Unhealthy Relations Between African Canadians In The Workplace Has Far Reaching Mental Health Effects

Dr. Peter Sealy
Pride Guest Columnist

There is a problem occurring amongst African Canadians in the workplace that can lead to mental illness. We don’t acknowledge each other’s pain, rather there is the “one upping” behaviour. In other words don’t talk about your pain because I have pain too.

Some African Canadians tend to harass, ridicule and disregard each other in the workplace. One is supposed to fit a certain mold and you don’t get any empathy. Some of us even treat each other indifferently solely on the basis that the person is from a different country.

When you speak out to another Black person who is treating you badly in the workplace you almost feel like they are saying, here is a whip now, get up and act like a Black woman or a Black man. It would appear that Black men and Black women are not supposed to say this or that hurts to each other in the workplace.

Can we just negotiate with each other and say what hurts? I just wish that we could be human with each other.

The elephant in the room that nobody wants to name is bullying. Working in a poisonous environment where people do not talk to each other is certainly a stressor which can make some people, over a period of time, develop a mental illness.

The problem with a Black person bullying another Black person in the workplace, is that when we internalize the negative behaviour carried out against us it is far reaching to the point that it affects our psyche or in other words our Black consciousness.

The impact is manifested in ways that make us quick to judge, disrespect and hate others that look like us whether we are aware or not of this happening. Negative behaviours are even carried over to our personal relationships with each other that include family members.

Black people as a globally oppressed group need not add to this by treating each other with disregard. But with the lack of solidarity being shown among us in the workplace it would seem that we do not need anyone to beat us up because we are doing it all by ourselves.

Perhaps the greatest pain is the self-hate that comes from the bullying that makes some of us walk around in a depersonalized trance-like state with two heads. We have one head for people who look like us and the other for those who don’t look like us. You have one head that frowns and the other that smiles and you can guess which one we as African Canadians will give other African Canadians in the workplace.

If you said the one that frowns you are correct. But the stress that comes from the anxiety and tension of living with two heads in the workplace becomes so overwhelming that it eventually leads to the bearer’s death knell characterized by mental illness.

The bully in the workplace doesn’t have to be a big person. In fact they could be very petite but the actions directed towards the person being bullied is toxic and very harmful.

When a person doesn’t talk to another person in the workplace this is a form of bullying. Silence may be golden but it can also be bullying behaviour.

Gossiping behind a co-worker’s back and carrying news to the boss about another person that is malicious is another way bullying plays out. Sometimes other co-workers may have no idea of the bullying going on and sometimes they do but don’t want to intervene. The latter are the workplace bystanders who may believe it is none of their business, fear reprisals to their job security or other myriad of reasons.

The bully can be indeed a very deceptive person being nice to the person being bullied in front of other co-workers but when alone with the person being bullied extremely horrible. Although most bullies often treat clients badly the deceptive bully is the worst.

Supervisors in their evaluation of staff need to ask them if anyone in the workplace is bullying them and explain the various ways that bullying can occur. Failure to do this may see certain staff calling in to work sick often or staff quitting their jobs without explanation.

Human resource professionals need to check in with supervisory staff more often so that the goals of bullying prevention are met.

I have noticed that seminars on the topic of bullying in the workplace usually have no cultural context to it and hence doesn’t allow for the African Canadian worker being bullied to have a voice. So African Canadians being bullied suffer in silence.

The bully could be any employee including management staff. Sometimes it becomes complex for the person being bullied when the person carrying out the bullying is friends with the management staff.

What happens to us emotionally when we continually go into workplaces where Black people are our greatest problem? Their attitudes and behaviour along with the energy can be exhausting. You would think that you could have some camaraderie when you see another Black person in the work place but this is never the case for too many African Canadians. We could have lunch and do things together but this is not happening. Sometimes we are our own worst enemy.

The lack of patience, sabotage, malice, dismissive attitudes, selfishness and the acting that we display towards each other in the workplace is killing us softly. It is our own song not the Caucasian or capitalist song.

Many of us as African Canadians in the workplace are getting stuck in our trauma to the point that we begin sounding like a broken record.

There are three types of people in this regard; one who remain stuck in victimhood, the other join their victimizers and treat others badly and the third kind of person seeks a solution to their condition or how they are feeling.

Black women and Black men are wearing masks in the workplace and this can create major anxiety and make many of us vulnerable to so many sicknesses both mental and physical.

Some of us don’t even want to be around other Black people in the workplace. I shudder to think what would happen if these people were on a hiring committee and a Black applicant was sitting across the table from them.

We are creating prisons for ourselves and we no longer reach out. We have become too afraid to open our mouths and be real. One reason that keeps African Canadians apart is that we do not talk to each other.

We have hidden far too long behind the idea of don’t air our dirty laundry in public. But wear the mask all we like our house is not in order. There is a denial and repression that we are taking on rather than be open with each other in the workplace.

How many of us know African Canadians in the workplace that do not speak to each other? This type of behaviour only invites the dark clouds of the mind and the pounding hooves in the head.

