Should I have kept my big mouth shut at work?

[Perlosa]

I work for a large tech company and manage a very small, specialist team. My LM was sharing a ppt that he is planning on presenting to the wider team in a all hands call next week. It's a ppt concerning systemic racism and has come directly from People. We had a flurry of similar talks following George Floyd's death but not so much recently.

At the end when my manager was asking for input/feedback I (as a half Indian/English woman) said some may feel uncomfortable with being labelled "a victim" of racism. I as the only POC (white passing but that's beside the point) thought it was a fairly innocuous point to make and was just wanting my LM to strike the right tone. But after we got off the call one of my colleagues sent an IM to the effect of "what was that all about them?" and some other slightly disapproving/patronising comments. Tbg it seemed like it was said in advisory way from him - I've only recently been promoted.

Really scared I've messed up.

It comes across as though you believe in a hierarchy, do you?

If the content came from the HR team, it should have been taken up with them afterwards rather than your line manager about their presentation. Feedback would have been about the look of the presentation, how clear the content was, etc. If you really wanted to mention the content, you should have done that privately and not showed them up in front of the team.

She was clearly asked about the content as the non-white person in the room. She shouldn't just pretend it's all ok when it's not.

I think it'll be fine and I think it's good that you made this important point. Does anyone know why Indians have done so well compared to other countries? Why do they have such high levels of house ownership?

I think your input was valuable and valid. But that not everyone would agree.

For example, I'm from a minority group (but white) and I would have a problem with narratives moving away from victim. The reason being that the term victim implies that the racism is being done unto them and that it's wrong. And racism, regardless of the minority's success, is absolutely abhorrent and damaging.

Whereas using the term 'experiencing racism' almost implies a neutral effect. And in my view, dampens the critique of the people dishing out the racism.

Having said that, I think it's perfectly acceptable, if asking for feedback, to give it. And I think it's quite inappropriate of your colleague to message you after. Stand your ground, personally I would ignore the IM and continue contributing to any discussions you feel you'd add value.

I think you're allowed to make your contributions to the meeting as anyone would be however if the topic was systemic racism then it makes sense why the term victim would be used. Systemic racism does affect all POC even if they are able to overcome these issues the concept is it still doesn't work in the favour of non white people.

I do agree but this guy is running a session about systemic racism which he's shared with the team and is asking for feedback. That's a pretty good starting point to being open to discussion.

Of course a white person telling a non-white person about racism is a joke.

But a non-white person telling a white person about racism is extremely important - that's the situation we have here with OP trying to get across the message about a certain type of phraseology being problematic.

And it actually sounds like this is a company/ person who is going to be open to listening, given that they're doing this whole presentation on systemic racism, they should be open to some feedback (and have actually asked for it!)

I know it's hard. I know it's fucking annoying. But trying is important.

I think it's this thread that makes me give up hope tbh! But actually thanks for your comments, it's restores my faith slightly ....

Glad to hear it 🙌

A lot of people have a lot of trauma and scarring around this stuff and it can be a huge barrier to communication even when there are good intentions on both sides. Like putting together this presentation is basically a good thing, right? They just need a bit of guidance and feedback.

We all have to listen and communicate and keep making efforts to do so even if it's hard... if you get through to one person then you've done something amazing.

What's with all the late night posters telling the OP she isn't making sense? This was not particularly difficult to understand in the first place, and it is the nature of threads that the story becomes clearer over the course of the conversation. Something else is going on here.

The victim bit made perfect sense but the house ownership thing made no sense, to me anyway.

Whereas using the term 'experiencing racism' almost implies a neutral effect. And in my view, dampens the critique of the people dishing out the racism.

I see where you're coming from with this

I'm a bit confused about the putative link between racism and home ownership (but I think OP had acknowledged this).

You could live in Balmoral and it wouldn't save you from the sort of foul racist attack those two female Indian students in Glasgow were subjected to last week just walking down the street.

Also irrelevant. The British Indian families I know stay at home until they get married, or even past marriage. They don't pay any rent/bills and go into good jobs, saving all that cash and putting it into property. Multi generations living under one roof, building up property portfolios. It's not that impressive, it's just that they live in a different way to other families.

I have only read up to here OP and now I have given up. You are making no sense at all. If you have done anything wrong, it is probably that you are not articulating yourself very well and your colleagues cannot make head nor tail of what you mean.

YANBU, and there's nothing incoherent about your OP. For example, society has shifted the language around abuse from describing 'victims' of abuse to 'survivors' of abuse because of the negative connotations. The point you're making is perfectly logical.

Is that your company's Diversity team?

Your point was perfectly clear, OP. I don't understand why people are struggling with it.

You wanted to make the point that the issue is complex, because while most POC will have experienced racism in one form or another, many are actually doing pretty well in socio-economic terms and may therefore not identify with the terminology of being a "victim". You therefore wanted your line manager's presentation to be nuanced enough to reflect that complexity.

It sounds perfectly reasonable to me, OP.

That's not what she is saying at all.

Sounds like you have no insight or understanding of the mixed race experience. The OP is not "whining" just because she makes a suggestion to her white line manager about how to make a presentation more nuanced.

The only issue I see here is the LM asking a room of white people (except for the OP) for feedback on a PPT about racism.

The way you have written this is confusing. If you were this unclear during the presentation perhaps the person who messaged you just did not know what you were talking about.

Yep, this is not what the OP said at all. Some people appear to have a problem with reading comprehension.

Well, yes. And then there is the irony that the one POC who was in the room gets made to feel in the wrong for having expressed an opinion!

There's an assumption in his comments that all POC are victims, all the time, which is clearly not the case.

I think you made a good point. It may have made him uncomfortable but he has to sit with that, your comment was thought provoking and maybe that's what he's struggling with.

It will blow over, you did nothing wrong.

I agree with @Walkaround. Its great that you were able to give feedback, however if your Manager does not have the benefit of feedback from other groups subjected to structural racism black, Jewish, traveller etc there is a risk of him alienating people from those communities in his team. How nuanced is the talk? Does it address colourism within structural racism? The effect of structural racism is not uniform within groups. Gender and how light or dark you skin is matters.