I had been considering minoring in German. I felt awful, completely disrespected. An MIT employee and person of color remembered reading a dialogue between black MIT students and white students at another campus about racial issues. People, all of us, have feelings that do get hurt by the verbal attacks of people on our integrity, self-worth, etc. When it happens, our work suffers.
Psychic pain is real.
One woman told me about a job she had before her MIT employment. If I was working at the empty desk opposite his, he would keep trying to get my attention, then hold up a black pen and make remarks about his penis. I felt sometimes that I was bringing it on, and would take great care not to wear summer dresses that were at all revealing, always be super-aware if clothes and how I was presenting myself, etc. Every day I had to psyche myself up to be able to put aside his comments. His treatment of me made me feel all the more lowly in the overall office scale, etc., which in turn probably limited how I felt I could deal with the situation.