Have you experienced racist jokes at work? Feeling frustrated and unsure of what to do next? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. It can be tough to navigate these situations, but remember, your voice matters.
### Racism in the Workplace: A Personal Experience
– A coworker made a cotton picking joke that made me, a black man, feel uncomfortable and offended.
– Another coworker referred to our Colombian colleague in a stereotypical and offensive way related to cartels.
– Both incidents were documented through screenshots and reported to HR.
– Despite this, it seems that no serious action will be taken against the offenders.
– To make matters worse, my manager is now giving me the silent treatment.
### What Should I Do Next?
– Should I start looking for a new job?
– How can I address this issue with my manager and HR?
– Are there legal repercussions for this type of behavior?
– How can I ensure a safe and respectful work environment moving forward?
Feeling alone or overwhelmed in situations like this is completely understandable, but remember, you have options and support. Let’s seek justice and equality together. Don’t stay silent, speak up and make a change! #WorkplaceRacism #ReportingRacism #HRSupport #EqualityInWorkplace #StandUpAgainstRacism
I’m sorry that happened. You did the right thing in reporting it.
Even though it might seem nothing happened, they could have received a written warning. Outcomes like that are kept confidential.
However, you could bring this up to HR, saying you feel that as a result of the investigation, your manager isn’t engaging with you at the moment.
We don’t typically advise complainant’s about the full results of an investigation. And most certainly not what disciplinary was taken, unless it was obvious like a termination or transfer.
Even a verbal warning is documented in writing. It may *appear* to you that nothing was done, but that may not be the case.
As far as your manager’s reaction, since you originated your complaint with HR, it might not be a bad idea to circle back with them. I would want to know if one of my managers was having this kind of response. 😕
They wouldn’t tell you actions taken however I totally get the frustration. A coworker took a photo of another coworker on Snapchat during a zoom call and was sending it to people that weren’t a part of that meeting making fun of her. It was sent to me and I reported it. He got promoted.
What was the cotton picking comment, and how was it racist?
My great great uncle picked cotton. I wonder if it would have offended me.
Work on your spelling. It’s Colombia
>I screenshotted it and wrote a report to HR. However, it doesn’t appear they’ll be getting written up or anything…just told not to do it again.
You need to set realistic expectations for whats going to happen when youn report something. Disciplinary records are private information. So you can’t reasonably expect your employer to tell you much more than that they will/have addressed the situation.
People come to me all the time to tattle tale on coworkers. About 10-25% of the time do people actually complain about anything actionable. When they do it is addressed – which may entail an informal discussion to a formal, written warning. I never tell the complainant the specifics because if I tell them *Yeah, this id actually their second warning about such behavior and hes been instructed any further situations like this will result in termination* I’ve now given you, the complainant, valuable intel that you may use to try and bait that person with to try and get them fired – which may result in that person claiming we created a hostile work enviroment and/or violated their privacy.
The first question I would ask you if you came to me with this is 1) Did you speak with the employees about this? And 2) Have you spoken with your manager about this?
If the answer to both of those is “no” without any compelling reason, Im probably going to be more likely be skeptical of your report.
The silent treatment after reporting employees for racist comments is considered retaliation. It’s a violations of labor laws in the US. File another complaint. If you don’t feel like your complaint is being managed effectively then look at your company’s org chart for the name of your HR rep’s manager or director and go to them with this.
Keep copies of any and all documentation in hardcopy and soft copy at home or on personal devices where it cannot simply disappear. Don’t tell people you’ve done that.
Well apparently you work with a lot of racists…and your HR is also enabling that shit. Just yucky
You can’t complain about racism and call Colombia, Columbia, my friend.
Tell those co-workers next time you hear a racist comment, you won’t be reporting to HR, but in a very menacing way.
Your is probably pissed you went straight to HR without reporting it to them first. If my direct report went to HR without telling me about what happened and then suddenly I get pulled into a meeting about what happened I would be surprised and wonder why I wasn’t informed. Managers are required to report issues to HR especially a racist incident.
So now it looks like you didn’t trust your manager enough to report this to them so they can take it to HR. This makes the manager look bad as now HR has thoughts that their team member doesn’t trust them enough to report the issue to them and the other team members don’t know how to act in a professional work environment. Manager now has 3 issues instead of 2.
Regardless that manager has no excuse for the silent treatment and clearly is showing they are not a good manager and retaliating. If they were good they would have met with you to talk through everything and make sure you are ok after the incident and reassure you that you could come to them for any issue and together you could report it to HR. My guess is you purposefully didn’t tell them because you already didn’t trust them to handle this incident properly.
I’d definitely be polishing my resume because clearly the place I work my manager sucks and doesn’t have my back after reporting a racist incident. They clearly are only thinking about how this impacts them and not you. They may plan to give you the cold shoulder and make your work environment more stressful….they have a million ways they can do this. Not approving time off. Assigning you work and deliverables that are vague and setting deadlines that are hard to meet to get you on a PIP then terminate you when you fail the a PIP.
Document everything on a personal device. Take pictures as they can’t track that. Don’t transfer anything to usb or send to a personal email address or a file share service like Dropbox. Companies these days can track when an employee does this and can have policies that if caught you can be terminated.
You can’t expect to see disciplinary action after reporting issues to HR and if they have no prior issues logged then it’s usually a “don’t do that shit ever again or we will terminate you” response and they just log the incident.
Find a job with a better work environment and always remember HR is not your friend. You definitely did right by reporting what happened. But HRs job is to protect the company from being sued and they only care about execs and keeping the business running while ensuring employees are following company policies. Good luck.