Help, I've been Accused of Racism at Work: Conflict Tools and Strategies for Tough Conversations

In this episode, host Simon Goode discusses a real-life workplace scenario where someone was accused of racism after referring to a colleague by their skin color during a conversation. He breaks down the layers of workplace conflict, highlighting the roles of value and relationship conflicts, and offers practical advice for self-care and preparation when facing similar accusations. Simon also shares strategies for navigating difficult conversations and maintaining composure in stressful situations like HR meetings.

TIMESTAMPS: 

00:00 Navigating Racial Descriptor Sensitivity

03:49 Reset After Stressful Interactions

08:34 Understanding Racism's Contextual Threshold

11:38 Perception and Intent in Conflict

16:26 Navigating Relationship Conflicts

20:15 Clarifying Racism: Seeking Definitions

21:54 Questioning Racial Understanding and Response

26:27 "Structure Over Self-Control for Stress"

Transcript

0:09

Hello and welcome back to the Conflict Skills Podcast. I'm your host, professional mediator Simon Goode. I set up this podcast to provide free resources and tools for dealing with conflict. So if that sounds like the kind of thing that's useful for you, please consider pressing subscribe in the episode. Today I'm going to be talking about a conflict resolution case study. This is a situation that I actually came across online and someone was talking about being accused of racism in the workplace and they were a little bit worried about an official complaint that had been submitted to the HR team. So I'm going to read the scenario and then I'm going to talk about some of the things that stand out to me and maybe some options that the person should consider. Of course, I'm not necessarily saying this is what they should do or if you're in the same situation as them. I don't know specifically what you should do. It would depend on your context and what's at stake and what's going on and the other people involved and all that kind of stuff. But hopefully just me demonstrating the way that I think about these kind of scenarios might be helpful for you because there could be bits and pieces that are parallel or you would take that framework and apply it in a different way or something similar. So I'm going to read the scenario and then we'll do a little bit of analysis and, and then some discussion. So it begins. So here's what happened. We had some guest speakers come in and talk to our broad team about corporate strategy. All well and good. Each one was very charismatic and informative. Afterwards I was in a group with some co workers and figured I'd add them on LinkedIn. I couldn't remember one of their names and he was a tall black guy. So I asked, hey guys, do you remember the third speaker's name? The really tall black guy? Now I was just describing him. I have nothing against black people at all. Just to be clear, if I was. If it was a white guy, I would have said the same thing. In fact, I have done and no one has really given two shits about it. Same for Asians, brown people, whatever. I don't just use skin colour for black people. That would be weird. Anyway, these two ladies were like, woah mate, let's relax here. I was very confused, didn't think I said anything inappropriate and they said I shouldn't refer to anyone by their skin colour as that should be taken in the wrong way, etc and received a lecture for like 10 minutes. Then this morning I received an email from HR and I'm about to have a meeting with a HR director and my boss in an hour. I don't think I'm getting fired, but I'm very amused by this whole situation. I actually could be getting fired, I don't know, kinda worried. Low key. So a situation where they've used the word black along with tall to describe one of the speakers asking who they were and the co workers from the Sounds of It have said, you shouldn't use skin colour as a way of referring to somebody that could be taken in the wrong way. Now, before I begin thinking about what options this person should use, I suppose I just want to begin by saying that this all sounds incredibly stressful. I find it interesting that the person said I'm very amused by this whole situation. It's possible that they are amused because they think that the complaint is foolish or completely without basis, but at the same time they're getting called in to meet with their HR director and their boss is getting called away from their normal tasks to meet with them as well. So I don't know that there's necessarily nothing to worry about unless this person completely didn't care if they get fired or lost their job in that way. But it's a challenging situation to be in. So the first thing that jumps out at me is the importance of self care. Like after interactions with these people, there might be things that you need to do to reset to de escalate your own nervous system. Do some deep breathing techniques, for example, or just take a moment and feel your feet on the ground and your bottom on the seat and the back of the touching the back of the chair and just notice things like the temperature of the air or what sounds you can hear in the background or that kind of thing. You would need to do these little resets probably more frequently, especially if you're interacting with these people that have made a formal complaint about you. My goodness. But then also probably afterwards, after that kind of a day, there might be things that you need to do to reset, refill your bucket, restore some of that energy that was depleted, so to speak, by being hypervigilant at work, and then be careful doing weekends or holidays or that kind of thing that you don't spend the entire time ruminating about this situation. Our brain has developed through the process of evolution and it's been quite helpful to repeatedly think about possible threats in the past. If there's a bear there that might eat