Estimated Reading Time: 17 minutes
I am continuing in the systemic racism series here on the Broadening the Narrative blog. To learn more about this series, you can read the first post [“Systemic Racism Series Introduction”], the second post [“Systemic Racism Series: Whiteness”], and the third post [“Systemic Racism Series: Wealth"]. Today’s post addresses systemic racism in employment. I will include the data and history behind the disparities in employment, provide action steps, and link recommended resources for further exploration and education.
I am continuing in the systemic racism series here on the Broadening the Narrative blog. To learn more about this series, you can read the first post [“Systemic Racism Series Introduction”], the second post [“Systemic Racism Series: Whiteness”], and the third post [“Systemic Racism Series: Wealth"]. Today’s post addresses systemic racism in employment. I will include the data and history behind the disparities in employment, provide action steps, and link recommended resources for further exploration and education.
Data
Let’s look at some data for unemployment and employment rates as well as hiring practices.
Regarding unemployment, Janelle Jones wrote for the Economic Policy Institute, “In the first quarter of 2018, African American workers had the highest unemployment rate nationally, at 7.2 percent, followed by Hispanic (5.1 percent), white (3.3 percent), and Asian workers (3.0 percent). This report provides a state-by-state breakdown of unemployment rates by race and ethnicity and racial/ethnic unemployment rate gaps for the first quarter of 2018. It shows that while there have been state-by-state improvements in prospects for black and Hispanic workers, their unemployment rates remain high relative to those of white workers. Following are some key highlights of the report:
- While the African American unemployment rate is at or below its pre-recession level in 17 states (of the 22 states and the District of Columbia for which these data are available), in 14 states and the District of Columbia, African American unemployment rates exceed white unemployment rates by a ratio of 2-to-1 or higher.
- The District of Columbia has the highest black–white unemployment rate ratio overall, at 8.5-to-1, while South Carolina and Maryland have the highest ratios among states (3.2-to-1 and 2.8-to-1, respectively).
- The highest African American unemployment rate is in the District of Columbia (12.9 percent), followed by Illinois (9.1 percent) and New Jersey (9.0 percent). The highest Hispanic state unemployment rate is in Connecticut (10.0 percent). In contrast, the highest white state unemployment rate is 5.2 percent, in West Virginia.- While the African American unemployment rate is at or below its pre-recession level in 17 states (of the 22 states and the District of Columbia for which these data are available), in 14 states and the District of Columbia, African American unemployment rates exceed white unemployment rates by a ratio of 2-to-1 or higher.
- The District of Columbia has the highest black–white unemployment rate ratio overall, at 8.5-to-1, while South Carolina and Maryland have the highest ratios among states (3.2-to-1 and 2.8-to-1, respectively).
- While the Hispanic unemployment rate is at or below its pre-recession level in 13 states (of the 16 states for which these data are available), there is no state where the Hispanic unemployment rate is lower than the white rate.
- In five states and the District of Columbia, Hispanic unemployment rates exceed white unemployment rates by a ratio of 2-to-1 or higher (Connecticut, 3.4-to-1; Massachusetts, 2.1-to-1; Washington, 2.1-to-1; Colorado, 2.0-to-1; District of Columbia, 2.0-to-1, and Idaho, 2.0-to-1).”
In the briefing paper “Native Americans and Jobs: The Challenge and the Promise” for the Economic Policy Institute, Algernon Austin delineated information regarding the employment of Native Americans. Algernon Austin wrote, “Part I finds:
- Over 2009–2011, the American Indian employment rate among 25- to 54-year-olds (i.e., the share of that population with a job) was 64.7 percent—13.4 percentage points lower than the white rate.
- Of the 34 states examined for Native American employment over 2009–2011, the highest American Indian employment rates were in Nebraska (73.4 percent), Connecticut (72.0 percent), and Texas (71.3 percent).
- In all of the 34 states examined, there was a large, very large, or extremely large Native American–white employment rate disparity in 2009–2011. The largest disparities were in the Midwest among the states with some of the highest white employment rates.
- Even when Native Americans are similar to whites in terms of factors such as age, sex, education level, marital status, and state of residence, their odds of being employed are 31 percent lower than those of whites.
- High educational attainment is the factor most likely to increase American Indians’ odds of securing employment.
