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<p>Navigating racial micro-aggressions in the workplace can be extremely difficult when you&#39;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&#39;t change their behavior.</p><h2>In a recent post on the <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/c03hb1/wibta_if_i_started_calling_my_white_coworkers_by/" target="_blank">subreddit Am I The Asshole</a>, a black woman opened up about the racial micro-aggressions she&#39;s been facing in her white office, and her temptation to give her coworkers a taste of their own medicine.</h2><p>Her name is &quot;Tina,&quot; 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 &quot;Mary,&quot; 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&#39;s now considering calling her coworkers random &quot;white&quot; names in order to hammer in just how disrespectful the behavior is.</p><blockquote> <p>&quot;WIBTA if I started calling my white coworkers by random &#39;white&#39; names?&quot; </p> </blockquote><p> </p><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>&quot;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&#39;t been a lot of overt racism, but there&#39;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&#39;s license photo the woman taking my picture opened with, &#39;So... Beyonce.&#39;&quot;</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>&quot;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&#39;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 &#39;black sounding&#39; than it is.&quot;</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>&quot;I am most often called Tiana, especially by one of the guys on our development team and by the &#39;big boss&#39; 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&#39;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, &quot;How do you pronounce that?&quot; It&#39;s Tina!&quot;</p> </blockquote><h2>Even over email, where people can see her real name clearly written out, the coworkers persist in calling her other random &quot;black&quot; names.</h2><blockquote> <p>&quot;I have tried politely correcting this and I correct it immediately every time. From polite, &quot;Just for the record, my name is Tina!&quot; to lighthearted, &quot;Tina, like Tina Belcher!&quot; In e-mails from me that say Tina in a million places, including my e-mail address, I still get, &quot;Thanks Tiana!&quot; Sooo... I&#39;m considering doing the Twitter approach, where I just respond to coworkers who call me the wrong name with the wrong name. Like:&quot;</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p> </p><blockquote> <p>&quot;Chuck: Thanks, Tiana</p> <p>Tina: No problem, Chad!&quot;</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>&quot;Jessica: Hi Tiara!</p> <p>Tina: Good morning, Jennifer!</p> <p>Would I be the asshole if I did this? I know it&#39;s passive aggressive, but every form of polite correction hasn&#39;t worked, and I feel really disrespected by this, so I may as well have some fun with it.&quot;</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>&quot;EDIT: I am pretty overwhelmed by the responses so I just want to add a couple of things:</p> <p>A lot of people have suggested that I gently and firmly remind people of my name. That&#39;s what I&#39;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&#39;t really help with, and it isn&#39;t as serious as it could be.&quot;</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>&quot;A lot of people who identify themselves as white have informed me that this isn&#39;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&#39;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!&quot;</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>&quot;And finally, a few people have asked why I don&#39;t use Tina Turner as an example, since she&#39;s also a black Tina. First, I thought young-ish white people would be more familiar with Tina Belcher, but I used &#39;Tina Turner&#39; as an example for our Dean and he then &#39;affectionately&#39; nicknamed me Tina Turner, which took deprogramming from his EA to get over.&quot;</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>When she asked the internet if she would be a jerk for calling her coworkers by random white names, the opinions came flooding.</h2><h2><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/yung_bakunin/">yung_bakunin</a> fully supports Tina&#39;s decision to give the coworkers a taste of their own medicine, but clarified that non-guilty coworkers shouldn&#39;t be targeted.</h2><blockquote> <p>&quot;I love it but i think it has to be mad specific, like if it&rsquo;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.</p> <p>Doesn&rsquo;t make it not funny though.&quot;</p> </blockquote><h2><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/prplehailstorm/">prplehailstorm</a> thinks it&#39;ll quickly resolve the issue.</h2><blockquote> <p>&quot;NTA. It might not be the most professional but neither is those people not bothering to learn your name.&quot;</p> </blockquote><h2><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Mr_Mike_/">Mr_Mike_</a> has an even more straight-forward approach.</h2><blockquote> <p>&quot;If it was me I would get one of those stickers that has a big space after &quot;hello my name is:&quot; and just write in bold and caps TINA. Then whenever someone fucks up my name just point at it until they get it right.&quot;</p> </blockquote><h2><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/implodemode/">implodemode</a> is afraid the coworkers will be too dense to get it.</h2><blockquote> <p>&quot;NTA but I am not sure they&#39;d get the joke. You know them better than I do.</p> <p>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.&quot;</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>&quot;NTA.</p> <p>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&rsquo;m white and have a basic white girl name).&quot;</p> </blockquote><h2><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/rs5448/">rs5448</a> thinks Tina should go for it, AND suggested visiting HR and seeing if a white coworker will help out with the situation.</h2><blockquote> <p>&quot;It drives ME nuts and I&rsquo;m not even the one it&rsquo;s happening to - you can only correct people so many times in an entire year before it&rsquo;s borderline ridiculous.