Considering the fact that people in the United States voted for an African American to become president, indicates that the American society has come from far in relation to racial discrimination. However, in many work places in the United States the attitude towards African Americans does not reflect this. Racial discrimination and harassment in factories and offices has sky rocketed, “and this is not just the use of the “N” word”. It has gotten to the level that African Americans are being threatened and intimidated using some “tools such as the hangman’s nooses and racist graffiti such as Klu Klux Klan”.
It has been more than forty years since the Landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted and people are still having such unlawful behaviors. According to data from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), cases of racial harassment have doubled since the year nineteen ninety and the year two thousand and seven marked the climax with over six thousand, nine hundred and seventy seven cases.
According to the EEOC there are many law suits filled by African Americans in the United States. However, the media only covers cases that have huge monetary penalties. Cases with small monetary penalties go unnoticed such as the case of a black man who worked for Home Depot as a night crew lumberman. He was exposed to a racially intimidating work environment as the company management allowed the supervisors to make racial remarks. He was given a settlement of one hundred and twenty five US dollars.
When applying for jobs, most applicants expect to be called for an interview which is a big stride towards getting the job. However, does the name on the application affect the possibilities of the applicant getting the job? Marianne Bertrand together with Sendhil Mullainathan conducted a research to answer this question. They did this by sending fabricated resumes responding to “over one thousand, three hundred jobs listed in the Boston Globe and Chicago Tribune”. The success of every resume was measured using the rate of call backs. Over five thousand resumes were sent for different job vacancies.
“The perception of race was manipulated through the name of every applicant with comparable credentials for each racial group”. Different races use different sounding names. White sounding-names such as Brendan baker and Emily Walsh and African-American- sounding names such as Jamal Jones and Lakisha Washington were allocated to different resumes.
In this research Marianne found out that people with white-sounding names have a higher possibility of being called for an interview than African-American-sounding names. She also found out the in every ten resumes a white name person sends, they receive an interview while a black named person has to send approximately fifteen resumes to receive a call for an interview. She also found out that high quality resumes affect the possibility of getting an interview for white named people than African American named people. African American named people did not get many interview calls even with better resumes. Using the research statistics Marianne concluded that the levels of discrimination were regular across all the industries.
The housing market is not an exception from racial discrimination. The Fair Housing Act stipulates that all citizens have a right to live where they choose. However, this act was violated in a case where a couple refused to sell their house, which they had put on the market, to An African American couple. “Daniel and Adrienne Sabbia, the owner couple, declined to sign the purchase contract with George and Peytyn Wellborn even after the Willborn’s agreed to pay $1.7 Million, the highest bid the Sabbia’s had ever gotten”. “The Sabbia’s stated that they didn’t want to sell the property any more. However the property was back in the market in March with an asking price of $1.799 Million”. This is clear evidence the African Americans still face racial discrimination in the United States housing market.
Shopping centers are also affected by racial discrimination. A clear indication of this is a case where an African American lady tries to redeem a coupon in a cosmetics store and ends up being frisked and all the contents of her bag emptied at the counter. This is a very embarrassing and hurtful action. People assume that in the United States every one is treated fairly regardless of the race. However, this is not the case as the above scenario proves otherwise.
A widespread misperception is that African Americans are engaged in more criminal doings than the white people. This is the reason they scrutinized and monitored in shopping centers. “A clear evidence of this is depicted in the case where a Massachusetts store declined to give African Americans larger shopping bags in the fear that they will use them to steal items from the stores”. This is very unfair to the African Americans. All people should be under surveillance regardless of their color. Racial discrimination in the market place causes people psychological and emotional damage and can lead to loss of dignity. It does not matter where a dollar is coming from, it’s still a dollar and people should understand that.
Racial biasness is yet to come to an end in the United States of America. Denny’s, a restaurant under the Advantica Restaurant Group is a good example that racial biasness still exists in the United States. A manager at the restaurant locked out correctional officers and claimed that the restaurant was out of food yet they were serving other people. The company faced discrimination charges before when they left six black secret service officers unserved while serving other white officers. The chief diversity officer, Ray Hood Phillips commented that “even if the investigation has not been completed, we are both disappointed and stunned”. Racial biasness continues to cost organizations a lot of money from the many suits filled by their victims and other people aught to learn from these cases.
In conclusion, African Americans still face racial discrimination in the United States today. The cases illustrated above are clear evidence that the American people have a long way to go in regard to racial discrimination. People aught to understand that racial discrimination causes the victims a lot of psychological and emotional problems. Though it is assumed that racial discrimination is no longer in existence in the United States, it is important to understand that this is just an assumption and the reality is that it exists and affects African Americans every where they go. African Americans are threatened and intimidated at their workplaces, denied their dream houses and scrutinized at shopping centers. This is very unfair to them and people in the United Stated should learn that the times for racial discrimination are over considering that the current American president is African American.
Works Cited
Bertrand, Marianne. "Research highlights from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Bussiness." 1 January 2003. www.chicagobooth.edu. 10 May 2012
Forman, Ellen. "Race bias charge again hits Denny's." Sun-sentinel 8 January 1998: 1.
Griffith, Vivé. "Feature story the color of money." 20 September 2006. www.utexas.edu. 10 May 2012
Star Breaker Fact Reporter. "Racial discrimination strikes housing market." Star Breaker 19 August 2010: 1.
Tahmincioglu, Eve. "Racial harassment still infecting the workplace ." 13 January 2008. www.msnbc.msn.com. 10 May 2012
