How+does+race+affect+obtaining+a+job+(and+an+education+to+get+that+job)?

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Have you ever watched a comedy or comedian on tv? Funny, right? Now, have you ever heard that comedian talk about races and stereotypes of those races? I remember watching this one comedian reenact a dialogue between a Muslim traveler and a customs official in the airport. IS "MUSLIM" A RACE?? It involved why that customs official was searching only the Muslim traveler and not the people around him who were of other ethnicities. It was extremely funny, but it could also have been extremely offensive to some people. Now, think back to all the jobs that you have done in the past. Have you ever seen someone be racist towards another person in the workplace? Chances are that you might have.

There are several examples of racism in the process of obtaining or maintaining a job. One example would be a college applicant with better grades and a better reputation being passed over for another applicant whose background is different from the majority of the students' backgrounds on campus. Another example of this would be racism in the workplace. These are just two of the many examples of racism in the workplace.

One of the main things that is somewhat based on race on the road to obtaining a job is college. Matriculating into college is one of the main rite of passage in many countries. Most colleges nowadays are asking applicants what ethnic background they are from. They do this mainly to create a more diverse campus. There has been some dispute over whether or not colleges should do this. An example of this would be when an applicant to the University of Michigan found that a classmate who had a lower GPA had been accepted over her because of their race. She sued and lost when the Supreme Court ruled that the University of Michigan had the right to do this. However, the ruling was 5-4, so it was a very close case. Also, there has been some evidence that found that a more diverse campus creates a better learning environment. The information that was found in this study includes these points: that a more diverse classroom will bring up topics that would not normally be addressed in a less diverse classroom, that having a more diverse campus allowed graduates to interact with more ethnically different people after graduation than a person who attended a less diverse campus, and that students in a diverse environment learned better and were more active. However, as explained above, more diverse campuses come at the cost of shorting better certified students to less qualified but more ethnically diverse students.

(Elaboration on court case and college diversity from above) (Elaboration on study of diversity from above can be found here, here, and here)

One issue that is related more on the work side of getting a job would be racism in the job selection process. One book that I was going over in the library did a very good job describing how the process was unfair to some people that did not have a personal relationship with the manager of the screening process. This is because a person that had a personal relationship with the person managing the screening process would have a better chance of getting that job. The book went on to describe the statistics of what ethnic background most managers (who are normally the people that screen the admission process) which turned out to be mostly white the time that this book was written. Also, one co-worker of a manager which sat in on one of the selection processes noted that the manager only commented on if a person was “qualified” enough for the position if they appeared to be of a minority race. This seems to imply that all of the candidates for the position that were from a majority race were all qualified enough for the position, which would not always be true. Another example would be segregated awards such as the former C.O.O.N award at a major newspaper's workplace. The black workers and reporters at the NY Times were not eligible for the main award, and the prize for this award was five hundred dollars. Therefore, to make the black workers at this office place feel more appreciated, the administration created the COON award. The award for this was one intricately folded dollar. Needless to say, the black workers at this office felt shorted, but they treated the award with dignity. These are just a few of the main examples of how a workplace or getting a job can be racist.

Now one question remains to be answered. That question is, “Is there a job out there that is free of racism?” Well, most jobs are going to have some aspect of racism to them, however minor. Alas, the job that will most likely have the least racist amount of people would be jobs that require intensive training and stress that would form a very tight bond between the people that do that job. Only a few of these positions exist in the US, and they are jobs in the United States Military. This is because people in these positions must be able to handle extensive stress. Thus, if you have a multi-racial group of people that are assigned to do the same job, then these people will have a much tighter bond between each other and will not be as prone as to discriminate on their coworkers based on their ethnicity. To go further on this topic, there is a saying in the United States Marine Corps that, “There is one color in the Marine Corps, and that is green.” Sadly, there is most likely going to be some racism in these jobs, but these rates would be very little. This is the only set of jobs that would be as close to racism free as you could get. WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF RACIAL INTEGRATION IN THE MILITARY?

There are many things that I want to do with this article in the future. I would like to expand the various sections above and include more facts and numbers. I would also like to include more stories about the sections above. Also, I would like to include more links that are related to articles that tie in to this page. I would also like for some outsiders that are searching the internet for race pages to comment on the discussion section and to tell me what I could improve on. I would also like to expand this to see how the US stacks up to other countries in racism in the workplace. This is what I would like to do with this page in the future.

Additional Information on whether or not college polices on admission based on race can be found here. AnnBibGodwin

(Colin G -- A Block)