&quot;</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>&quot;I&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;d feel comfortable doing that)&quot;</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>&quot;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 &ldquo;hey, her name is actually X&rdquo;. And he looked shocked that I said something &amp; now calls her by the right name (like that was so hard, right?)&quot;</p> </blockquote><h2><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/ClothDiaperAddicts/">ClothDiaperAddicts</a> has an example of this same tactic working.</h2><blockquote> <p>&quot;One of my friends is a lawyer. She is also black. As she likes to say, though, she&rsquo;s not just black. She&rsquo;s blackity black. Her name is not hard; it&rsquo;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.&quot;</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>&quot;It took like two days. They no longer get her name wrong at the office.&quot;</p> </blockquote><p>By and large, it&#39;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.</p><div className="ad-splitter"></div>

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

Navigating racial micro-aggressions in the workplace can be extremely difficult when you&#39;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&#39;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&#39;s been facing in her white office, and her temptation to give her coworkers a taste of their own medicine.Her name is &quot;Tina,&quot; 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 &quot;Mary,&quot; 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&#39;s now considering calling her coworkers random &quot;white&quot; names in order to hammer in just how disrespectful the behavior is. &quot;WIBTA if I started calling my white coworkers by random &#39;white&#39; names?&quot;    &quot;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&#39;t been a lot of overt racism, but there&#39;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&#39;s license photo the woman taking my picture opened with, &#39;So... Beyonce.&#39;&quot;  &quot;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&#39;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 &#39;black sounding&#39; than it is.&quot;  &quot;I am most often called Tiana, especially by one of the guys on our development team and by the &#39;big boss&#39; 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&#39;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, &quot;How do you pronounce that?&quot; It&#39;s Tina!&quot; Even over email, where people can see her real name clearly written out, the coworkers persist in calling her other random &quot;black&quot; names. &quot;I have tried politely correcting this and I correct it immediately every time. From polite, &quot;Just for the record, my name is Tina!&quot; to lighthearted, &quot;Tina, like Tina Belcher!&quot; In e-mails from me that say Tina in a million places, including my e-mail address, I still get, &quot;Thanks Tiana!&quot; Sooo... I&#39;m considering doing the Twitter approach, where I just respond to coworkers who call me the wrong name with the wrong name. Like:&quot;   &quot;Chuck: Thanks, Tiana Tina: No problem, Chad!&quot;  &quot;Jessica: Hi Tiara! Tina: Good morning, Jennifer! Would I be the asshole if I did this? I know it&#39;s passive aggressive, but every form of polite correction hasn&#39;t worked, and I feel really disrespected by this, so I may as well have some fun with it.&quot;  &quot;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&#39;s what I&#39;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&#39;t really help with, and it isn&#39;t as serious as it could be.&quot;  &quot;A lot of people who identify themselves as white have informed me that this isn&#39;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&#39;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!&quot;  &quot;And finally, a few people have asked why I don&#39;t use Tina Turner as an example, since she&#39;s also a black Tina. First, I thought young-ish white people would be more familiar with Tina Belcher, but I used &#39;Tina Turner&#39; as an example for our Dean and he then &#39;affectionately&#39; nicknamed me Tina Turner, which took deprogramming from his EA to get over.&quot; 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&#39;s decision to give the coworkers a taste of their own medicine, but clarified that non-guilty coworkers shouldn&#39;t be targeted. &quot;I love it but i think it has to be mad specific, like if it&rsquo;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&rsquo;t make it not funny though.&quot; prplehailstorm thinks it&#39;ll quickly resolve the issue. &quot;NTA. It might not be the most professional but neither is those people not bothering to learn your name.&quot; Mr_Mike_ has an even more straight-forward approach. &quot;If it was me I would get one of those stickers that has a big space after &quot;hello my name is:&quot; and just write in bold and caps TINA. Then whenever someone fucks up my name just point at it until they get it right.&quot; implodemode is afraid the coworkers will be too dense to get it. &quot;NTA but I am not sure they&#39;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.&quot;  &quot;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&rsquo;m white and have a basic white girl name).&quot; rs5448 thinks Tina should go for it, AND suggested visiting HR and seeing if a white coworker will help out with the situation. &quot;It drives ME nuts and I&rsquo;m not even the one it&rsquo;s happening to - you can only correct people so many times in an entire year before it&rsquo;s borderline ridiculous.&quot;  &quot;I&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;d feel comfortable doing that)&quot;  &quot;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 &ldquo;hey, her name is actually X&rdquo;. And he looked shocked that I said something &amp; now calls her by the right name (like that was so hard, right?)&quot; ClothDiaperAddicts has an example of this same tactic working. &quot;One of my friends is a lawyer. She is also black. As she likes to say, though, she&rsquo;s not just black. She&rsquo;s blackity black. Her name is not hard; it&rsquo;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.&quot;  &quot;It took like two days. They no longer get her name wrong at the office.&quot; By and large, it&#39;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.