Typically the real stressors occurring among African Canadians in the workplace are not addressed by management. Our culture is still taken up as strange even though these organizations profess to adhere to diversity.

If African Canadians supported each other in the workplace and made a real effort to deal with workplace challenges or stressors and develop appropriate strategies to work through their differences it would surely reduce the likelihood of mental illnesses occurring.

It’s simple; a poisoned work environment is a stressor that can lead to mental illness in employees. We have to create spaces where African Canadians can come together and talk. Somebody has to be tired and sick of being tired and sick.

Something more is happening to Black men and Black women in the workplace. They dismiss any hardship and don’t acknowledge when a supervisor is treating them badly. Some of us just go to work, follow rules and keep everything inside. Then we go home and take it out on our children and other family members.

What is meant for the supervisor in the workplace is given to the family member in the home. Oh how we project our pain on those who we are supposed to love and protect. The misdirection of the projection is inviting depression and anxiety in the home.

The anxiety felt by a child wondering what kind of mood their legal guardian or other family member is going to be in after they return home from work can become overwhelming. It is important to know that when we stand up in the workplace and advocate for ourselves we also advocate for our children.

Let us not be too harsh with our children when they make a mistake. Let us not dismiss our children when they are feeling something but rather talk to them and hear what they are saying so that they can grow in trust, confidence and self-reliance complete with a healthy mental health.

In the same way that we turn against our children when we dismiss hardship in the workplace caused by a supervisor we also turn against other African Canadian co-workers in an aggressive manner. This could make African Canadians afraid to ask each other for help or support with regards to their work.

In other words internalizing negative behaviour from a supervisor and not speaking out about it can turn us into bullies not only in our homes but also in the workplace. Basically we join our victimizers to victimize our own for the most part.

Perhaps we all know one person in the workplace who always look angry and almost everyone are afraid to approach that person.

Negative behaviour in the workplace or bullying doesn’t only occur among African Canadians. Bullying is a global problem that occurs among people from all walks of life.

Unhealthy relations in the workplace between African Canadians are a stressor that can lead to anxiety, depression and other mental illnesses. What have been going unnoticed are the many African Canadians that are leaving their jobs due to bullying.

The stress that comes from bullying in the workplace can become so overwhelming that it can force African Canadians to leave their jobs without even considering how they will find another job. So deep and far reaching is the emotional pain of bullying that can cause mental illness.

To make matters worse some family members, like society, tend not to support or care to understand why someone who in their opinion is able bodied would leave their job due to bullying. Not having a job is a mental health issue and these African Canadians who were bullied and now without a job can experience the full effects of depression.

Sadly many organizations are quick to conduct biased investigations on bullying complaints that will prove it doesn’t exist. For maintaining the organization’s good name it would appear is more important than an employee’s mental and physical pain.

African Canadians don’t only get bullied by their own but by staff from other nationalities. This can come from both front line and management staff.

Many African Canadians are given at times some of the most challenging patients or heavier workloads than other cultures and this is a form of bullying against us.

Nurses, Personal Support Workers (PSW) and factory-typed workers quickly come to mind here but these are not the only ones for it is quite vast.

Here the starting point being racism that is followed by discrimination acts in the form of bullying and can make some of us become emotionally distressed. When managers fail to address the unfair and discriminatory ways that team leaders and other supervisory staff treat African Canadian staff in the workplace they become supporters of bullying against African Canadians.

This drives the point home for us as African Canadians having a support system in the workplace to ensure our survival and sanity. As we say in parlance, sometimes we have to fix our problems first before we start fixing other people’s problems.

Stress is the most common occurring health effect tied to bullying in the workplace setting. The effects of bullying can be so destructive that it can bring about post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and suicide.

Due to the stigma associated with mental illness African Canadians do not talk about the negative mental health effects of bullying. Hence suicides and post traumatic stress disorder is never linked to bullying originating in the workplace for some African Canadians.

African Canadian men and women are often too ashamed to tell family and friends that they are being bullied in the workplace for fear of further ridicule and being called soft or weak. So they suffer in isolation and go down a painful and lonely road of depression without any support.

Some signs that you are suffering from the effects of bullying include problems sleeping and spending a lot of time when you are off from work worrying about going back to work. The person being bullied should keep a record of bullying incidences including names of any witnesses, dates, times and locations. Workers witnessing the bullying are also impacted and can experience fear and stress.

Some of the physical symptoms of work place stress as a result of bullying for both Black men and Black women can include unexplained body pain, high blood pressure and heart attack.

African-Canadians are less likely to seek help for mental illness. In times of mental distress they tend to rely on family and the spiritual community.

The way some African Canadians are treating other African Canadians in the workplace is affecting the entire African Canadian Community and that means our children too. Hence one cannot say this issue doesn’t affect me.

We need to process the way we treat each other in the workplace and that may include saying yes I treat other African Canadians badly in the workplace. Keep processing these emotions and don’t stop until you can find peace within yourself to do better. Bullying by any other name is wrong and a cancer in our workplace.