you, it's quite a helpful thing that your brain reminds you not to walk in that direction without listening out for noise or something else. But the modern work environment isn't like a bear that can chase us. There's nothing that this person can do at 2am when you're lying awake in your bed at night trying to sleep. And so what I often suggest is to think about a way of filling your leisure time, your weekends and your holidays and time off with those kind of things that restore the deficit that you're in. Like, what is the particular stress that you've had? Maybe it's watching your mouth and being really careful. Maybe hanging out with a friend that you can just completely speak your mind and swear and tell those off color kind of jokes or whatever it is would be something that's really helpful for you. If you've been hanging out with too many people. Maybe just going into your little cave on the weekend is something that's going to be helpful. But beware of getting into those negative spirals where all you do is ruminate about the conflict about the things that the other people have done and you're worrying about, like, what's the way that I'm being perceived? What's the way that the other person is interpreting my communication. You need to be a little bit careful about the cumulative buildup of stress, things that you might normally be able to just take in your stride. It's possible that you'll be a little bit more prone to feel overwhelmed or a little bit more prone to overreact when someone does something that provokes you. And we need to be particularly careful having interactions when we're already escalated. So with that meeting with the HR director and your boss that's coming up next week, I would block out some time in my calendar if possible, like 15 minutes beforehand, just to do some breathing and have something to eat and go to the toilet and just stretch or do whatever I need to do to relax and lower that level of stress so I don't walk in there completely tense and pent up like a spring. And then the first thing that happens is I say this whole situation's ridiculous and demonstrate anger. Or I laugh and mock the people who have made a complaint, which unfortunately might mean that the HR director thinks that I'm not taking it seriously so they up the ante or whatever. Like we're much more prone to overreact or to react in a more negative way the more worked up that we get. So be particularly careful about that in the formal things like the manager meeting coming up next week, but also in the informal Interactions as well, in the lunchroom, those type of scenarios. Now, I've done a few workplace mediations where this topic of inappropriate comments has come up. Sometimes they're related to the actual work, like the way that a person describes a client. But a lot of the time it's just something else, like they've seen on the news, or they're talking about the immigration policy in Australia or this particular suburb that has social problems like crime or something escalating in the city that they're in. So it's nothing to do with your work role. It's this side kind of conversation. And nevertheless a formal complaint gets submitted. It's like people have decided that it's their job to make sure everybody else is ethical. And it never occurs to them that they are using their subjective definition of ethics in all of this. Like whether or not a comment is appropriate or not. It's not really a factual conversation that can be had, but that's the way that people often approach it. So for me, when I think about workplace conflict, I usually talk about the five big categories, the five main drivers for conflict. Data conflict. That's disagreements about the facts, etc. Interest conflict. That's what I want versus what you want. Structural conflict. It might be the way that the interactions happen. Who's there? Was there a more formal structure for this or was it an informal side conversation or something else? So we've got data, interest and structure. The last two, though, are relationship and value. And I think one of the mistakes that people make when they're dealing with accusations of racism or sexism or ageism or something else, is that they think that it's data conflict. They think that there's crossed wires or a disagreement about the facts. And when there's a formal investigation done, for example, a lot of the time they're trying to quantify these qualitative aspects of the conflict. So they start with an investigation in factual things, like, did you say this or didn't you say this? Who was around? What did the person actually say? And it's like they're trying to reassemble the facts of what happened. But the missing piece here is if the person did say that, which line did they cross? Like for something to become racism, where's the threshold? And that would be about any comment. But you have to also weigh it up in terms of the context that it's in. Was the person who's being spoken about right there? Did they have some kind of a reaction, like feeling insulted or like, what's their perspective on the comment that was made, what was the intention of this conversation? What are the generally socially accepted guidelines to this type of thing? They often start with this very quantitative kind of analysis, like what was said. Did you say this or not? But then it often shifts to a qualitative aspect, like your intention. Oh, they didn't mean anything by it. Tick. I can just drop this investigation then. Or they didn't show any remorse. Tick. This is the next step that we need to take. But they're. They're qualitative things, what your intention is at any one moment. Like, we're not fully in control of our behavior ever. So saying, did you mean to do that or was it accidental? It's not a binary question. There's so many complex factors that go into what you do at any one moment, and it's opaque. We're not aware of it. A lot of the values that we hold or the