I worked in the non-profit industry for most of my 20s, an incredibly formative time of my life that shaped my thinking around social justice, power, oppression, and social change.
I spent a good chunk of the early- and mid-2010s working as the communications director for an experiential education organization that I credit almost entirely for my approach to anti-oppression and equity work today. I cannot understate how life-altering my time there was in shaping my thinking and cementing my commitment to social justice.
But of course, even the most progressive organizations exist within this white supremacist and patriarchal system we all find ourselves in and are inevitably shaped by. And while I worked with people who were not just progressive, but radical in thinking and living, they were not, like all of us, without their biases, flaws, and gaps in understanding.
Every year, we would gather our staff from around the world to cottage country in Ontario for a week’s worth of team building, facilitation training, and anti-oppression education. These retreats were often the highlight of my year. The week we spent together as educators, facilitators, and activists was transformative. I expanded and deepened my knowledge, skills, and friendships in ways that will forever go unparalleled.
Like much of the non-profit industry, this organization was made up of predominantly white folks and I often found myself to be the only woman of colour in the room, if not the only person of colour. I didn’t think of it much. Calls for representation and conversations around diversity did not take up much space back then. During that time, being the only person of colour was just the default. It was my normal and I didn’t think to question it.
During one year’s training retreat, there was another Asian woman of Thai descent. We’ll call her Diana.
For the first time, I was not the only Asian woman or woman of colour in the room. While that didn’t change much about the week, there was one particular staff member — we’ll call him Bill — who would consistently confuse my name with Diana’s. It was fine at first. After all, we were a team from all across North America with many of us meeting each other for the first time. Forgetting names was just par for the course.
But when it happened over and over again, and when I was consistently misidentified as the only other Asian woman in the room. Well, then. I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to understand what was going on.*
On our final night, we were all hanging out listening to music and having a few drinks to celebrate yet another successful retreat. I was having a great time playing the role of DJ, carefully curating the song selections for the evening and playing the hits of our day for all the good ~*vibes*~.
Bill came up to me and said, “Hey Diana! Can I make a song request?”
The week was over and this guy still couldn’t get my name straight. I rolled my eyes and said in as casual and neutral a tone as I could muster, “Bill, for the millionth time, I’m Justine — the other Asian chick here. You’ve been mixing Diana and my name up all week, and honestly? It’s pretty racist.”
He apologized profusely and I, just wanting to continue to have a good time, told him we were cool and to just get it right the next time. And that was that.
*This kind of misidentification is part of a larger cognitive problem called “the cross-race effect or “the Other Race Effect”, essentially the tendency to recognize and remember faces of one’s own race more easily than those of other races.
I Was Wronged!
But what happened next was, in my mind, worse than Bill’s mistake of confusing my name.
One of my co-workers who was also on the executive team — we’ll call them Ash—took me to the side and said, “Justine, you can’t call one of our staff members a racist out in the open like that. That’s not cool. It’s unprofessional.”
I was stunned.
How was I in the wrong? I explained how I had been confused for the only other Asian woman the entire week and how clearly rooted in racism that was.
Ash, who I trusted and respected, insisted it was unprofessional and would be better dealt with at another place and time.
Not wanting to ruin the night of celebration and cause a scene, I let it go and we brushed it all under the rug.
But I was left there doubting myself. I was left questioning if somehow my actions were unprofessional, wondering if I was actually out of line, and debating if what had happened was even racism at all. Was I overreacting? Was it wrong of me to call that behaviour out? Was I not being a good leader? Could I have handled that situation better?
That moment has stuck with me to this day. I knew being misidentified again and again for the only other Asian woman in the room was wrong. I knew in my bones that being called “unprofessional” for calling out racism was wrong. I just didn’t have the language back then that I do today.
What I Know Now: Tone Policing and the Discomfort of Confronting Racism and Taking Accountability
Back in June of 2020, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh called Block Quebecois MP Alain Therrien a racist after his gesture and opposition to a motion to scrutinize systemic racism in the RCMP. Singh was promptly thrown out of the House of Commons for doing so by Speaker and Liberal MP, Anthony Rota.
Singh refused to apologize for calling out what was a clear and unmistakable stance of racism.
Reading the news of the encounter and watching the video clips of Singh’s defiance brought me right back to this moment in the early 2010s when I called out an act of racism and was criticized for it. Sure, the stakes were far, far lower. No motion to scrutinize systemic racism was on the line in my case, only what we would now call a micro-aggression – that is, “an instance of indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group”. I was not thrown out of the highest room of political power, only given a brief and gentle slap on the wrist at a work retreat.
But I’d argue that the mechanics at play were the same. And I’d argue that it is these “microaggressions” that allow larger, higher stakes situations to occur at all.
What happened in both of these instances are forms of tone policing, of dictating how someone of an oppressed and marginalized group should respond to an act of oppression. The tactic — whether employed intentionally or not — systemically keeps people and the issues they raise silenced.
“Not here.” “Not now.” “Not in that tone.” “Not in those words.” “Don’t take the knee.” “Don’t take to the streets.”
In my case, it was “unprofessional”. In Singh’s case, it was “unparliamentary language”.
Our society is built on the system of white supremacy that is so terrified of confronting racism. The discomfort is too much. The white fragility is so real, so palpable. Instead, the default is to turn to guilt and defensiveness, employing tactics and tools to deny and avoid any kind of accountability — often while manipulating (knowingly or not) those who are part of oppressed groups by undermining their thoughts, feelings, and the reality occurring around them (a.k.a. gaslighting).
“Guilt is only another way of avoiding informed action, of buying time out of the pressing need to make clear choices, out of the approaching storm that can feed the earth as well as bend the trees.” — Audre Lorde
But what could be possible if, as Audre Lorde once wrote, “we listen to the content of what is said with at least as much intensity as we defend ourselves against the manner of saying”?
I think back about this encounter often. The co-worker who shut me down as unprofessional is someone who I love dearly and care about deeply. They think critically about the world around them and try their best to show up as an ally. The co-worker who repeatedly misidentified me is the same. The organization we all worked for was made up of people who tried their best to work towards disrupting systems of oppression.
And yet, we were not immune to the trappings of white supremacy.
Our vocabulary then was limited and concepts like gaslighting, tone policing, micro-aggressions, and white fragility were not yet part of our everyday lexicon. I’d like to think that if we knew then what we know now, this situation would’ve played out differently.
Bill would have recognized his bias early on and made a more conscious effort to get Diana’s and my name right, reflecting deeply on why this behaviour was showing up for him.
Ash would have reaffirmed my feelings and stood by my decision to call this behaviour out, if not called it out themselves to remove the burden from me.
And I would not have backed down from standing up for myself and naming the problem knowing that my silence will not protect me, will not protect any of us from the real and powerful harms of white supremacy.
As we find ourselves descending deeper into fascism with calls to cut any forms of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace and beyond, it is more imperative than ever that we do the difficult and unglamorous work of decolonizing and (un)learning systems of oppression. It is more imperative than ever that we stand up for and alongside each other in any and all instances of racial injustice – “micro” or not.
This article is part of I Was Wrong(ed!), a publication that acts as a decolonizing space to acknowledge, reflect on, and learn from failure.