january 2021 newsletter

Welcome to equity arcata’s Newsletter brought to you by our Welcoming Businesses Working Group! This month we’re going to focus on microagressions and how they negatively affect your business.

 

How Can Microaggressions Impact Your Business?

In Arcata, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) members of our community have regularly reported being racially profiled or experiencing racial discrimination, like microaggressions, in local businesses. Many feel their race creates barriers to equitable customer service and long term employment.

 

What Are Microaggressions?

  • Microaggressions are a form of discrimination.
  • A microaggression can be a comment or action that negatively targets a marginalized group of people.
  • A microaggression can be on purpose or accidental.
  • Individuals may use a microaggression unknowingly and may mean no harm toward the person or group they use it against.

 

Watch this video to learn more:

Other examples of microagressions in the workplace include:

  • Asking for the ID of a Black or Brown customer when paying by card or check, and not asking for an ID when serving a white customer

  • Not greeting, smiling, or engaging BIPOC customers in a friendly way

  • Following BIPOC customers throughout the store assuming their intent to steal

What Impacts Do Microaggressions Have?

Racial microaggressions create a hostile and invalidating environment for BIPOC folks, and their cumulative nature has been known to cause depression, anxiety, anger, rage, loss of self-esteem and a lack of motivation in the workplace.

 

For a deeper dive, check out these articles to learn more about the negative impacts of microaggressions in the workplace

  • Unmasking 'racial microaggressions'
  • How Microaggressions Can Affect Wellbeing In The Workplace

 

 

How Do I Address Microagressions In My Business Or Workplace?

 

We'll be discussing this topic more at our next Welcoming Businesses Working Group meeting today, Wednesday, January 20 from 4:30-5:30 PM. Join us to ask questions and learn more about how to address microagressions in the workplace.

 

Click here to attend meeting on Zoom

 

Questions? Contact us!

Chuck Powell, Chair

Welcoming Businesses Working Group

chuckjpowell@gmail.com

707.496.7845

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How Can I Get More Involved with equity arcata?

 

For more information about equity arcata’s working groups, please click here.

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736 F St, Arcata, CA 95521
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