And we thought racism had run its course and died for lack of
nourishment…yeah, right!
Tendaji
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Nothing in the world
is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
~
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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From: Retention & Graduation Issues Concerning Minorities in
Higher Education [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Redmond, Rudy
(DELEG)
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 12:46 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: NYT 12/1
December
1, 2009
By
MICHAEL LUO
Johnny R.
Williams, 30, would appear to be an unlikely person to have to fret about the
impact of race on his job search, with companies like JPMorgan
Chase and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago
on his résumé.
But after
graduating from business school last year and not having much success garnering
interviews, he decided to retool his résumé, scrubbing it of any details that
might tip off his skin color. His membership, for instance, in the
African-American business students association? Deleted.
“If
they’re going to X me,” Mr. Williams said, “I’d like to
at least get in the door first.”
Similarly,
Barry Jabbar Sykes, 37, who has a degree in mathematics from Morehouse College,
a historically black college in Atlanta, now uses Barry J. Sykes in his
continuing search for an information technology position, even though he has
gone by Jabbar his whole life.
“Barry
sounds like I could be from Ireland,” he said.
That race
remains a serious obstacle in the job market for African-Americans, even those
with degrees from respected colleges, may seem to some people a jarring
contrast to decades of progress by blacks, culminating in President Obama’s election.
But there is
ample evidence that racial inequities remain when it comes to employment. Black
joblessness has long far outstripped that of whites. And strikingly, the
disparity for the first 10 months of this year, as the recession has dragged on, has
been even more pronounced for those with college degrees, compared with those
without. Education, it seems, does not level the playing field — in fact,
it appears to have made it more uneven.
College-educated
black men, especially, have struggled relative to their white counterparts in
this downturn, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics. The unemployment rate for black male college graduates 25 and
older in 2009 has been nearly twice that of white male college graduates
— 8.4 percent compared with 4.4 percent.
Various
academic studies have confirmed that black job seekers have a harder time than
whites. A study published several years ago in The American Economic Review
titled “Are Emily and Greg More
Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?” found that applicants with
black-sounding names received 50 percent fewer callbacks than those with
white-sounding names.
A more recent study, published this year
in The Journal of Labor Economics found white, Asian and Hispanic managers
tended to hire more whites and fewer blacks than black managers did.
The
discrimination is rarely overt, according to interviews with more than two
dozen college-educated black job seekers around the country, many of them out
of work for months. Instead, those interviewed told subtler stories, referring
to surprised looks and offhand comments, interviews that fell apart almost as
soon as they began, and the sudden loss of interest from companies after
meetings.
Whether or not
each case actually involved bias, the possibility has furnished an additional
agonizing layer of second-guessing for many as their job searches have dragged
on.
“It does
weigh on you in the search because you’re wondering, how much is race
playing a factor in whether I’m even getting a first call, or whether
I’m even getting an in-person interview once they hear my voice and they
know I’m probably African-American?” said Terelle Hairston, 25, a
graduate of Yale University who has been
looking for work since the summer while also trying to get a marketing
consulting start-up off the ground. “You even worry that the hiring
manager may not be as interested in diversity as the H.R. manager or upper
management.”
Mr. Williams
recently applied to a Dallas money management firm that had posted a position
with top business schools. The hiring manager had seemed ecstatic to hear from
him, telling him they had trouble getting people from prestigious business
schools to move to the area. Mr. Williams had left New York and moved back in
with his parents in Dallas to save money.
But when Mr.
Williams later met two men from the firm for lunch, he said they appeared
stunned when he strolled up to introduce himself.
“Their
eyes kind of hit the ceiling a bit,” he said. “It was kind of quiet
for about 45 seconds.”
The
company’s interest in him quickly cooled, setting off the inevitable
questions in his mind.
Discrimination
in many cases may not even be intentional, some job seekers pointed out, but
simply a matter of people gravitating toward similar people, casting about for
the right “cultural fit,” a buzzword often heard in corporate
circles.
There is also
the matter of how many jobs, especially higher-level ones, are never even
posted and depend on word-of-mouth and informal networks, in many cases leaving
blacks at a disadvantage. A recent study published in the
academic journal Social Problems found that white males receive substantially
more job leads for high-level supervisory positions than women and members of
minorities.
Many
interviewed, however, wrestled with “pulling the race card,”
groping between their cynicism and desire to avoid the stigma that blacks are
too quick to claim victimhood. After all, many had gone to good schools and had
accomplished résumés. Some had grown up in well-to-do settings, with parents
who had raised them never to doubt how high they could climb. Moreover, there
is President Obama, perhaps the ultimate embodiment of that belief.
Certainly, they
conceded, there are times when their race can be beneficial, particularly with
companies that have diversity programs. But many said they sensed that such
opportunities had been cut back over the years and even more during the
downturn. Others speculated there was now more of a tendency to deem diversity
unnecessary after Mr. Obama’s triumph.
In fact,
whether Mr. Obama’s election has been good or bad for their job prospects
is hotly debated. Several interviewed went so far as to say that they believed
there was only so much progress that many in the country could take, and that
there was now a backlash against blacks.
“There is
resentment toward his presidency among some because of his race,” said
Edward Verner, a Morehouse alumnus from New Jersey who was laid off as a
regional sales manager and has been able to find only part-time work.
“This has affected well-educated, African-American job seekers.”
It is difficult
to overstate the degree that they say race permeates nearly every aspect of
their job searches, from how early they show up to interviews to the kinds of
anecdotes they try to come up with.
“You want
to be a nonthreatening, professional black guy,” said Winston Bell, 40,
of Cleveland, who has been looking for a job in business development.
He drew an
analogy to several prominent black sports broadcasters. “You don’t
want to be Stephen A. Smith. You want to be Bryant Gumbel. You don’t
even want to be Stuart Scott. You don’t want to be,
‘Booyah.’ ”
Nearly all said
they agonized over job applications that asked them whether they would like to
identify their race. Most said they usually did not.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/us/01race.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
Rudy Redmond
Manager, KCP Initiative
(517) 373-9700