Racism

I just finished reading a  brief article posted in the New York Times on 12 /30/2018 regarding Devah Pager, who received her PhD in sociology from UCLA. Dr. Pager was reared in the normal multiculturalism of Hawaii and first encountered a racial divide moving to LA for her studies. Her life experiences influenced her research.

Dr. Pager’s dissertation was not only noteworthy as it received political attention as well. In her research, she had different individuals or confederates apply for hundreds of real jobs. These confederates, all presented similar self-presentations and credentials-but some were black and some white; some would list felony drug convictions and others not as variables. Her findings were that white jobseekers with a criminal record, were significantly more likely to get a call back from the employer than a black job seeker with a criminal record.

Other research, with firms that discriminated, indicated that formerly incarcerated men were not terrible employees compared to non-incarcerated men.  In another study that evaluated attrition rates in the military, she found that there were no differences between men with or without criminal records. In fact, formerly incarcerated military recruits were more likely to get promoted than the non-incarcerated. Another research finding were that firms that practiced discrimination were more likely to go out of business. Recently, in a 2017 study, Dr. Pager found that hiring discriminations against African-Americans had not improved over the last 25 years. This finding was not a surprise.

To Be Continued