Is It Discrimination? Consult A Professional

Discrimination is a touchy subject, and in all but the most overt cases of discrimination, it can be hard to challenge bigoted mindsets without putting your reputation and career on the line. As professionally dangerous as it may seem, the long-term vision of your career and mental health is important to consider as well. If you think that you're dealing with discrimination and simply don't know what to do, don't make it a personal battle. Consider a few aspects of discrimination in the workplace and consult a discrimination attorney to know your rights, options, and ways to come out on top of discrimination.

Racial Discrimination Situations

Bias is tightly woven into society, and it can be difficult to change mindsets that were trained a certain way their whole life. In cases of racial discrimination, details of your ethnic background that can't be changed are the target.

A common theme of challenging discrimination is the performance test. It's one of the oldest techniques that makes sense to a person in any discrimination role, and simply seeks to prove a person's worth regardless of the other party's racist ideas.

Although commendable when it succeeds, the ordeal itself represents additional work that other employees aren't required to do. Although there's no price tag for breaking racial barriers, you're still putting forth extra work with unnecessary hardships that your adversaries don't need to deal with and without a promise of extra pay. It's not a sustainable model, and may not be necessary as equality understanding progresses.

If you suspect racial discrimination, make written notes of the situations. The events can be reported as grievances if you want to, but this is more about having a reference point when thinking about discrimination. It's not a good idea to either forget about the situations or dwell on them, but it's a great idea to look at the broad picture of behavior to formulate a plan.

Contact a discrimination attorney and organize the events. Writing is key, since the emotional factor of discrimination can make recall events from memory a challenge and less reliable. From there, an attorney can help you figure out ways to catch discrimination in the act while highlighting your qualifications.

Catching Discrimination In The Act

Recording the events is one of the easiest methods of proving discrimination, but may not be legal or practical for the situation. Every state has different laws about recording, but it is legal to record illegal activities such as discrimination as long as you follow the proper channels. That's the key part, following the right processes instead of recording with no plan and potentially breaking company or state regulations.

An attorney can help you plan the recording or other methods of catching discrimination in the act. With enough preparation, you can gather the evidence you need while continuing your work at a respectable pace.

Some may wonder why victims of discrimination feel the need to be careful with how they report discrimination. The issue is that when discrimination is brought up, some workers or employers may frown upon the complaint as weakness. If they share the same biases as the violator, the reporter may be fired or unfairly deemed unfit before any evidence is gathered—even if the victim is a great worker and legitimately being discriminated against.

In some situations an outright report can bypass all of those problems if the employer is fair or is under sufficient legal burden. Don't make these judgments on your own; contact a discrimination attorney, such as those found at the Law Offices of Jeffrey Needle, to design an action plan and bring violators to justice.