They include backhanded compliments (a white manager telling an African American employee that, “She’s very articulate” a group of co-workers jokingly ribbing a Latino executive that, “He’s a diversity hire”) and stereotypical assumptions (a male colleague asking his female peer to take notes and order lunch for the team). In the workplace, these “subtle acts of exclusion” come in many forms, says Tiffany Jana, founder and CEO of TMI Consulting and the co-author of Overcoming Bias: Building Authentic Relationships Across Differences. Microaggressions are the everyday indignities and insults that members of marginalized groups endure in their routine interactions with people in all walks of life. As a person who wants to be a good ally to your colleagues of color and members of underrepresented groups, how do you apologize after you’ve committed a microaggression? How and when should you try to make amends? And what’s the best way to ensure that you do better in the future? What the Experts Say But now that a colleague has brought the slight to your attention, you realize what you said was offensive. It was a throwaway comment, and you were unaware that it was demeaning.
