Let’s start with a quiz. When researchers sent young whites and blacks out to interview for low-wage jobs armed with equivalent résumés, the result was:
A) Whites and blacks were hired at similar rates.
B) Blacks had a modest edge because of affirmative action.
C) Whites were twice as likely to get callbacks.
The answer is C, and a black applicant with a clean criminal record did no better than a white applicant who was said to have just been released from 18 months in prison.
Back in 2014, I did a series of columns called “When Whites Just Don’t Get It” to draw attention to inequities, and I’m revisiting it because public attention to racial disparities seems to be flagging even as the issues are as grave as ever.
President Barack Obama’s election reinforced a narrative that we’re making progress. We are in some ways, but the median black household in America still has only 8 percent of the wealth of the median white household. And even for blacks who have “made it” — whose incomes are in the upper half of U.S. incomes — 60 percent of their children tumble back into the lower half in the next generation, according to a Federal Reserve study.
Most of the public debate about race focuses on law enforcement. That’s understandable after the shootings of unarmed blacks and after the U.S. Sentencing Commission found that black men received sentences about 20 percent longer than white men for similar crimes.
Three generations after Brown v. Board of Education, U.S. schools are still often separate and unequal. The average white or Asian-American student attends a school in at least the 60th percentile in test performance; the average black student is at a school at the 37th percentile. One reason is an unjust school funding system that often directs the most resources to privileged students.
In one study, researchers sent thousands of résumés to employers with openings, randomly using some stereotypically black names (like Jamal) and others that were more likely to belong to whites (like Brendan). A white name increased the likelihood of a callback by 50 percent.
Discrimination is also pervasive in the white-collar world. Researchers found that white state legislators, Democrats and Republicans alike, were less likely to respond to a constituent letter signed with a stereotypically black name. Even at universities, emails sent to professors from stereotypically black names asking for a chance to discuss research possibilities received fewer responses.
Why do we discriminate? The big factor isn’t overt racism. Rather, it seems to be unconscious bias among whites who believe in equality but act in ways that perpetuate inequality.
One indication of how deeply rooted biases are: A rigorous study by economists found that even NBA referees were more likely to call fouls on players of another race. The NBA study caused a furor (the league denied the bias), and a few years later there was a follow-up by the same economists, and the bias had disappeared. It seems that when we humans realize our biases, we can adjust and act in ways that are more fair. As the study’s authors put it, “Awareness reduces racial bias.”
That’s why it’s so important for whites to engage in these uncomfortable discussions of race, because we are (unintentionally) so much a part of the problem. It’s not that we’re evil, but that we’re human.
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