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There are a lot of immigrants at the Red Cross where I work, and for the most part, the Finnish people around us are not racist. (If you are, coming to work for the Red Cross at all strikes me as counterintuitive, especially in our store, which is obviously and explicitly fairly international. But evidently applying and sitting through the introductory presentations and signing the contract endorsing the Red Cross’s mission and principles is outweighed for some people by the benefit of working there. Maybe said presentations were sufficiently multisyllabic to avoid jostling them into cognitive dissonance in the majority of cases.)
A few weeks ago, I was shocked and dismayed when two coworkers started up some racist anti-refugee ranting loudly and clearly in the breakroom (not even anti-immigrant, anti-refugee: as well as angry and shocked you have to fight through the jaw-dropping irony! It’s like, "THIS IS THE LITERAL RED CROSS!!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?") (Choosing the breakroom put them in potential hearing of any one of our refugee employees - I think we have three right now, out of twenty-something staff). I jumped in and started contradicting their statements, after eventually reassembling the ability to make complete sentences (which is hard enough in English when I’m angry). There was some awkwardness on their part, and then they changed the subject, awkwardly.
Since then they both have acted pretty much normal, and for weeks I found myself, to my horror and confusion, responding automatically to them as to other coworkers, then walking away thinking, “Stop smiling at racists!” I don't WANT to smile at racists! But I was raised in Alabama, and my customer service persona comes with an automatic smile. Even weeks of self-castigation didn’t manage to get me to the point of the ritual “Good morning”s and “Thank you”s without a smile. I think I managed to successfully switch to the expressionless nod (and mumbled answer to verbal greeting) just a couple of days ago.
But now there's another problem! I have learned third-hand that our new cleaner has been racistly rude to a gentle, kind, warm, polite, helpful, generally ray-of-sunshine immigrant coworker. I haven't witnessed this personally, though, and she's only been perfectly pleasant to me, so I can't help feeling that while it might be morally correct to shun her to the extent permitted by professional interaction, the cause wouldn't be understood. I suppose it doesn't necessarily have to be, though; a mean racist is also basically undeserving of the spoons we spend on social performance, as well as of social civility from other people in general, even if shunning cannot fulfill its social function of enacting the norms of social acceptability.
I still wish I could get the racist yellers in trouble, but I couldn't quite see making a complaint to the boss about it. And I forgot to bring the subject up on Monday when I saw my psychologist.
A few weeks ago, I was shocked and dismayed when two coworkers started up some racist anti-refugee ranting loudly and clearly in the breakroom (not even anti-immigrant, anti-refugee: as well as angry and shocked you have to fight through the jaw-dropping irony! It’s like, "THIS IS THE LITERAL RED CROSS!!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?") (Choosing the breakroom put them in potential hearing of any one of our refugee employees - I think we have three right now, out of twenty-something staff). I jumped in and started contradicting their statements, after eventually reassembling the ability to make complete sentences (which is hard enough in English when I’m angry). There was some awkwardness on their part, and then they changed the subject, awkwardly.
Since then they both have acted pretty much normal, and for weeks I found myself, to my horror and confusion, responding automatically to them as to other coworkers, then walking away thinking, “Stop smiling at racists!” I don't WANT to smile at racists! But I was raised in Alabama, and my customer service persona comes with an automatic smile. Even weeks of self-castigation didn’t manage to get me to the point of the ritual “Good morning”s and “Thank you”s without a smile. I think I managed to successfully switch to the expressionless nod (and mumbled answer to verbal greeting) just a couple of days ago.
But now there's another problem! I have learned third-hand that our new cleaner has been racistly rude to a gentle, kind, warm, polite, helpful, generally ray-of-sunshine immigrant coworker. I haven't witnessed this personally, though, and she's only been perfectly pleasant to me, so I can't help feeling that while it might be morally correct to shun her to the extent permitted by professional interaction, the cause wouldn't be understood. I suppose it doesn't necessarily have to be, though; a mean racist is also basically undeserving of the spoons we spend on social performance, as well as of social civility from other people in general, even if shunning cannot fulfill its social function of enacting the norms of social acceptability.
I still wish I could get the racist yellers in trouble, but I couldn't quite see making a complaint to the boss about it. And I forgot to bring the subject up on Monday when I saw my psychologist.
