Workshop | Building a Culture of Belonging: Addressing Acts of Othering ‘Microaggressions’

Leaders, managers, and employees often engage in unintentional acts of othering, also known as microaggressions. Acts of othering contribute to feelings of exclusion for employees from underrepresented groups because of their race, ethnicity, disability, gender, sexual orientation, or age. While some acts of othering might not necessarily violate an administrative rule, they create toxic work environments that impact performance, team building, and retention. In this workshop, we will explore the institutional and personal accountability systems to address acts of othering and research practices to build a culture of belonging.

***Download the handout(s) → (1) Case Scenarios 2022 (2) Communications Skills Tool 2022 (3) Employee Well-Being and Productivity 2022

Judith Mowry has over 25 years’ experience in conflict resolution, organization development, policy facilitation and racial justice activism. Before coming to the Office of Equity, Judith had worked as a consultant as a founding partner of Full Circle Consulting, director of mediation services for a non-profit providing a wide variety of mediation programing, including restorative justice programs, and for the Office of Neighborhood Involvement as the Effective Engagement specialist.

Judith is also the co-founder of the Restorative Justice Project on Gentrification and partnered in developing the Community Residential Siting Program for the City of Portland.

Judith is closely involved with many Office of Equity programs, working with bureau staff and leadership on implementing equity and on developing policy to institutionalize effective equity practices. Judith is also a member of the training team and has delivered hundreds of trainings in her career.

Yolanda Sánchez’s passion for social justice and equity grew out of her lived experience as an immigrant indigenous woman overcoming intergenerational poverty. Born in Mexico and raised in Portland, she is bicultural and bilingual in English and Spanish and understands Mixtec, a native Mexican language. Yolanda has faced discrimination and systemic injustices throughout her life and has experienced firsthand feeling invisible and lacking a sense of belonging. Through her struggles, she has demonstrated resiliency, and she hopes that her work will deepen people’s understanding of racial inequity while highlighting the resiliency of Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color (BIPOC).

Yolanda holds a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice from Portland State University and has a background in social services and community education. She has led culturally responsive educational trainings on a variety of topics including drug, alcohol, and crime prevention. Yolanda’s previous professional experience gave her perspectives and insights into the lives of domestic violence and sexual assault survivors, ethnically diverse youth facing economic hardship, the undocumented community and migrant workers.