...One major factor behind the high poverty rates and low wealth of American Indians is their low rate of employment. The Native American unemployment rate is considerably higher than the white rate (Austin 2013). Without work, it is difficult for an individual to rise out of poverty; without a well-paying job, it is difficult to save, purchase a home, and build wealth. Thus, increasing Native American employment is necessary for addressing Native American poverty, and is a foundational step toward building Native American wealth.”
People within the Latinx population face the perpetual perception of “foreigner” as they seek to overcome obstacles in the United States. In the NBC News article “Racism, Not a Lack of Assimilation, is the Real Problem Facing Latinos in America,” Suzanne Gamboa wrote, “Abercrombie and Fitch paid $50 million in 2004 to settle a lawsuit brought by Maldef and other groups for refusing to hire minorities...When it comes to language, many Latinos see a double standard. ‘It is a deficit when you speak Spanish, but it’s an asset to whites and white Americans when they speak it,’ said scholar and educator Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, who documented racism in the criminal justice system in her book, Crook County: Racism and Injustice in America’s Largest Criminal Court. ‘This is the ultimate form of exclusion.’ Latinos feel that if they speak Spanish, they’re perceived as being unassimilated, new to the country or uneducated — stereotypes that do not apply to non-Latino whites who can speak other languages, including Spanish.”
When seeking employment, BIPOC experience discrimination. In the October 11, 2017 Harvard Business Review article “Hiring Discrimination Against Black Americans Hasn’t Declined in 25 Years” by Lincoln Quillian, Devah Pager, Arnfinn H. Midtbøen, and Ole Hexel, the writers reported, “Broadly, our meta-analysis of callback rates from all existing field experiments showed evidence of discrimination against both black and Latino applicants. Since 1990 white applicants received, on average, 36% more callbacks than black applicants and 24% more callbacks than Latino applicants with identical résumés...We wondered if this level of discrimination might be influenced by applicant education, applicant gender, study method, occupational groups, and local labor market conditions. When we controlled for these factors, we found that none account for the trend in discrimination. Under these and other adjustments, our results suggest that levels of discrimination against black job applicants hasn’t changed since 1990.”
According to “The Ultimate White Privilege Statistics & Data Post,”
- “A black college student has the same chances of getting a job as a white high school dropout.
- Meanwhile, a white male with a criminal record is 5% more likely to get a job than an equally qualified person of color with a clean record. Read that again, please.
- [Black people] need to complete not one but two more levels of education just to have the same probability of getting a job as a white guy.”
In the May 17, 2017 article “Minorities Who 'Whiten' Job Resumes Get More Interviews,” Dina Gerdeman explicated, “Minority job applicants are ‘whitening’ their resumes by deleting references to their race with the hope of boosting their shot at jobs, and research shows the strategy is paying off. In fact, companies are more than twice as likely to call minority applicants for interviews if they submit whitened resumes than candidates who reveal their race—and this discriminatory practice is just as strong for businesses that claim to value diversity as those that don’t...Employer callbacks for resumes that were whitened fared much better in the application pile than those that included ethnic information, even though the qualifications listed were identical. Twenty-five percent of black candidates received callbacks from their whitened resumes, while only 10 percent got calls when they left ethnic details intact. Among Asians, 21 percent got calls if they used whitened resumes, whereas only 11.5 percent heard back if they sent resumes with racial references.”
On the National Bureau of Economic Research site, David R. Francis explained the results from an experiment that was conducted between July 2001 and January 2002 in the article "Employers' Replies to Racial Names." He stated, “A job applicant with a name that sounds like it might belong to an African-American - say, Lakisha Washington or Jamal Jones - can find it harder to get a job. Despite laws against discrimination, affirmative action, a degree of employer enlightenment, and the desire by some businesses to enhance profits by hiring those most qualified regardless of race, African-Americans are twice as likely as whites to be unemployed and they earn nearly 25 percent less when they are employed...The 50 percent gap in callback rates is statistically very significant, Bertrand and Mullainathan note in ‘Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination’ (NBER Working Paper No. 9873). It indicates that a white name yields as many more callbacks as an additional eight years of experience. Race, the authors add, also affects the reward to having a better resume. Whites with higher quality resumes received 30 percent more callbacks than whites with lower quality resumes. But the positive impact of a better resume for those with African-American names was much smaller.”
I will link additional resources at the end of the post for exploring more about the discrimination BIPOC experience in employment, whether that is in job access and opportunities, job stability, pay inequality, or benefits.
