New whistleblower documents reveal that NASA held an “Understanding Microaggressions” training, where employees learned that these are incidents “in which someone accidentally makes an offensive statement or asks an insensitive question.”
Per the NASA training documents, posted to Twitter by Keri Smith, microaggressions “happen casually, frequently and often without any harm intended, in everyday life.”
Microaggressions are “verbal, behavioral and environmental indignities that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative slights and insults to the target person or group.” They may “seem small; but compounded over time, they can have a harmful impact on an employee’s experience, physical health, and psychological well-being.”