HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself and Your Career 6-Volume Collection

When and How to Respond to Microaggressions

by Ella F. Washington, Alison Hall Birch, and Laura Morgan Roberts

IN U.S. WORKPLACES—and around the world—people are engaging in real conversations about race, justice, diversity, equality, and inclusion, inspired by the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and widespread protests against unchecked brutalization of communities of color at the hands of the police. That’s a good thing, hopefully paving the way for meaningful antiracist action from both individuals and organizations. But those discussions will be very uncomfortable, as they almost always are—not just for white employees and leaders who might be confronting their privilege for the first time but also for people of color, especially ...