As American's I believe people like to think of us as a "racism-free" nation, especially with President Obama in office. However, I wonder how true this claim is due to a recent article I read about how a college education from a good school isn't enough to overcome the racial barrier that people experience. Some people of color have gone to great lengths to hide anything that might give away their skin color on their résumé. Johnny R. Williams said, "If they're going to X me, I'd like to at least get in the door first." This, to me, was a little bit of a slap in the face. I mean, I understand that racism is still a problem, but I guess I underestimated the severity of people's feelings, especially when it comes to employment. In fact, the unemployment rates of college-educated blacks during the recession have been twice as high as that of college-educated white men: 8.4% compared to 4.4%. Also, a study published in the American Economic Review showed that people with black-sounding names got 50% fewer callbacks than those with white-sounding names.
I find it hard to understand why people don't want to hire someone simply because of their name or because they went to a "historically black college". How much of an issue do you think racism is in America? Do you think it's fair that people use preconceived notions about potential employees to determine if they are willing to hire them?
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I completely agree that this is a huge problem. One thing that I have heard is that often, during job interviews, conscious racism is not the biggest problem. If someone is subconsciously racist, they will not look into a colored person's eyes as much as they might otherwise. This can then put the interviewee on edge, which can cause problems for the whole interview. The scary part is that it is not very noticeable, and can happen without the interviewer's intention.
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