Navigating racial micro-aggressions in the workplace can be extremely difficult when you're the only one experiencing them, and people are easily able to gaslight your very real experience. This difficulty increases when you try to gently correct people, and they don't change their behavior.

In a recent post on the subreddit Am I The Asshole, a black woman opened up about the racial micro-aggressions she's been facing in her white office, and her temptation to give her coworkers a taste of their own medicine.

Her name is "Tina," a simple and familiar name to many, and yet her coworkers have consistently traded her named for other names: Tia, Tiana, etc, occasionally even calling her "Mary," the name of an older black woman who no longer works at the office. Since OP has patiently corrected the name issue many times to no avail, she's now considering calling her coworkers random "white" names in order to hammer in just how disrespectful the behavior is.

"WIBTA if I started calling my white coworkers by random 'white' names?"

"I moved from Georgia to the Pacific Northwest last year for a dream job after I graduated college. It was a little bit of a culture shock, because I went from being one of many black people around at any given time to often being the only non-white person in a room, let alone black person. There hasn't been a lot of overt racism, but there's been a lot of strange borderline situations that are amusing and race-related but not necessarily racist. For example, every white woman I meet mentions Beyonce to me within the first five minutes. When I was sitting for my driver's license photo the woman taking my picture opened with, 'So... Beyonce.'"

"So the problem in the post title is that I am the only black woman at my office, and I am constantly, constantly being called the wrong name at work, and I'm coming up on my one-year anniversary. My name is Tina, short for Christina. Pronounced just like it looks, very easy name. For some reason, a handful of people at work call me Tiana, Tiara, or Tia, I think assuming that my name has to be more 'black sounding' than it is."

"I am most often called Tiana, especially by one of the guys on our development team and by the 'big boss' for another team, which I think then confuses their team members back into calling me the wrong name again. The other thing is that apparently another black woman (elderly, not in the same position I'm in) used to work there and I get called her name (Mary) sometimes too. Sometimes people will look at my name plate and ask me, "How do you pronounce that?" It's Tina!"

Even over email, where people can see her real name clearly written out, the coworkers persist in calling her other random "black" names.

"I have tried politely correcting this and I correct it immediately every time. From polite, "Just for the record, my name is Tina!" to lighthearted, "Tina, like Tina Belcher!" In e-mails from me that say Tina in a million places, including my e-mail address, I still get, "Thanks Tiana!" Sooo... I'm considering doing the Twitter approach, where I just respond to coworkers who call me the wrong name with the wrong name. Like:"

"Chuck: Thanks, Tiana

Tina: No problem, Chad!"

"Jessica: Hi Tiara!

Tina: Good morning, Jennifer!

Would I be the asshole if I did this? I know it's passive aggressive, but every form of polite correction hasn't worked, and I feel really disrespected by this, so I may as well have some fun with it."

"EDIT: I am pretty overwhelmed by the responses so I just want to add a couple of things:

A lot of people have suggested that I gently and firmly remind people of my name. That's what I've been doing, and was my first line of defense! A lot of people have suggested I go to HR. This is the kind of nebulous thing HR doesn't really help with, and it isn't as serious as it could be."

"A lot of people who identify themselves as white have informed me that this isn't race-related. It is. I have been black for 25 years, and I have a lot of firsthand experience with racism, and I can identify it in my own life. It isn't overt racism, like a slur or an assault, but it is still race-related. I feel like a few people are ALMOST getting it. A lot of people are referencing that Key and Peele sketch with the substitute teacher, which is literally a joke about how white people do this to black people, turned on its head!"

"And finally, a few people have asked why I don't use Tina Turner as an example, since she's also a black Tina. First, I thought young-ish white people would be more familiar with Tina Belcher, but I used 'Tina Turner' as an example for our Dean and he then 'affectionately' nicknamed me Tina Turner, which took deprogramming from his EA to get over."

When she asked the internet if she would be a jerk for calling her coworkers by random white names, the opinions came flooding.

yung_bakunin fully supports Tina's decision to give the coworkers a taste of their own medicine, but clarified that non-guilty coworkers shouldn't be targeted.

"I love it but i think it has to be mad specific, like if it’s someone who has indeed called you by the wrong name, especially consistently, then NTA, but if you just do it generally to everybody then yta.

Doesn’t make it not funny though."

prplehailstorm thinks it'll quickly resolve the issue.

"NTA. It might not be the most professional but neither is those people not bothering to learn your name."

Mr_Mike_ has an even more straight-forward approach.

"If it was me I would get one of those stickers that has a big space after "hello my name is:" and just write in bold and caps TINA. Then whenever someone fucks up my name just point at it until they get it right."

implodemode is afraid the coworkers will be too dense to get it.

"NTA but I am not sure they'd get the joke. You know them better than I do.

I would get a name badge with TINA on it with the pronunciation spelling in brackets beneath it or maybe (Teena). And a happy face and a flower on it so they know it is good natured not bitchy."

"NTA.

I work at a very racially diverse company, and I have one boss who will do exactly what your coworkers are doing (not to me, I’m white and have a basic white girl name)."

rs5448 thinks Tina should go for it, AND suggested visiting HR and seeing if a white coworker will help out with the situation.

"It drives ME nuts and I’m not even the one it’s happening to - you can only correct people so many times in an entire year before it’s borderline ridiculous."

"I’d just be careful how often/what names you choose in case someone gets all upset about it - also, I know in most places HR doesn’t do shit, but if you feel like they could be a resource to you, maybe go to them about this (only if you feel like anything would actually come of it though, every place is different and in my own company I’d feel comfortable doing that)"

"Editing this to add - is there anyone at your company that could potentially also be an ally for you and call people out? The boss I mentioned above continued to call someone by the wrong name until one day after he left her desk I stopped him and said “hey, her name is actually X”. And he looked shocked that I said something & now calls her by the right name (like that was so hard, right?)"

ClothDiaperAddicts has an example of this same tactic working.

"One of my friends is a lawyer. She is also black. As she likes to say, though, she’s not just black. She’s blackity black. Her name is not hard; it’s pronounced exactly like it looks. When some of her white co-workers started pulling those shenanigans, she did exactly that: continuously call them by the wrong name until they got hers right."

"It took like two days. They no longer get her name wrong at the office."

By and large, it's safe to say the internet was in favor of Tina giving her coworkers a taste of their own medicine. Now, we can only hope she posts updates of the results.

Black employee in white office asks if she's a d*ck for adopting her co-workers' low-key racist behavior.