Casual racism in the workplace.

PhilM · April 8, 2015

The company that I work for is not ethnically diverse at all. In my office of about 60 people there is only one person who is not Caucasian. Recently I've taken on a new member of staff whose parents are of Middle Eastern heritage and basically I am struggling against the tide of covert, casual, and "accidental" racism that it seems to have brought out in my colleagues who seem to view him as some kind of strange novelty.

It ranges from people repeatedly pronouncing his name incorrectly even though it is only 6 letters long, all the way through to people making "jokes" about Muslims, making assumptions about his relationship with his girlfriend, his religious beliefs, when he talks in Arabic on the phone etc.

I don't think there's any real malice behind any of it, but talking to individuals about it doesn't seem to be rectifying the situation. None of it is to his face as far as I'm aware, so it's not impacting on his ability to be comfortable at work and do his job and I've made a point of privately dealing with each and every instance that I've witnessed, but it's getting draining. I'm also concerned that eventually someone will say something to him or he will overhear something and make him uncomfortable.

I don't see many other options besides carrying on doing what I'm doing or reporting each incident to HR, in which case they'd have open cases against 30 odd people.

So how would you handle it?

RBM · April 8, 2015

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