motivations that we have, or the whims and the urges, they happen behind the scenes. We just do it. Like, I don't think rationally about going down and getting a chocolate bar out of my fridge. Sometimes my body just does it. And the same certainly is true about these negative comments. When you're provoked and you snap back at someone. Did you mean to say that? Did you mean for that to come across that way? I think almost always we could say no, at least I fully didn't intend that. And if we understand how communication works in terms of a didactic process, it's me and you. I can send a message, I can say something or have this facial expression or whatever, but it's in the eye of the perceiver. It's up to you how you take that. So did I intend for that to happen? The missing piece here is, did you intend to perceive it that way? Like, could you give me the benefit of the doubt? Is there any other information that you've got from all of the many, many, many hours that we've spent working together that I'm a racist? Is it just this single comment that's been made or what's going on here? So we've got this muddled mess a lot of the time of quantitative and qualitative aspects that go into the conflict. And that main mistake that people make of thinking that it's data conflict often leads them in this direction, in my opinion, what's actually happening here. And in similar situations, it's a combination of value conflict and relationship conflict. Now, in the scenario, the person said that they received a lecture for, like, 10 minutes and then the next day they got an email saying that they needed to have a formal meeting. So they're assuming in the scenario that the problem was the original comment that they made. But I suspect, looking at the scenario and what they've written, that the problem is actually in the 10 minutes afterwards when they were getting a lecture, how did they respond? What were they saying during that time? What did the person say specifically about why they were upset about it or which scenarios this would be okay or not okay, etc. There's a big missing piece of the puzzle here, isn't there, in that 10 minutes between the making of the original comment until the end. And it's possible that the staff members were actually quite insulted about the way that he responded to them giving feedback, or it might be that they were upset about something that he did the day before. And this was a little bit of. What would you call it, like almost a metaphorical revenge or something else. They were wanting to put him in his place to some extent. The relationship layer here is very important. It's how are we rubbing each other the wrong way? What's going on in terms of these very subtle power dynamics and the shifts that can happen between this. Where are we insecure? What is that person worried about? Maybe they had one of their team members standing next to them and they'd talked about racism recently in a team meeting or something. So this person, as the team leader, felt like they needed to demonstrate this for their colleague to see. We've got no idea about all of this stuff, but that's what I think about as relationship conflict. Now we can solve this kind of puzzle. A lot of the time it's the opposite of what caused it. So if we've been spending too much time with these people going out and having coffees and having lunch, maybe just sticking things to more of a formal arrangement would work moving forward. If we've been spending a lot of time together, maybe I go for a walk in my lunch break instead of sitting there and annoying them, and that cumulative build up happens by the end of the afternoon. Or maybe we never see each other. I don't know you at all from a bar of soap, so I might say I'd love to take you out for lunch next week if there happened to be a good day for you. There's a really nice cafe up the road. What do you think? I've done that myself when I've had relationship conflict with people that I worked with. For me, it's often people in other departments like the HR team or the marketing team or something, not doing what I think they should. You know, I'm not necessarily claiming that I'm right, but I'm certainly a bit of a know it all that thinks that I know what they should be doing. And I suspect that the way that I've made requests has come across as overly pushy or judgmental or critical or something else. So I've literally taken people out to the cafe up the road and said, can I buy you lunch? And then just said to them how you're traveling, how things going within your team lately. I'm sorry if my communication might have come across as a bit pushy or I seem a bit self focused. I am of course dealing with a lot of change or I'm a new manager or I've got this new program I'm taking on or something else. So I sort of normalize it in the sense that I'm dealing with a difficult context. And I certainly don't mean to tell you what to do. I certainly don't mean to come across as criticizing the decisions that you've made. We've got this need and it sounds like you've got particular constraints that you're working with, so fair enough. So I think that often is quite helpful then for me, you know, either building more rapport and getting more collaborative or standing my ground and becoming a little bit more competing or directive of saying this just can't continue. I'm not saying you've caused it, but this situation is untenable. It's not something that's negotiable. We need this and this and this moving forward. Let's think about some options that can work. But if I've taken them out for lunch the month before or something and said, look, it seems like this is a really challenging situation, what do you make of it all? It's less likely that that would be perceived as a personal attack, if that makes sense. So we could deal with the relationship conflict here. In this same situation, maybe the person would say, could I grab a coffee together? Look, it