Yolanda Spivey
Before I begin, let me quote the late, great, Booker T. Washington who said, “Of all forms of slavery there is none that is so harmful and degrading as that form of slavery which tempts one human being to hate another by reason of his race or color.”
For two years, I have been unemployed. In the beginning, I applied to more than three hundred open positions in the insurance industry—an industry that I’ve worked in for the previous ten years. Not one employer responded to my resume. So, I enrolled back into college to finish my degree. After completing school this past May, I resumed my search for employment and was quite shocked that I wasn’t getting a single response. I usually applied for positions advertised on the popular website Monster.com. I’d used it in the past and have been successful in obtaining jobs through it.
Two years ago, I noticed that Monster.com had added a “diversity questionnaire” to the site. This gives an applicant the opportunity to identify their sex and race to potential employers. Monster.com guarantees that this “option” will not jeopardize your chances of gaining employment. You must answer this questionnaire in order to apply to a posted position—it cannot be skipped. At times, I would mark off that I was a Black female, but then I thought, this might be hurting my chances of getting employed, so I started selecting the “decline to identify” option instead. That still had no effect on my getting a job. So I decided to try an experiment: I created a fake job applicant and called her Bianca White.
First, I created an email account and resume for Bianca. I kept the same employment history and educational background on her resume that was listed on my own. But I removed my home phone number, kept my listed cell phone number, and changed my cell phone greeting to say, “You have reached Bianca White. Please leave a message.” Then I created an online Monster.com account, listed Bianca as a White woman on the diversity questionnaire, and activated the account.
That very same day, I received a phone call. The next day, my phone line and Bianca’s email address, were packed with potential employers calling for an interview. I was stunned. More shocking was that some employers, mostly Caucasian-sounding women, were calling Bianca more than once, desperate to get an interview with her. All along, my real Monster.com account was open and active; but, despite having the same background as Bianca, I received no phone calls. Two jobs actually did email me and Bianca at the same time. But they were commission only sales positions. Potential positions offering a competitive salary and benefits all went to Bianca.
At the end of my little experiment, (which lasted a week), Bianca White had received nine phone calls—I received none. Bianca had received a total of seven emails, while I’d only received two, which again happen to have been the same emails Bianca received. Let me also point out that one of the emails that contacted Bianca for a job wanted her to relocate to a different state, all expenses paid, should she be willing to make that commitment. In the end, a total of twenty-four employers looked at Bianca’s resume while only ten looked at mines.
Is this a conspiracy, or what? I’m almost convinced that White Americans aren’t suffering from disparaging unemployment rates as their Black counterpart because all the jobs are being saved for other White people.
My little experiment certainly proved a few things. First, I learned that answering the diversity questionnaire on job sites such as Monster.com’s may work against minorities, as employers are judging whom they hire based on it. Second, I learned to suspect that resumes with ethnic names may go into the wastebasket and never see the light of day.
Other than being chronically out of work, I embarked on this little experiment because of a young woman I met while I was in school. She was a twenty-two-year-old Caucasian woman who, like myself, was about to graduate. She was so excited about a job she had just gotten with a well-known sporting franchise. She had no prior work experience and had applied for a clerical position, but was offered a higher post as an executive manager making close to six figures. I was curious to know how she’d been able to land such a position. She was candid in telling me that the human resource person who’d hired her just “liked” her and told her that she deserved to be in a higher position. The HR person was also Caucasian.
Another reason that pushed me to do this experiment is because of the media. There’s not a day that goes by in which I fail to see a news program about how tough the job market is. Recently, while I was watching a report on underemployed and underpaid Americans, I saw a middle aged White man complaining that he was making only $80,000 which was $30,000 less than what he was making before. I thought to myself that in this economy, many would feel they’d hit the jackpot if they made 80K a year.
In conclusion, I would like to once again quote the late, great, Booker T. Washington when he said, “You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.”
The more America continues to hold back great candidates based on race, the more our economy is going to stay in a rut. We all need each other to prosper, flourish, and to move ahead.
http://thyblackman.com/2011/10/06/the-real-truth-about-blacks-and-unemployment/
Reblogged this on Cree7's Blog and commented:
Not knowing this is a big cause of black people’s lack of confidence and mental health problems. IT IS that bad. And, worse.
Absolutely right, Cree.
Our lack of understanding and staying in denial about racism/white supremacy is making us even more anti-black, by blaming other black people (the other prisoners) for what white people (the prison wardens) are doing to us.
Innerstanding isness I’m tuned into the frequency you are on. As for the article I see no evidence that white people need black people to prosper, flourish, and to move ahead. Also, so called Black people should never be stunned or surprised about being abused in the system of racism white supremacy. It is time for so called Black people to operate as a codified collective with formulated strategies to work against RWS…
“…so called Black people should never be stunned or surprised about being abused in the system of racism white supremacy. It is time for so called Black people to operate as a codified collective with formulated strategies to work against RWS…”
couldn’t have said it better myself
What a timely blog! For those who are confused about “black unemployment” this should answer a lot of questions. For those who believe in ‘black progress’ and ‘more education being the answer to white racism’ this should be enlightening as well.
Now, it’s time to face the music and roll up our sleeves and find our own solutions to our employment woes, starting with understanding the system of white supremacy, ridding ourselves of our anti-blackness, and along the road, creating our own entrepreneur partnerships and community banks.
