4 ms·

>This certainly wasn't the case here. How do we know? Isn't that by nature the nefarious issue with racism. It hides in plain sight.

by cup 11y ago

lsiebert 11y ago
Indeed. Blatant honest racism is just one sort, but there is racism that is built into the system (like how white killers are mentally ill in the media, while black killers are called thugs), or unconsciously part of how you think (see http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddessig/2014/09/21/racism-from-ferguson-to-the-nba-to-you/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddessig/2014/09/21/racism-from... ). Note the following shows a 50% difference in call back rates based on name alone, with identical resumes, which is pretty relevant for techies looking at resumes. http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html
- mc808 11y ago
  The latest meme is that black killers are 'thugs' while white killers are 'mentally ill' in the media. It doesn't take much effort to find the media calling mentally ill black killers mentally ill. http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2015/05/12/marvin-banks/27173563/ http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2015/05/12/marvin-ba... http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/florida-executes-mentally-ill-killer-john http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/florida-executes-mentally... http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-nypd-shooter-20141221-story.html http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-nypd-shooter-20141221-st...
- lmm 11y ago
  > Note the following shows a 50% difference in call back rates based on name alone, with identical resumes, which is pretty relevant for techies looking at resumes. http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html I've heard that's much less about race than about class; Jamal may be a predominately black name but even more than that it's a predominately poor name. I'd be interested to see a replication that watched the names by average income/education/similar - or one that used stereotypically rich and poor names within the same race.
  - wpietri 11y ago
    America is also a pretty classist place, but for me the people you hear saying "it's about class, not race" are mainly working to ignore that America is a pretty racist place. And indeed, part of why it's easy to make that argument is that almost all of America's history involves racial discrimination to create and magnify class distinction. See, e.g.: http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case... I'd be interested to see how the study you suggest turns out, but I wouldn't expect it to be much different; there's too much other evidence of purely racial bias.
  - lsiebert 11y ago
    Race and class are tightly bound in America. But there are some things in the study that are at least suggestive that it's a racial difference. First they attempted to assess names race, and got rid of names that were insufficiently suggestive of race. The study varied postal addresses and included African American names from richer neighborhoods and whites from poorer neighborhoods, and included both low and high quality resumes. Hypothetically, if people were associating black names with low class more then white names, then there should be a significant difference in the benefits of a "good" neighborhood between whites with a good neighborhood and blacks. There was none. Further, one would assume that if class was the determining factor, then a better quality of resume might offset this. It did, but to a lesser degree for African American Names... that is, whites got more effect from a better resume then blacks did. A white name was, by the researchers estimates, the equivalent of an additional eight years of experience for black people. If being perceived as black, or if names that are predominantly understood as black are sufficient to assign a person to a lower class, I'd argue that that's inherently racial discrimination.

>This certainly wasn't the case here. How do we know? Isn't that by nature the nefarious issue with racism. It hides in plain sight.

by cup 11y ago

>This certainly wasn't the case here. How do we know? Isn't that by nature the nefarious issue with racism. It hides in plain sight.

lsiebert 11y ago

Indeed. Blatant honest racism is just one sort, but there is racism that is built into the system (like how white killers are mentally ill in the media, while black killers are called thugs), or unconsciously part of how you think (see http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddessig/2014/09/21/racism-from-ferguson-to-the-nba-to-you/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddessig/2014/09/21/racism-from... ). Note the following shows a 50% difference in call back rates based on name alone, with identical resumes, which is pretty relevant for techies looking at resumes. http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html

mc808 11y ago
The latest meme is that black killers are 'thugs' while white killers are 'mentally ill' in the media. It doesn't take much effort to find the media calling mentally ill black killers mentally ill. http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2015/05/12/marvin-banks/27173563/ http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2015/05/12/marvin-ba... http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/florida-executes-mentally-ill-killer-john http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/florida-executes-mentally... http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-nypd-shooter-20141221-story.html http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-nypd-shooter-20141221-st...
lmm 11y ago
> Note the following shows a 50% difference in call back rates based on name alone, with identical resumes, which is pretty relevant for techies looking at resumes. http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html I've heard that's much less about race than about class; Jamal may be a predominately black name but even more than that it's a predominately poor name. I'd be interested to see a replication that watched the names by average income/education/similar - or one that used stereotypically rich and poor names within the same race.
- wpietri 11y ago
  America is also a pretty classist place, but for me the people you hear saying "it's about class, not race" are mainly working to ignore that America is a pretty racist place. And indeed, part of why it's easy to make that argument is that almost all of America's history involves racial discrimination to create and magnify class distinction. See, e.g.: http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case... I'd be interested to see how the study you suggest turns out, but I wouldn't expect it to be much different; there's too much other evidence of purely racial bias.
- lsiebert 11y ago
  Race and class are tightly bound in America. But there are some things in the study that are at least suggestive that it's a racial difference. First they attempted to assess names race, and got rid of names that were insufficiently suggestive of race. The study varied postal addresses and included African American names from richer neighborhoods and whites from poorer neighborhoods, and included both low and high quality resumes. Hypothetically, if people were associating black names with low class more then white names, then there should be a significant difference in the benefits of a "good" neighborhood between whites with a good neighborhood and blacks. There was none. Further, one would assume that if class was the determining factor, then a better quality of resume might offset this. It did, but to a lesser degree for African American Names... that is, whites got more effect from a better resume then blacks did. A white name was, by the researchers estimates, the equivalent of an additional eight years of experience for black people. If being perceived as black, or if names that are predominantly understood as black are sufficient to assign a person to a lower class, I'd argue that that's inherently racial discrimination.