ACC NCR DEI Workshop: Understanding and Addressing Microaggressions

Presented by:

• Christopher Edmonds, President + Co-Founder, The CODE Group
• Chasity Boyce, Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer, Barings, and Co-Founder, Diverse Attorney Pipeline Program (DAPP)
• Henrique Canarim, Vice President, Senior Assistant General Counsel at Leidos, and co-lead of ACC NCR's LGBTQ+ Affinity Group
• Tina Rao, Assistant General Counsel – Contracts at National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, and co-lead of ACC NCR's AAPI Affinity Group
• Jessica Young, Assistant General Counsel, Immigration North America at Capgemini America, and co-chair of ACC NCR's DEI Advocates & Allies Subcommittee and co-lead of the AAPI Affinity Group

Microaggressions are commonplace daily verbal, behavioral or environmental slights, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative attitudes toward socially or culturally marginalized groups. Despite the prefix, microaggressions are not inconsequential. They matter because, in order to empower your colleagues and be an effective DEI ally, you must build relationships at the individual level. And, to do that, you need to be aware of the impact these messages are having on someone else, as they often indicate your unconscious biases and leave the other person feeling excluded and devalued. 

In this workshop, we will learn to identify microaggressions and recognize how they show up. Our panelists will discuss their experiences with these communications and incidents, how they have learned to react, and how they’ve learned to redirect the speaker and engaged their allies to be interrupters. We then will have small-group discussions in breakout rooms so that attendees may discuss their experiences, the tactics they have employed to address microaggressions, and what they heard in this session.

This program is presented by the DEI Leadership Development Subcommittee.