History
- Ijeoma Oluo also wrote, “Support increases in the minimum wage...we cannot ignore the fact that a larger proportion of people of color work in lower-wage jobs, and that a raise in those wages will disproportionately help people of color and can help address the vast racial wealth gap in this country” (Oluo, 2018, p. 233).
- In the article “Systematic Inequality and Economic Opportunity” by Danyelle Solomon, Connor Maxwell, and Abril Castro referenced above for the Center for American Progress, the writers stated, “This report examines how government-sanctioned occupational segregation, exploitation, and neglect exacerbated racial inequality in the United States. Eliminating current disparities among Americans will require intentional public policy efforts to dismantle systematic inequality, combat discrimination in the workplace, and expand access to opportunity for all Americans.”
- In the Harvard Business Review article referenced above, “Hiring Discrimination Against Black Americans Hasn’t Declined in 25 Years” by Lincoln Quillian, Devah Pager, Arnfinn H. Midtbøen, and Ole Hexel, the writers concluded, “We believe that our results provide a strong rationale for affirmative action policies and point to the continuing need for the enforcement of antidiscrimination legislation. Even among well-intended employers, racial bias may lurk in hiring decisions. Whether conscious or not, bias continues to affect decision making, and we find little evidence that this pattern will diminish on its own. Instead, more active intervention may be needed to reduce discrimination at the point of hire.”
If you’re white, use your privilege, but not as a white savior, to push for changes in your workplace.
- In the article “Minorities Who 'Whiten' Job Resumes Get More Interviews” referenced above, Dina Gerdeman wrote, “It’s time for employers to acknowledge that bias is hardwired into the hiring system and that prejudice is clouding the screening of qualified applicants, says DeCelles, whose research focuses on the intersection of organizational behavior and criminology. Business leaders should start by taking a closer look at their resume screening processes. Blind recruitment is one possible solution, where information about race, age, gender, or social class are removed from resumes before hiring managers see them. Companies can also perform regular checks for discrimination in the screening process, for example by measuring how many minorities applied for a position and comparing that with the percentage of those applicants who made the first cut.”
Some of these measures may seem extreme to some people, but I think of the words written by Jemar Tisby in his book The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism. He was writing about the Christian church, but his words are applicable to the government as well. “If the twenty-first century is to be different from the previous four centuries, then the American church must exercise even more creativity and effort to break down racial barriers than it took to erect them in the first place” (Tisby, 2019, p. 193).
Vote, show up, and engage in meaningful ways to dismantle systems of oppression. Do all of this under the leadership of people of color.
What to Expect in Future Posts
- [Black people] need to complete not one but two more levels of education just to have the same probability of getting a job as a white guy.”
In the May 17, 2017 article “Minorities Who 'Whiten' Job Resumes Get More Interviews,” Dina Gerdeman explicated, “Minority job applicants are ‘whitening’ their resumes by deleting references to their race with the hope of boosting their shot at jobs, and research shows the strategy is paying off. In fact, companies are more than twice as likely to call minority applicants for interviews if they submit whitened resumes than candidates who reveal their race—and this discriminatory practice is just as strong for businesses that claim to value diversity as those that don’t...Employer callbacks for resumes that were whitened fared much better in the application pile than those that included ethnic information, even though the qualifications listed were identical. Twenty-five percent of black candidates received callbacks from their whitened resumes, while only 10 percent got calls when they left ethnic details intact. Among Asians, 21 percent got calls if they used whitened resumes, whereas only 11.5 percent heard back if they sent resumes with racial references.”
On the National Bureau of Economic Research site, David R. Francis explained the results from an experiment that was conducted between July 2001 and January 2002 in the article "Employers' Replies to Racial Names." He stated, “A job applicant with a name that sounds like it might belong to an African-American - say, Lakisha Washington or Jamal Jones - can find it harder to get a job. Despite laws against discrimination, affirmative action, a degree of employer enlightenment, and the desire by some businesses to enhance profits by hiring those most qualified regardless of race, African-Americans are twice as likely as whites to be unemployed and they earn nearly 25 percent less when they are employed...The 50 percent gap in callback rates is statistically very significant, Bertrand and Mullainathan note in ‘Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination’ (NBER Working Paper No. 9873). It indicates that a white name yields as many more callbacks as an additional eight years of experience. Race, the authors add, also affects the reward to having a better resume. Whites with higher quality resumes received 30 percent more callbacks than whites with lower quality resumes. But the positive impact of a better resume for those with African-American names was much smaller.”