Yes, white people will do their damndest to derail our efforts and yes, some of their tactics may succeed. But it appears we have run out of other options. Integration, interracial dating and mating and breeding, education, assimilation, trying to fit our round bodies into corporate america’s square holes, kissing whiite butt, and betraying each other hasn’t worked in the long term.
Even a first black president has no rights whites are bound to respect.
Bottom line, it’s better to try and fail while standing on one’s feet than to give up and keep living
on our knees.
.
Well, I’m a realist, and I’ll also add that these challenging times are not much different than those experienced by Mr. Booker Washington abd those whose shoulders we stand upon.
Knowing that, we are wasting time waiting on white folks to be “nice” with us, giving us a “chance”. Nothing personal against white folks. We’re just in a competition for limited resources (i.e. jobs, business opportunities, etc.) only if we “think” that “our” resources are limited by such mental parameters.
“Thinking big makes the impossible possible.”
I know it sounds harsh but it just ain’t gonna happen Brothers and Sisters.
It definitely “bootstrap” time and the mentality that goes with it. as the ancestors used to say, “You’ve got to make a way out of no way.”
Sister, you stay strong, persistent and dogged in your pursuit to actualize your dreams, hopes and desires.
It’s gonns happen. Nothing can stop what is inevitable.
You just got to think that way.
YES!…YES!!…YES!!!
This is waht is meant by the “wake-up call” and applying action to words.
What more evidence do we need?
“It takes a system to defeat a system” I once heard on the C.O.W.S. show (Gus Renegade). We’ve got to start thinking “systems”, and applying these thoughts and actions into some tangible to solve some it not all of the problems we are all facing in a ll areas of our functioning lives.
There’s nothing wrong with competition. After all, “racism” is nothing more than a system predicated upon the competition for power, resources and wealth. If we have no game plan, there will be no tools we can use to defend ourselves economically.
“it’s better to try and fail while standing on one’s feet than to give up and keep living
on our knees.”
Great post Pam! That sentence pretty much sums it up. Those are words to live by.
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A client performed a similar experiment and shared it with me whilst working at the JobCentrePlus, UK. Evidences abound that racism is not only being expertly hidden, it is also growing! That is what is meant by, “Institutionalised Racism!” If our natural and human resources are well-managed in Nigeria, our sisters and daughters would have stopped going abroad as prostitutes and the males as slaves!
A couple years ago Julius kane wrote a blog post that asked “Shoild we stop naming our children Ghetto names?” which spoke on the same identical issues. Its time “African Americans” woke up. Great job Yolonda.
The name doesn’t make a difference, because you will be turned down at the interview.
Reblogged this on Moorbey's Blog.
Discrimination is rife in this country and especially this economy. People are discriminated against because of race and religion and age. Beauty is hired before the plain.
This article is on target and straight TRUTH. I have gone through the same thing on monster.com. And yes, this has always been the case to some degree, but with a depressed economy, whites will naturally save the jobs for their own.
Blacks need to change their mindset of working for whites to working for themselves. I work from home and show people how to do the same. It’s insanity to think they are going to provide jobs for blacks in this environment. https://marionyoung.minervaplace.com
Our people need to be empowered.
But we do not yet understand empowerment.
Empowerment can come about in only two ways:
Organizing or Supporting Organization.
For the most part, we neither organize nor support organizers.
This is the root of our problems. We’re a disorganized people.
This article is excellent to show a problem. But we must assert solutions. And in solutions is organization.
I do not know every organization, but I know that the African Blood Siblings can help in African unemployment; for unemployment relates to the transfer of industry from residential areas: the African Blood Siblings organizes to re-introduce local industrial centers, improving community production and self-sufficiency. Thus I promote ABS.
HTP
Hopefully this will curtail the insidious mantra that ” Black women are getting all the jobs.” Let us be clear that as long as employment from people who hate us continues to be our paradigm – we are ALL screwed. We understand that at this point some of us must work for them, but we need to get about the business of creating intra-employment and structure our lives such that we depend on people who are bent on destroying us less and less.
@LBM: I love whne you use the terms “intra-employment” and “structure”, terminology that is mentally enabling for those of us who are on the same thinking level! Trojan Pam once quoted that we all can become “a leader of one.” I took that as meaning: start where “you” are, with who “you” are and what “you” can contribute to the Greater Cause. The days of marching, shouting and protesting are over. Your armor must be belief in yourself, trust in The Creator and continually educating yourself about the world we live in now.
And of course, through sharing encouraging, mature and supportive dialogue such as this, we all will find that there are many, many of us who are like-minded in seeking “solutions” to the relative problems we face as Black people and People of Color.
Great comments by everyone on this post!
I’m about to carry out this same experiment. I will post up the results once its done.
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This is really ignorant and preys on people’s desire to believe that some one else is at fault for our own failings. Although I believe racism is and always will be present in this or any society, I am skeptical that it is a systemic. Most companies screen resume’s via a computer program. Is the author asserting that the software has been programmed to look for “white” as a key word?
I’m not surprised in the least.
Reblogged this on diaryofanegress.
diaryofanegress, would you email me please. I have a question I need to ask you. Great topic! Discrimination is alive and well.
Why don’t you just work for a Black Company? They won’t have a problem hiring someone who could be incompetent, lazy, loud mouthed have a chip on her shoulder and then be unable to fire them easily without cries of racism – right?
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I have to say that I also agree with your findings. On every application I am proud to say that I am black. I have my own business going and I want to do all electronic repair for the small community. This article has given me the motivation I need to never give up with my self employment dreams. If I do I will be at the mercy of someone else. And we all know how thats has worked out for us.