sounds like that has really sat with you and struck a chord. For whatever reason, it certainly wasn't my intention for that comment to come across as racist, but for whatever reason, that's the way that it was perceived and fair enough. I was just wondering if maybe we could have a chat about it. What's still sitting there for you? What about was it that was so upsetting and what do you need to see from me for this situation to move forward? For me, I Like that phrasing, it's like, what are you prepared to do? And what, what can I do? What can I say? What do you need to see me doing differently moving forward for you to consider this issue to be resolved or for you to consider this, this relationship to be improving, for things to be going in the right direction, Like, I'm asking them to quantify it. What do you want me to do? You know, like, I've said that I'm sorry, but obviously you're still upset about it. So what would it take for things to begin to move in the right direction? I like that very tentative way of phrasing it. And it's a metaphorical framing instead of like for you to begin to say hello to me in the mornings again or whatever. The thing is that they're doing that's, you know, the way that that's manifesting. So that's the relationship layer. But I think at the heart of this one is value conflict. And people don't often realize that they're in a conflict about values, but they are. The obvious question here is what is and isn't racism? Was that comment like saying the tall black guy racist? And where's the line? Where's the threshold? Would saying the tall white guy be just as problematic, so to speak? Is that racist or isn't it racist? Is saying the tall old guy, you know, equally problematic? Is that ageist or not ageist? Is the guy with glasses, you know, ableist or something like that? It's like, where are the lines here? And the challenge is that if you say to someone you don't even know what racism is, they just get defensive and say, you're just being defensive or no need to be a prick or whatever. The thing is that they say in response, people don't realize that they don't have a very clear definition of racism. I was talking to my wife about a similar topic a week ago or so and. And I was saying my neighbor had mentioned this and this and this. He was talking about some of the quality of the Chinese car brands that are coming into Australia. And he gave a few examples that he'd seen of people having one catch fire or something else. And he feels like Japanese cars are much more reliable. I said to my wife, this was his view. You know, we were talking about this the other day because I can't remember, we saw a new Chinese car come past or something, and she said, ah, something like that. Sounds a bit racist or something. Now in that moment, I do not see it as my job to put her on the spot to come up with a definition of what that is. In that moment, I just decided to let it go. But this is what we're talking about. How could a comment like China's cars are inferior to Japan's cars be racist? Like, they're both Asian, aren't they? We don't know. This ultimately is a subjective definition and we all hold a slightly different meaning of that word, racist. But if you say to someone, you know, you're so dumb that you don't even understand what racism is and isn't, it doesn't usually work. What I like to do is to say, would the same comment if I said the tall white guy be equally negative in your mind? Okay, it sounds like that comment was negative and it was perceived as even being potentially racist. Fair enough. Look, it's your right. You're entitled to have your opinion about what I might have intended from that comment. I'm not necessarily saying that you've perceived it wrong or you've made a mistake. So I can get clear on what we're talking about here. Could you just explain to me about what you mean by racist? I normally think about racism as treating people differently based on the colour of their skin, for example, or their racial background. Is that also what you consider to be racist, treating people differently? Or could comments themselves be racism? So you could say, could you please explain to me what you mean by racism? You could say, what was it about that particular comment that caused the issue for you? You could say to them, what was the issue? Are you worried that the other person might overhear it? Or would this be an equally negative comment regardless of the people that were there? Is it possible that I didn't intend to be racist, but for whatever reason you thought that it could be racist? It sounds like in your mind it triggered something and you were wondering whether or not that comment was appropriate or not. So we could ask them for their definition. We could use some examples to try to illustrate the fact that they don't have a clear boundary, like saying, would a tall white guy be a similarly problematic kind of comment? Or we could say to them, what is the issue from your perspective? What was the reason why this formal complaint needed to be made? What were you concerned might happen moving forward? Again, they don't know. They've never thought this through. They don't have a clear definition of racism in their head. They haven't approached the etymology of these words in any kind of a serious way. They probably don't have a coherent view about the world as a whole, like, where do we all come from? What is a person? Why do we have different races? What actually is racial difference? Is there any genetic foundation for that? For example, what's the correlation between somebody's race and other aspects like their behaviour? They haven't thought about any of these things. But ultimately, whether or not something is racist, you probably do need to consider at least a few of these different facts. But they haven't. So without putting them on the spot, there might be an opportunity to say, could you help me understand where you're