’m not going to be colonized for someone else’s mental well being because they have a friend that is queer/of colour/Jewish etc. I’m not going to teach you a pithy lesson from my homeland; I’m not going to teach you Spanish.

Yes, I am going to be offended by your racist good intentions. I’m going to talk back; I’m going to correct your perceptions. I’m going to make you mad, I’m going to dismantle your co-options, and I’m going to throw your world for a loop. I’m not going to sit here and let you blot me out for this anti-septic, White, bourgeois vision of what you think your community should be. Fuck that noise.

I’m decolonizing that shit.

Is Your Speech Really Free?

It disturbs me deeply that I live in a country where hate speech (racist, homophobic, sexist etc.) is protected under a "Constitution" as "free speech" and yet decrying a corrupt politician or inhumane corporations is considered, legally, a criminal action.

Do you have Genovese Syndrome?

I was reading an article on my local paper about a woman who, during an episode related to a medical condition, fell onto the light-rail train tracks right as a train was approaching. According to witnesses and a security tape, it took over 20 seconds for anyone to respond and only one person actually jumped down to help her. Having witnessed many instances of this social disease and having been a victim of it myself, I have finally encountered a name for it: Genovese syndrome or "the bystander effect."


To put it simply, Genovese syndrome is the socio-psychological phenomenon when bystanders offer no help to people in a crisis situation. This is mostly exhibited by ignoring victims and according to the National Crime Victimization Survey, over 68% of violent physical assaults are witnessed by bystanders who take no action.


How hard is it to at least call 911? It was too hard for THIRTY-EIGHT of Kitty Genovese's (for the phenomenon was named) neighbors to call the police or offer assistance to the young woman who was sexually assaulted, stabbed and killed on the street in front of her apartment complex in 1964.


I remember two summers ago, I was taking the streetcar home from work. I was distracted, talking on my cellphone, in Spanish (I only mention this because it is relevant to what happened next), when I bumped into a man as I was trying to press the stop request button. The next thing I know is this man has me by the neck, with my back up to the wall of the vehicle and he is snarling all sorts of racist (anti-Latino) and homophobic remarks at me, lecturing me that I need to learn some "respect". To my horror, no one did anything. People just stared. Not even the streetcar operator had the stones to do anything. I had been assaulted and humiliated in public. I think the worst part of the whole incident was when the police department told me later on that there was nothing they could do.


Now I have a personal vendetta on public indifference. I think it is disgusting that people will not step in for their fellow citizens when something obviously illegal, life-threatening or offensive is occurring. It should be our duty as members of society to help those in immediate need.