Research Review: Complaints and Reproducing Institutional Harm
At The Melanin Collective, we are always learning something new about how harmful practices are rooted in the infrastructures of our organizations and institutions. In our Research Reviews, we will share back lessons, resources, and information that we find helpful in our own work of creating structural equity in the workplace.
In Complaint!, Sara Ahmed started us off with a critical reminder that “to be heard as complaining is not to be heard” at all.
As equity practitioners, it is easy to take for granted how much of our work is just navigating complaints; not the substance of the complaint itself, but the shifts we encourage (sometimes pointedly) clients to make in what information they have chosen to listen to and act on in the past – and why. Ahmed’s newest book is a must-read for all of us charged with correcting institutional harms because, as she explains later, complaints have something to tell us about how harm reproduces in the workplace. As she describes it, if we are framing workplace grievances as “complaints,” we are not priming ourselves to listen. Complaints, just on connotation alone, prime us to be dismissive and suspicious. Here are three other takeaways we took from this eye opening resource.
CONSIDER THE POLITICS OF “WHO” IS RECEIVED AS COMPLAINING
When a journalist from The Intercept published an under-researched, misguided piece on the collapse of progressive movements, the first thing we took umbrage with was his opaque insinuation that staff, not leadership, were at fault. Staff airing “grievances cloaked in the language of social justice” was the reason progressive movements were failing, he reported, which of course has a huge connection to the arguments of “who” is received as complaining introduced in Ahmed’s book.To be received as a complainer is to be the location of the problem, Ahmed describes. When we complain, we embody the problem itself. So, if a staff member makes a complaint about an abusive workplace, she becomes the problem rather than the leader who is making the environment hostile – a nuance the journalist seemed to miss. Add race, ethnicity, gender, disability, or socioeconomic status to the complainer and notice how easily white supremacy decides who is seen, heard, and engaged with. We learn a lot about who is deemed as important or unimportant, valued or devalued, worthy or unworthy through the political lens of complaints.
COMPLAINTS SHOW US HOW INSTITUTIONS WORK
Complaints do not just exist on the interpersonal level. They also have a lot to show us about how harm is reproduced within a workplace and what power differentials exist both spoken and unspoken. We start with the whole administrative burden of it all. Think about the hoops you would have to jump through to make a complaint and what it means to invoke authority into an already stress-inducing situation.
One question our DEI co-op asks in assessments is, "Do you know where to go for help?" The answer is often yes. But when we ask, "Do you feel comfortable going to said place for help?" The answer is often no. This tells us that power and authority are barriers to creating healthy and respectful work environments. What processes an institution uses, who manages said processes, and how processes are actually implemented are not always in alignment or actual levers of change.
More importantly for the person seeking repair: do they even know what happens, really happens, to the complaint after it is lodged? These logistical burdens – or institutional un-hearing – forces complainers to not just relive stressful events, but also function to fatigue the person from submitting the complaint in the first place. Ahmed labels this dynamic as a strategic inefficiency, purposeful negligence as a way of keeping the existing culture in place while transmitting blame and guilt to the complaining person.
That was another part of The Intercept piece we could not understand – workplace leadership is the conductor of workplace culture, not underpaid staff. At The Melanin Collective we believe that culture is everyone's responsibility but leadership sets the tone. If leadership transmits values and ways of acting, speaking, and being in the workplace, should not they be responsible for correcting the ship when it goes off course? Or is maintaining harmful practices and policies just a mechanism of holding power and maintaining authority? Just a thought.
In the same thread, harmful complaint policies act as a tripwire within an organization. Has anyone ever told you to not make a complaint because you will “ruin your career,” “put a target on your back,” or cause you to “be blacklisted”? This is just another method of reproducing harmful cultures at work. Far from a good intention, these oppressive warnings serve as instruments of disenfranchisement. People need paychecks to afford housing, food, healthcare, and other life needs and may decide that staying silent outweighs the threat of losing work.
Coming forward is a huge act of courage. Despite risks to personal and professional safety, leadership should take complaints as a sign that aspects of the culture have become untenable for staffs’ survival.
COMPLAINTS AS RESISTANCE
If you are familiar with The Melanin Collective’s origin story, you know that we started this work from a complaint we made against an abusive president at the health nonprofit where we first met. We resonated with Ahmed’s suggestion that complaints could be turned into consciousness-raising, a way to release information for collective power building. If you think about it, complaint processes are insular and happen behind closed doors. But when we make complaints known, we throw a wrench into the reproduction of harm and discrimination. We take back some of our power. If we had not complained against that abusive president, he would have been free to continue hurting womxn of color inside the organization for another decade. With enough brazen voices, we flip the locus of the problem from ourselves (as we mentioned earlier) to the problem instead. We bring collective solutions and offer opportunities for repair and reparation. We move from under the suffocating shadows; we shed light on the truth. We affirm that you are not alone, you matter, your experiences matter, and you deserve repair.