Racism in the Modern Workplace

Introduction

As much as we as a society would like to think that we are passed the days of racism in the workplace, consider this: The most common form of employment discrimination in the United States in the year 2012 was race discrimination. The filed charges were for 33,512. Workplace discrimination based on a person’s racial background is against the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 so why are we still continually running into so many claims? Racism is difficult to recognize for someone who has never felt that type of discrimination. Even if you are the employee who has fell victim to racist thinking, it may be difficult to recognize. In a small work environment, it may be difficult for the average employee to really feel how deep racism can go in the workplace. When only seeing a small portion of an organization, it may be difficult for the average employee to notice the patterns within the work environment that would otherwise reveal racist tendencies.

The "New" Racism in the Workplace

According to research conducted by Katz and Moore, common feedback from people of color is that they have a lack of access to information they need in order to fulfill their job duties sufficiently. Often times when they are given a title, they soon realize they do not have any real authority or voice in their new position. The “comfort factor” among white supervisors or managers also plays a major role in this racist workplace environment. Feedback from people of color also note that white managers are almost afraid to give them any sort of feedback to see where they stand, never really being able to gage where they are within the organization. Reading research regarding these various comments and feedback suggests that we have created a corporate culture where there is “silent” racism. For fear of being racist, employers are now treating employees of color much differently than that of white employees, meaning they are guilty of the very thing they are trying to avoid, which in turn is causing problems for the person of color.

A Study on Modern Racism in the Workplace

In the study Just Doing Business: Modern Racism and Obedience to Authority as Explanations for Employment Discrimination, the researchers investigated the effects of prejudice (in the form of modern racism) and business justifications by authority figures to see if the two were strongly related.  The study defines authority as anyone who is in charge of making decisions in order to guide the actions of others. The following excerpt discusses their findings:

“As expected, business justifications by legitimate authority figures led to participants’ obedience in the form of discrimination relative to a no-justification condition and, in the second experiment, also relative to a condition in which the business justification came from an illegitimate authority figure. Moreover, in both experiments, as expected, modern racism did not have a main effect on discrimination, but interacted with business justifications such that modern racism predicted discrimination when a legitimate authority figure provided a business-related justification for such discrimination but not in the absence of such a justification. These results are discussed in terms of their theoretical implications for understanding prejudice and obedience to authority in organizations and in terms of their practical implications for addressing the problem of discrimination in the workplace. In Study 1, as expected, (a) subordinates receiving a business justification from a legitimate authority figure to discriminate against Black job applicants tended to do so and (b) subordinates’ prejudice predicted discrimination only in the presence of such a justification. Given the dependent variable in the study was the number of qualified Black applicants selected for interviews, the strength of these effects is apparent.”

Conclusion

The study concludes that racism was prevalent when a person of authority had been justifying the racism for business purposes. However, illegitimate authority figures also had an effect, but not as strong as a linear relationship. The tone for how we should treat each other does indeed start at the top. Justifying racism, sends a message to the entire organization. When setting an example from the top to down, if a fellow employee, or illegitimate authority figure does justify racism, a manager or other authority figure can discipline those actions, which is why it is so important to educate everyone within an organization about the impacts of racism on both the individual and organizational levels. It is important for the HR industry to strive to create a better tomorrow- a place where everyone can feel protected.

References

Brief, A. P., Dietz, J., Cohen, R. R., Pugh, S. D., & Vaslow, J. B. (2000). Just doing business: Modern racism and obedience to authority as explanations for employment discrimination. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 81(1), 72-97.

http://www.eeoc.gov/

Katz, J. H., & Moore, K. R. (2012). Racism in the Workplace. Handbook for Strategic HR: Best Practices in Organization Development from the OD Network, 177.