I will link additional resources at the end of the post for exploring more about the discrimination BIPOC experience in employment, whether that is in job access and opportunities, job stability, pay inequality, or benefits.
History
Now let’s look at the past. The current employment disparities and discrimination exist and persist for a reason. We don’t live without our past as a nation informing and shaping our present.
In the briefing paper “Native Americans and Jobs: The Challenge and the Promise” for the Economic Policy Institute referenced above, Algernon Austin wrote, “Native America continues to struggle to recover from a long history of subjugation. As President Obama recently remarked, ‘The painful legacy of discrimination means that . . . Native Americans are far more likely to suffer from a lack of opportunity—higher unemployment, [and] higher poverty rates’ (White House Office of the Press Secretary 2013)...The land that is the United States, of course, once all belonged to indigenous peoples. This land, and its resources and assets, were taken by European immigrants through conquest, expropriation, theft, and broken treaties. In addition to this tremendous loss of wealth, Native Americans also lost political autonomy. Political and economic subjugation would, in and of itself, produce tremendous cultural damage, but Native Americans were also repeatedly subject to forced cultural assimilation.”
Christian E. Weller wrote the article “African Americans Face Systematic Obstacles to Getting Good Jobs” for the Center for American Progress and reported, “The labor market experience for African Americans has historically been worse than that for whites, and this continues today. There are several factors that have contributed and continue to contribute to this. These include repeated violent oppression of African Americans such as the riots that destroyed Black business owners’ wealth on the Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921, codified segregation, legal racial terrorism during the almost centurylong period from Reconstruction to the civil rights era, systematic exclusions of African Americans from better-paying jobs, and continued occupational segregation.”
In the NBC News article “Racism, Not a Lack of Assimilation, is the Real Problem Facing Latinos in America” referenced above, Suzanne Gamboa reported, “The denial of basic rights to Latinos on U.S. soil - particularly those of Mexican descent - has a long history. When the Mexican-American War ended in 1848, vast lands of Mexico became part of the United States. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo guaranteed full rights of U.S. citizenship for Mexicans who were living in that land before it was partitioned, including property rights. But those protections were quickly ignored. The former Mexican citizens who became Americans, including many who were ranch owners, soon lost landholdings and status to new white settlers who regarded them as inferior. Layered through this is a history of racial violence - including lynchings - against Hispanics. In 1848, John C. Calhoun, a South Carolina senator and slave owner, protested the incorporation of the northern Mexico territories, saying that the United States was a government of the white race. Calhoun said treating Mexicans equally would be an error similar to those that had destroyed ‘social arrangements’ in other countries, Ray Suarez, a former PBS correspondent, wrote in his book, Latino-Americans: The 500-Year Legacy That Shaped a Nation. Such thinking has continued in America over the past two centuries. It’s part of what Indiana University political science professor Bernard Fraga describes as a ‘push and pull’ for Latinos who are told that to get more rights they have to assimilate. ‘Assimilate is the excuse we use when opportunity is denied,’ said Fraga, author of The Turnout Gap: Race, Ethnicity and Political Inequality in a Diversifying America. The Mexican-American civil rights movement traces its origins to a moment when that excuse hit a breaking point: when World War II veterans returned from combat and were denied equal treatment. The Chicano soldiers’ contributions are still not fully recognized.”
In the article “Systematic Inequality and Economic Opportunity” by Danyelle Solomon, Connor Maxwell, and Abril Castro for the Center for American Progress, the writers trace the history of policy decisions and practices that led to the persistent inequality BIPOC experience today. “The U.S. economy was built on the exploitation and occupational segregation of people of color. While many government policies and institutional practices helped create this system, the legacies of slavery, Jim Crow, and the New Deal—as well as the limited funding and scope of anti-discrimination agencies—are some of the biggest contributors to inequality in America. Together, these policy decisions concentrated workers of color in chronically undervalued occupations, institutionalized racial disparities in wages and benefits, and perpetuated employment discrimination. As a result, stark and persistent racial disparities exist in jobs, wages, benefits, and almost every other measure of economic well-being...Occupational segregation and the persistent devaluation of workers of color are a direct result of intentional government policy. To this day, people of color remain overrepresented in the lowest-paid agricultural, domestic, and service vocations. (see Figure 1) While Black or African American, Asian, and Hispanic or Latino people comprise 36 percent of the overall U.S. workforce, they constitute 58 percent of miscellaneous agricultural workers; 70 percent of maids and housekeeping cleaners; and 74 percent of baggage porters, bellhops, and concierges. Slavery and Jim Crow devalued these types of work, and the legacy of these institutions continues to inform the American economic system and its outcomes.” While racist language has been removed from laws, we can still observe racism in the practices of those who control our institutions. By looking at the implementation of laws and the race of those primarily affected by policies, we can see that occupations with high concentrations of people of color often pay less, as shown in figure 2.
