The article by Pager and Western focuses on America’s racial progress since the 1960s. It was written to show people that even though all races are supposed to have equal rights and opportunities in today’s society they don’t. Pager and Western formed an experiment to prove this. The article goes on to describe how they had groups of white males, latino males and black males all attend job interviews.
All of these men had the same resumes and were all equally qualified for the job that they were applying for. They even went as far as making sure they were all around the same height and dressed similar. The results showed that more whites were hired than latinos and blacks and more latinos were hired than blacks. This shows that there is still discrimination in society. They even did the experiment again only this time the white male also had a criminal background whereas the latino and black male didn’t. Still though, the white male with a criminal record was hired more than the latino and black males with no criminal record. The issues drawn from Pager and Western were very serious and are things that should be paid attention to.
The things that I read in this article were quite surprising to me. In the second paragraph on the first page the authors say that whites turned their back on the issue because it was difficult to observe. I thought that this statement was ridiculous. I think that whites don’t even see the problem for the most part and that most are just oblivious to the whole situation. I also think that issues like these should be made more public and should be talked about more so that more people are made aware of the situations people are facing on an everyday basis.
Reading this article was honestly disturbing to me and it made me feel ashamed. I thought that the authors made some very bold points and I was shocked to see the results from the experiments especially the one where the white male had a criminal record. It angers me to see that even a white male with a criminal record would get more call backs on a job position than a latino or black male without. I think that the points made in the article by the authors were very dead on with what is happening in society today.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
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This article was definitely eye opening. I have been aware of the race issue regarding hiring, but was shocked to read how bad it truly is. It is disturbing that whites are hired so much more over Latinos and African Americans, especially when they have the same qualifications. More so, it is appalling that even when an overly-qualified white individual has a criminal record, he is still hired over an overly-qualified Latino or African American. This does not seem reasonable and most definitely is not justifiable. I agree with the statement made regarding whites turning their heads because the issue is tough to observe. It is just plain ignorance; whites may or may not be aware of the issue, but I believe it is that they just do not want to deal with it. Why would they want to acknowledge a problem when they are being given what they want?
ReplyDeleteThe article states that society believes there is little influence of discrimination on labor market inequality. This is interesting because it certainly is not the case. Perhaps this article should be used more widespread in order to educate others about this issue because it provides excellent information. The tables and graphs were useful in helping to demonstrate the disparities that exist. Also, the information in this article was displayed in a way that was easy to follow along and understand. Overall, the article was interesting and informative.
I found this article surprisisng ecspecially because the testing was done in New York city. I think of New York as being a melting pot of people and assumed that a place like that would have limited racsism. I would like to see more of the study though. What did a Black interview say to the lation or to the white guy? The way it is written makes me think that it was spun in a way to make it seem rascsist. They went to 341 interviews, but only used info on about six.
ReplyDeleteThe most shocking thing to me was the criminal record though. I was surprised that the people chose the white male with the criminal record over a clean record of any race.