Oof, so there’s a lot of general background here, but I’m going to do my best to stick to strictly relevant stuff. I gave a presentation to my team (I say "my", but I am a member of it, not the leader of it) about the topic of self de-escalation. We have a job that can be highly stressful and/or emotionally triggering, and when I mentioned having put together the training, our manager thought it was a great topic for our team in particular.
In doing the research for the topic, I came across an incredible source called Black Masculinity (re)Imagined where I discovered the PAUSE method. It was exactly what I had been trying to articulate, so I pulled the graphic (with proper credit, of course) and put it into my presentation. During my presentation, I took a moment to reference the source and their mission: to help Black men better regulate heightened emotions because they are, unfortunately, held to a different standard. A Black man with escalating emotions is going to be treated as a threat much more quickly than most other people in the same situation.
The rest of the presentation continued without any mention of any demographic at all. The only real-world example I used of putting the PAUSE method into action was of me, a white woman. The entire purpose of the presentation in the first place was because I had been in a situation that had overwhelmed me, and I had felt underprepared and wanted to help my coworkers not feel the same way.
A few days after, my manager scheduled a sudden meeting with me and a member of our HR team. One of my coworkers had spoken to her and said they felt that my presentation implied that Black men are the only people who struggle with de-escalation, and that I had excluded everyone else. Obviously that wasn’t my intention, but hearing that that’s how it came across to at least one person was devastating to hear.
Please, Reddit. Am I the Asshole?
NTA the person who reported this seems very strange. You literally gave some context for the source of this method. It was an aside to contextualise, not the direct subject matter.
Honestly, from my perspective, that just sounds like someone looking for a problem where there wasn’t one. I read it as simple context too, not you pushing anything sometimes people just react first and think later.
Agreed
Agree NTA. I dread thinking about what would have happened had you NOT cited yoru source. As Optimal said, too, someone looking for a problem.
NTA
NTA – that is the sort of person that would be shouting “all lives matter” at a black lives matter rally.
I don’t think they reported you in good faith.
Impossible to know without hearing your presentation. You could have accidentally flubed the line or said it in a kinda confusing way.
Your intention from an HR perspective prolly doesn’t matter much. Is the pause method super specific to that org? I’d have probably said where I got it and mentioned that it is used by several other orgs as well such as…
Or used an additional example from another org that’s similar and said something like “there are lots of different methods find one that works for you “
I don’t think your intention was bad or that using the example you used should be off limits of course but sometimes you just have to recognize that you might say something slightly off or people’s attention might wane in or out.
I really value this perspective. Thank you. I obviously can’t remember word for word what I said because it wasn’t part of the presentation. It was more of a “hey, I found this really cool resource, blah blah blah” so it’s totally possible that my wording could have gone wonky.
The PAUSE method itself is entirely nonspecific. It stands for Pause, Assess, Understand, Separate, Empathize. None of the breakdowns of the steps have anything to do with demographics at all.
It seems like the issue it you highlighted “this Is a method used because black men need to co trol their emotions” yes you elaborated more but black men and stereotypes had nothing to do with the training course. There was no illintent but intention isn’t all that matters. Light YTA
You’re right. Intention isn’t impact. I guess what I thought I was saying was “this resource EXISTS because of this inequality” but what could have been heard was “Black men need additional help to control themselves”. I guess the reason I’m confused about the complaint is that the person didn’t feel that I was being insensitive to Black men, they felt I was saying that literally EVERYONE ELSE has no trouble at all with their emotions so I was dismissing their struggles.
If your intention was what they implied, why would you give this talk to a <100% black male audience and use an example that didn’t include a black person using the methods?
I find it ridiculous that someone had to complain about something like this. You cited the source, and it sounds like you matter-of-factly mentioned that black males tend to be held to a higher standard. The point of the talk was you as a white woman had a problem. For someone to complain about your citation is ridiculous. You’re NTA.
I’d say anytime you’re doing something publicly and single out a group by race, especially if it’s not the group you’re a part of, you’re gambling with how it’ll be received.
I don’t believe you had any intention of being TA, but anytime you are going to use an example that involves a specific group you need to think long and hard about how it will be interpreted- how you might preface or decide to go to plan B. Similar to why it’s a bad idea to invoke N*zis to make a point.