So next is workplace discrimination, which is another topic that's unfortunate, but I love to, I love to talk about it because I don't think that we realize how much this actually comes up in the workplace and for, you know, for individuals.

So African Americans are six time more likely than our white counterparts to report workplace discrimination.

So this is actually something that we see a lot of at my practice at Hall Counseling Services. We have a lot of black folk that come in and they feel that they have been discriminated against, but they have no idea how to fight it.

They're not really sure what to do about it, but they come in and they can explain and express how it's made them feel, right. And so one of the things that we teach, which actually is not, it's not necessarily therapeutic, but I am also an advocate.

I'm going to educate anytime, you know, I have the opportunity to I usually teach people what to document like the so the first thing that people need to know is when you feel like you're being discriminated against at work because of your race or for any reason, but for the purposes of this, this session race, you need to make sure you're documenting all of those incidents, right, because it needs to be very clear.

You know, if I have a client who comes in and they have filed a complaint against the EEOC and, you know, essentially claiming that their job or their manager supervisor, someone in the workplace has discriminated against them.

You, you may, it may be true and usually it is, but you have to be able to prove it or nothing comes of it, right. You're not going to get compensated. You're not going to get any money. No one's going to apologize.

And so when you, you know, one example that is a really clear cut example is when there's a meeting and you feel like you have a supervisor who really doesn't like you and they will just simply not send you the invite for the meeting.

And you realize later that your entire team has gone to this meeting and you weren't included in it. It's very intentional, especially if you're the only black person on the team. And so that, that is one of the more like clear ways that we see workplace discrimination, but there are some other more subtle things, i.e.

you know, my or eG micro aggressions that happen that are a little bit harder to prove, but those things also need to be documented because the more the higher the frequency of these even micro aggressions, the unseen things that happen to us racially.

The stronger the case, right. So the better off we are when we're trying to follow complain against our job. So it's interesting because we have people reach out all the time and they're like, hey, we heard you guys work on, you know, workplace discrimination might help me.

So we're definitely there for that. So finally, just to, you know, kind of highlight micro aggressions, the number of African Americans who report racial trauma via micro aggressions is equal to the Canadian population, which is 37 million people.

Right. So we're talking, we're talking about 90% of the African American population here in this country, which is absolutely horrendous. So, you know, it's something that most of us experience, you know, I, it's interesting because I think that when when black people see one another, I have people tell me this often and I experienced it too.

Sometimes we have a understanding without even saying anything to one another. And sometimes we're bonded in these traumas that we have, right. It's like we, we get it, you know, we know when someone has maybe treated us differently because we are black when we're, you know, in a room or at the store and someone is following you simply because you're black, that type thing.

We know it, you know, it's just something that we definitely experience way too much. So I think everybody knows what a micro aggression is, but just in case micro racial micro aggressions are subtle.

Sometimes intentional or unintentional assaults insults and validations that denigrate or degrade a minority person due to race, right. So I think that's a pretty clear definition there. And even though sometimes they're unintentional or, you know, it seems like they might be more challenging to prove if you are experiencing this in the workplace.

And I always tell people the only way you can change something is to fight it. Right. So I really love this quote that I have here. It says nothing, not excuse me, not everything that is face can be changed, but nothing that can be nothing can be changed until it's faced, going to read that over again.

And everything that is face can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced, right. So we can't do anything about a situation unless we actually fight it, right. And we have this misperception, misconception, both of those sometimes that if you can't see a problem, you can't solve it.

And then you can't see that. And then you can't see the question, oftentimes you can't see them. But again, if you're documenting, if you have appropriate examples, it certainly helped to make your point to make your case to other people around you.

So something that we need to know is that many trauma survivors hold their breath in their bodies tightly, bracing themselves for whatever is coming next. So this is the hyper vigilance that Robert Carter measures on the RBT triple S skill.

And it's something that we experience all the time due to these microaggressions that we're, that are kind of imposed on a son of regular basis.

And then lastly, it's important to know that there's a clear link between experiences of racial microaggressions and negative mental health outcomes. So no surprise there.

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