Action Steps
In the briefing paper “Native Americans and Jobs: The Challenge and the Promise” for the Economic Policy Institute referenced above, Algernon Austin wrote, “Native America continues to struggle to recover from a long history of subjugation. As President Obama recently remarked, ‘The painful legacy of discrimination means that . . . Native Americans are far more likely to suffer from a lack of opportunity—higher unemployment, [and] higher poverty rates’ (White House Office of the Press Secretary 2013)...The land that is the United States, of course, once all belonged to indigenous peoples. This land, and its resources and assets, were taken by European immigrants through conquest, expropriation, theft, and broken treaties. In addition to this tremendous loss of wealth, Native Americans also lost political autonomy. Political and economic subjugation would, in and of itself, produce tremendous cultural damage, but Native Americans were also repeatedly subject to forced cultural assimilation.”
Christian E. Weller wrote the article “African Americans Face Systematic Obstacles to Getting Good Jobs” for the Center for American Progress and reported, “The labor market experience for African Americans has historically been worse than that for whites, and this continues today. There are several factors that have contributed and continue to contribute to this. These include repeated violent oppression of African Americans such as the riots that destroyed Black business owners’ wealth on the Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921, codified segregation, legal racial terrorism during the almost centurylong period from Reconstruction to the civil rights era, systematic exclusions of African Americans from better-paying jobs, and continued occupational segregation.”
In the NBC News article “Racism, Not a Lack of Assimilation, is the Real Problem Facing Latinos in America” referenced above, Suzanne Gamboa reported, “The denial of basic rights to Latinos on U.S. soil - particularly those of Mexican descent - has a long history. When the Mexican-American War ended in 1848, vast lands of Mexico became part of the United States. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo guaranteed full rights of U.S. citizenship for Mexicans who were living in that land before it was partitioned, including property rights. But those protections were quickly ignored. The former Mexican citizens who became Americans, including many who were ranch owners, soon lost landholdings and status to new white settlers who regarded them as inferior. Layered through this is a history of racial violence - including lynchings - against Hispanics. In 1848, John C. Calhoun, a South Carolina senator and slave owner, protested the incorporation of the northern Mexico territories, saying that the United States was a government of the white race. Calhoun said treating Mexicans equally would be an error similar to those that had destroyed ‘social arrangements’ in other countries, Ray Suarez, a former PBS correspondent, wrote in his book, Latino-Americans: The 500-Year Legacy That Shaped a Nation. Such thinking has continued in America over the past two centuries. It’s part of what Indiana University political science professor Bernard Fraga describes as a ‘push and pull’ for Latinos who are told that to get more rights they have to assimilate. ‘Assimilate is the excuse we use when opportunity is denied,’ said Fraga, author of The Turnout Gap: Race, Ethnicity and Political Inequality in a Diversifying America. The Mexican-American civil rights movement traces its origins to a moment when that excuse hit a breaking point: when World War II veterans returned from combat and were denied equal treatment. The Chicano soldiers’ contributions are still not fully recognized.”