coming from? Could you expand a little bit on what you mean by that? And would you mind talking about why that was a particular issue? And what would you like to see from me different moving forward? Is there anything that you're looking for me to say or do right now, like an apology, for example, or is it more about flagging the issues so that it doesn't continue next time? Now, they don't know. This is all very vague and you need to tread a little bit carefully. But what we're actually doing is leading them along the path of realising that they're being silly, that they're overreacting, that actually there's nothing that they want from us moving forward. And they hadn't seen any other comments that we've made until then. So probably in hindsight, they might have been overreacting by making these comments. But even if they do say I was wrong or realised that they were wrong, you don't want to drive it home too hard. I think. Just saying. Look, I really appreciate that it takes a big person to admit that maybe they weren't seeing the situation in a nuanced way originally. It probably came across very black and white. And the fact that we've been able to sit down and have some of this discussion, I've really appreciated that. So thank you. So instead of saying, I told you so and I always knew you were wrong and, well, you are such a jerk to have made this complaint anyway, assuming that you can get them to drop it and realize that actually there's no issue here, I think probably trying to be the bigger person would be ideal. Just still be respectful. And that goes across the board for all of these discussions. It's very. What would the word be? Triggering or something when someone accuses you of being a racist, especially if you're not, it's hurtful. So a lot of people feel quite offended and affronted by that, but it's concerning. We don't want the reputation to spread that we're a racist. This would be a massive career limitation if that was a concern that the HR team or senior management had about somebody. So it's not a small thing to accuse them of being a racist. So you might get quite distressed about it or the other very common reaction, of course, is anger. We raise our voice, we talk over the top of someone. So even though we're going to stand our ground and not, I don't think you should make an apology if you didn't necessarily say anything wrong. We're going to stand our ground in terms of the issue itself, but we want to do it in a way that seems dignified. Prepare to maintain your composure. Keep that low, steady tone, slower speed and lower volume, regardless of whether or not the other person becomes hysterical and gets upset about it or not, regardless of the stupidity of this particular claim. And the fact that there's a complaint that's been submitted at all is vindictive and nasty and you're upset about them, or it's a complete waste of time and you're amused. Take it seriously, but do your best to remain composed throughout and circling back to the beginning where needed. Look for self regulation tools before these kind of meetings and before these interactions. And after these kind of meetings and interactions, your nervous system is going to be fried. You're not going to be thinking very clearly, so don't make any important decisions in that afternoon. Try to avoid having really important meetings with clients or other stakeholders. Like give yourself a little bit of time to reset and then think about what you need to restore that particular type of energy that's been depleted, so to speak. And so then hopefully your evenings and your weekends can be a way of clambering back to baseline as opposed to continuing to drift down that negative spiral, which unfortunately is often the way that this type of workplace conflict affects the people that are involved. Some of them even talk about the ways that they've been almost like self medicating, I guess, like just trying to compete with that gradual buildup of stress and grasping for any sleep and any sense of relaxation that they're able to get. But unfortunately it just adds to that cumulative buildup of the stressful factors that they're dealing with. So think about what's going to be a helpful and healthy option for you. And then using structure would be more helpful than self control to try and put it in place. Take the beer out of the fridge so there's not one there that you can quickly grab. Pack your gym bag the night before so that it's ready in the morning so that you're not rushing around the house and you decide not to worry about it today. Use structure for these self care routines and steps and is going to be much more helpful because the more stress that you get, the less that self regulation self control bucket is full. So we can't rely on that when we're dealing with these kind of workplace conflict issues. But what do you think? Have you dealt with a situation where you've been accused of something at work and it wasn't your intention, but the other person had almost invented this possible offense that they were taking? And how did you deal with it? What kind of steps did you find helpful for preparing for those kind of meetings? And what did you do in terms of the self care and self regulation piece? I'd love to hear from you. If you'd like to get in touch. The best way is by email. You can email podcastimongood.com I'd love to know what you like about the podcast, what resonates with you, what you'd like for future episodes, etc. And if you're living listening on Spotify or one of those platforms where you can leave a comment, I'd be very grateful if you just write a comment like hi or something like that. Just a cue to the algorithm that people are actually watching and engaged and it's a little bit of a signal that other people might find this kind of thing helpful too. But thank you very much for listening. Hopefully see you again in a future episode. But until that, all the best. Bye for now.