For Black kids in America, A degree is no Guarantee (interviewing, jobs)
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I've had that feeling but 90 percent of my interviewers have been White, I'm sure it's the same for you.
When healthcare employers ask, "Have you dealt with 1199 workers?", I believe it is codespeak for, "Have you dealt with blacks?" And if they focus on disciplinary problems for the majority or all of the interview, I believe it means they are questioning whether you can deal with them and are implying you can't.
I once had an interview in a majority black workplace and town in which I was asked ONE question regarding my actual professional knowledge while EVERY OTHER QUESTION dealt with discipline.
"What if you someone told you, 'I am not doing this work' (slaps knee while asking)?"
"Do you have a backbone?"
"Do you have experience with 1199 employees? Were you the one giving the discipline directly?"
"What would you do if someone questions your authority?"
"If you have problems, do you go to administration?"
These were all asked back to back.
Of course I cannot prove it, but what was implied is this: "We don't believe a cordial and modest white man such as yourself can deal with unruly black workers here, especially not without the help of administration."
A second interview I went on was nearly identical to this. I was interviewed by two people and the HR manager. The HR manager was zoned out until the money question came again and he sat upright in his chair: "Are you disciplining 1199 employees directly? Are you the ones writing them up? Do you go to administration with problems?"
The refugee Somali communities are very tight knit and seem to be thriving. They are even entering politics where they can make a difference on a larger scale.
There are huge problems of social dysfunction in Minneapolis and other areas where they live. They have their own problems when we see numbers of their youths becoming involved in extremist networks.
When healthcare employers ask, "Have you dealt with 1199 workers?",?"
Given that 1199 is a militant union your ability to perform management tasks based on your ability to interact with these workers, and to discipline them is key to your success isn't it? I very much doubt that these questions were asked just because you are white. If you came from a black upper middle class background, similar skepticism might also exist.
While there are still government contracts awarded with a preference for minority or women owned businesses, there is no regulatory or financial advantage to any company or government agency to hire a minority over anyone else. Data is collected by the government for the purposes of compiling statistics only. Companies are free to hire the best person for the job, and they can get away with discrimination
if they are racist. I haven't seen what your sister says since about the 1980s when affirmative action was
enforced.
What people need to stop fooling themselves about is that the quota based Affirmative Action INTRODUCED BY RICHARD NIXON IS OVER! Ronald Reagan got rid of it.
Diversity programs implemented by most private employers are not government mandated. As we can see with Google (another thread) such programs haven't necessarily meant that large numbers of blacks were hired either.
I challenge any one to prove that, aside from some civil service jobs (police, fire) not desired by most college grads, that there are any affirmative action programs in employment.
Indeed the biggest diversity move right now is about females. There is much angst that women supposedly earn less than men. Can any one seriously talk about the fact that black men earn less than white men? NO.
TABOO, and even Obama will lecture you on black pathologies, rather than dealing with the fact that even in 2014 two EQUIVALENT men, one black, and one white, have vastly different opportunities available to them. And that the success that the black man will have will be based upon his ability to negotiate his way around white dominated structures. Some people are better able to do so than others.
And who is to blame for the roots of African Americans speaking with "variant" pronunciation? At what point in history, Oh somewhere between the couple hundred years of slavery where there was no formal education and the Jim Crow era, and right now at a time when blacks are still sitting in poor substandard classrooms across the country in majorly segregated schools where kids might be sitting on window ledges because they don't have desks ---while across the bridge, white kids are in well appointed schools funded by the property taxes of white flight neighborhoods????
My reference is to the speech patterns of EDUCATED blacks. Not an explanation of black poverty. It does blacks no good to continue to define blacks in terms of poverty or to define poverty in terms of blacks. Most blacks aren't poor, and most poor aren't black.
Now I can listen to Oprah and guess that she is a black woman. No one can accuse her of being inarticulate. Black American speech is larger rooted from a Southern base, because that is where the bulk of blacks originate. Southern derived accents were maintained in segregated northern cities as those blacks were isolated from others. So it has since come to define what the speech of blacks is.
1. What was the race of the panel of executives who decided that you shouldn't have been hired?
2. Do you think that being white automatically makes you a better candidate than one who isn't white?
3. How do you know that the person who was eventually hired wasn't also white?
I have been in situations the same as the OP.
While there may not be any racism, sexism or any other "ism" going on, I think there is a point to be made that some things in life make you go "hmmmm"
The issue is that many companies are so tight lipped and do not have a transparent interview process.
For example, the last interview I went on, 2 out of the 3 managers were Indian/male, most all of the people in the department are Indian/male and I did not even get a response until 5 weeks later after contacting 3 different HR people. Oh, and I did not get any feedback either.
Now, if I was a real trouble maker, I'd file a suit. Sure, I am sure they could have found an Indian that was "more qualified," but they did not tell me that "unfortunately we found people that had experience with X, which you did not have." That would have shot down any suit that I may have had because it was cut and dry. But a trouble maker could say "well, they didn't tell me why they didn't hire me (or gave me a vague reason that could be construed as a ism)" and at get the lawyers involved.
I wish people would stop making this a race issue - it is NOT a race issue, it is a CLASS issue. I'm white and I grew up poor, and somehow it's expected that I'm going to be on easy street solely because of the color of my skin? And it's expected that a black person will have a harder time simply because of the color of his/her skin? That is simply untrue. A kid whose parents could contribute to his college costs will come out ahead of a kid who had to pay himself, regardless of his skin color. A kid whose parents' only connections are at the local church and the pipefitters union isn't going to be able to easily network his way into a white-collar job, whereas a kid whose parents both belong to professional organizations and work in white-collar jobs will easily fit into the corporate world. I'm not saying that racial bias never comes into play, but class is a much more important factor these days.
A college degree is not a guarantee for anyone as stated. As far as a Black American the applicant must act intelligent and show no signs of any affinity for the hood or rap music, If he talks fluently and utilizes excellent vocabulary carrying himself like Denzell Washington or Bill Cosby he has a shot.
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