In the article “Systematic Inequality and Economic Opportunity” by Danyelle Solomon, Connor Maxwell, and Abril Castro for the Center for American Progress, the writers trace the history of policy decisions and practices that led to the persistent inequality BIPOC experience today. “The U.S. economy was built on the exploitation and occupational segregation of people of color. While many government policies and institutional practices helped create this system, the legacies of slavery, Jim Crow, and the New Deal—as well as the limited funding and scope of anti-discrimination agencies—are some of the biggest contributors to inequality in America. Together, these policy decisions concentrated workers of color in chronically undervalued occupations, institutionalized racial disparities in wages and benefits, and perpetuated employment discrimination. As a result, stark and persistent racial disparities exist in jobs, wages, benefits, and almost every other measure of economic well-being...Occupational segregation and the persistent devaluation of workers of color are a direct result of intentional government policy. To this day, people of color remain overrepresented in the lowest-paid agricultural, domestic, and service vocations. (see Figure 1) While Black or African American, Asian, and Hispanic or Latino people comprise 36 percent of the overall U.S. workforce, they constitute 58 percent of miscellaneous agricultural workers; 70 percent of maids and housekeeping cleaners; and 74 percent of baggage porters, bellhops, and concierges. Slavery and Jim Crow devalued these types of work, and the legacy of these institutions continues to inform the American economic system and its outcomes.” While racist language has been removed from laws, we can still observe racism in the practices of those who control our institutions. By looking at the implementation of laws and the race of those primarily affected by policies, we can see that occupations with high concentrations of people of color often pay less, as shown in figure 2.
Action Steps
Complete additional research on the topic of systemic racism in employment. Obviously there is more to explore regarding employment and systemic racism than I could possibly cover in a single blog post. I will link additional resources at the end of the post.
Have action that follows the research and reflection.
- In her book So You Want to Talk about Race, Ijeoma Oluo wrote, “Affirmative action took many forms throughout the US...In federal employment, it often took similar forms - increased recruitment efforts, extra consideration given to race and gender, and diversity goals. There were no ‘quotas,’ and any attempts at such were struck down by the Supreme Court. Employers and educators could set forth goals to increase diversity, provided there were enough qualified people of color or women to make such goals reasonable. These were never huge percentages and were most often below a representational percentage...By the time Reagan rolled into office, affirmative action was on the decline as many conservatives declared it no longer necessary. Bit by bit, piece by piece, affirmative action has been chipped away at over the last thirty years, leaving a program that can hardly be called affirmative. It should not be rolled back; in fact, I argue that it should be expanded to other groups that suffer from systemic oppression as well…While affirmative action may not have been the racial panacea that some had originally hoped, it has been one of the most successful programs for helping combat the end effects of racial discrimination in education and employment that we've tried. Multiple studies have shown that affirmative action programs increased the percentage of people of color in jobs in the public sector and drastically increased the number of people of color in colleges and universities…We must never forget that without systemic change and without efforts to battle the myriad of ways in which systemic racism impacts people of color of all classes, backgrounds, and abilities, our efforts at ending systemic racial oppression will fail. We must refuse to be placated by measures that only serve a select few-and affirmative action does only serve a select few...We must remember that there are other, huge crises affecting communities of color that also need to be addressed with urgency (like the mass incarceration of black and Hispanic men in America). But the work to truly end systemic racism, while crucial, is a long and hard road. And while we are fighting that battle, many people of color are being crushed by a racist educational and employment system and their children are inheriting that same disadvantage as they try to enter into higher education and the workforce. Affirmative action can help with that. Even if we were to flip a switch today and end all racism and racial oppression, millions of people of color would still be disadvantaged by racial oppression of yesterday, and that would need to be addressed with policies like affirmative action that seek to replace opportunities previously denied unless we feel like leaving an entire generation in the dust and hope that their children will be able to rise from those ashes (Oluo, 2018, pp. 113-115, 118-120).Have action that follows the research and reflection.
- Ijeoma Oluo also wrote, “Support increases in the minimum wage...we cannot ignore the fact that a larger proportion of people of color work in lower-wage jobs, and that a raise in those wages will disproportionately help people of color and can help address the vast racial wealth gap in this country” (Oluo, 2018, p. 233).
- In the article “Systematic Inequality and Economic Opportunity” by Danyelle Solomon, Connor Maxwell, and Abril Castro referenced above for the Center for American Progress, the writers stated, “This report examines how government-sanctioned occupational segregation, exploitation, and neglect exacerbated racial inequality in the United States. Eliminating current disparities among Americans will require intentional public policy efforts to dismantle systematic inequality, combat discrimination in the workplace, and expand access to opportunity for all Americans.”
