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The ethics of labels

Thursday 6 July, 2023
by Anonymous

crowd of people walking across a town square

You are new to an organisation and when being introduced to people, you have already been asked a few times what's your background, where are you from?

You can see that for some this is just a way to get to know you, but what they don't see is that not everyone gets asked this question. You were subjected to racial discrimination at a previous workplace, so being asked to state your cultural background is quite triggering, and you know that calling it out has the potential to make it worse and possibly put even more focus on you.

What do you do?

Please share your ethical dilemmas with us - we can post them anonymously. You can email your dilemmas to  dilemma@bfso.org

Photo by Mark kassinos on Unsplash

Comments

There are 1 comments for The ethics of labels.

Re: The ethics of labels

Friday 14 July, 2023
by IanS
Labels are the problem of the person giving them. Be prepared to explain how a label is derogatory and or insulting aside from being potentially a differentiating perspective. Be proud of your heritage and who or what you are. Don't fight against it but acknowledge its source and try to understand why the label was given. Suggest to the person giving it that it may be hurtful to some while to you it gives an opportunity to enlighten the label giver.
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