- In the Harvard Business Review article referenced above, “Hiring Discrimination Against Black Americans Hasn’t Declined in 25 Years” by Lincoln Quillian, Devah Pager, Arnfinn H. Midtbøen, and Ole Hexel, the writers concluded, “We believe that our results provide a strong rationale for affirmative action policies and point to the continuing need for the enforcement of antidiscrimination legislation. Even among well-intended employers, racial bias may lurk in hiring decisions. Whether conscious or not, bias continues to affect decision making, and we find little evidence that this pattern will diminish on its own. Instead, more active intervention may be needed to reduce discrimination at the point of hire.”
If you’re white, use your privilege, but not as a white savior, to push for changes in your workplace.
- In the article “Minorities Who 'Whiten' Job Resumes Get More Interviews” referenced above, Dina Gerdeman wrote, “It’s time for employers to acknowledge that bias is hardwired into the hiring system and that prejudice is clouding the screening of qualified applicants, says DeCelles, whose research focuses on the intersection of organizational behavior and criminology. Business leaders should start by taking a closer look at their resume screening processes. Blind recruitment is one possible solution, where information about race, age, gender, or social class are removed from resumes before hiring managers see them. Companies can also perform regular checks for discrimination in the screening process, for example by measuring how many minorities applied for a position and comparing that with the percentage of those applicants who made the first cut.”
Some of these measures may seem extreme to some people, but I think of the words written by Jemar Tisby in his book The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism. He was writing about the Christian church, but his words are applicable to the government as well. “If the twenty-first century is to be different from the previous four centuries, then the American church must exercise even more creativity and effort to break down racial barriers than it took to erect them in the first place” (Tisby, 2019, p. 193).
Vote, show up, and engage in meaningful ways to dismantle systems of oppression. Do all of this under the leadership of people of color.
What to Expect in Future Posts
At this time, I plan to address systemic racism as seen in education, the justice system, housing, surveillance, foster care, healthcare, the environment, media, military, politics, and the Christian church in future posts. I will give action steps for myself and readers and provide additional resources.
As I look at the Equal Justice Initiative calendar and read it to my kids, I see that every single day conveys at least one injustice, usually based on race. These are past and present injustices, spanning hundreds of years, demonstrating that racism in this country is not simply an individual problem. Rather, racism is a systemic problem, infecting institutions and structures. Further, this problem centers around justice, therefore it's a problem God is concerned about, which means I must be concerned. In my opinion, systemic racism is not solely a political issue but also a spiritual issue. I am called to love my neighbor, and one way I can do this is by joining the fight to dismantle systems of oppression so that all people can flourish.
(Resources are linked below.)
Race Forward “What is Systemic Racism” Videos
Videos to View
“What is Systemic Racism? - Employment” with Jay Smooth
“Stealing Bread” by Micah Bournes
The Next Question Video Web Series (Hosted and produced by Austin Channing Brown, Jenny Booth Potter, and Chi Chi Okwu)
“Is Racism Over Yet?” with Laci Green
“Social Justice Equity” lecture by Tim Wise
Podcasts (for your listening pleasure and discomfort)
Pass the Mic “On ‘Social Justice and the Gospel’ Part 1”
Pass the Mic “On ‘Social Justice and the Gospel’ Part 2”
Almost Heretical “Mark Charles - The Truth of Our History”
Music (that may make you uncomfortable)
“A Time Like This” by Micah Bournes
“Too Much?” by Micah Bournes
“Land of the Free” by Joey Bada$$
“Facts” by Lecrae
“Cynical” by Propaganda feat. Aaron Marsh and Sho Baraka
Recommended Reading
“Of Sh*tholes and Section 8: A Response to Rod Dreher” by Jemar Tisby
“Racism and Employment” by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
“Taking Steps to Eliminate Racism in the Workplace” by Arlene Hirsch
“The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates
“Workers of Color are Far More Likely to be Paid Poverty-Level Wages than White Workers” by David Cooper
Books
Everyday Injustice: Latino Professionals and Racism by Maria Chávez
The Making of Asian America: A History by Erika Lee
There There: A Novel by Tommy Orange
#systemicracism #racismissystemic #racism #prejudicepluspower #dismantlewhitesupremacy #endracism #antiracism #antiracist #becomingantiracist #beingantiracist #employment #wealthgap #wealthdisparity #economicjustice #loveyourneighbor #seekjustice #lovemercy #walkhumbly #facethepast #healthefuture #equality #vote #showup #engage #blog #blogger #newblogpost #challengethenarrative #broadeningthenarrative
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