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Curtis Ijames
Jessie Carty
UWRT 1102
10/28/2014
Racism in the Workplace?
In the few years that my generation has been old enough to work, we may have
seen or been involved with discrimination in the workplace due to race. Personally I
have not witnessed it, but that doesnt mean that never was a victim of it. Racism can
happen in ways that are not obvious and that many of us may not even notice. First, we
should define race. Race is an symbolic category, based on phenotype or ancestry and
constructed according to specific social and historical contexts, that is misrecognized as
a natural category (Desmond 336). This means that race is title society gives you
based on your skin color and family history. Discrimination due to race in work
environments are very common not only in the US, but it is seen in other parts of the
world. Australia is another country we will analyze. This bias for choosing certain racial
groups over others must be stopped and luckily in the US there is Affirmative Action, but
what is being done to stop it other countries.
What is racism in the workplace? racism in the workplace can vary from getting
paid less as a different race for doing the same job to not getting hired or an interview
due to your race. Racial domination comes in two forms: Institutional racism, and
Interpersonal racism. Although there are two forms are racial domination, the one we
are focusing on today is institutional racism. Institutional racism is systemic White
domination of people of color, embedded and operating in corporations, universities,

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legal systems, political bodies, cultural life, and other social collectives (Desmond 345).
This means that White people control people of color through political power, symbolic
power, social power and economic power. These powers can create a bad situation in
the workplace. People will of color will be deemed different or not normal, which leads to
them being left out of groups, which then leads to them benefiting from less
opportunities and privileges that their white counterparts partake in.
How are we fighting this issue in America? One of the answers is Affirmative
Action. Affirmative action is an important tool to provide qualified individuals with equal
access to educational and professional opportunities they would otherwise have been
denied despite their strong qualifications. These policies make certain that all
Americans are considered fairly and equally for jobs and educational opportunities
(Kurland 1). Affirmative Action battles discrimination in the workplace by addressing
biased testing or hiring processes, increasing diversity by allowing race and gender to
be considered when choosing qualified applicants, and by reviewing targeted training
programs. Next you will see some statistics relating to wage differences between
ethnicities even with the help of Affirmative Action.Hispanics are earning way less
money than their white counterparts. A hispanic women only makes 52 cents for every
dollar a white woman makes and a hispanic man only makes 63 cents for every dollar a
white man makes. This differences are very alarming, especially with hispanics women
making half as much white women. Other ethnicities are suffering from less pay as well.
In 2001 the average per capita income for white Americans was $24,142, while the
average per capita for black Americans was $15,269. This shows how even though
things are getting better, there is still much room for improvement. IBM is one of the

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business that showed an effective Affirmative Action plan early one. They had an idea
to recruit, train, and keep highly talented minorities in the organization. From 1996-2003
the number of minority executives went up from 117 to 316. This was a huge step for
getting minorities involved with higher positions in companies.
In some cases, the Supreme Court has gotten involved in situations relating to
Affirmative Action. The U.S. Supreme Court in Regents of the University of California v.
Bakke, 438 U.S. 912 upheld the use of race as one factor in choosing among qualified
applicants for admission. At the same time, it also ruled unlawful the University of
Californias medical schools practice of reserving 18 seats for disadvantaged minority
students in each entering class of 100 (Kurland 13). This case seemed very interesting.
The school is allowed to race as a factor when choosing applicants for admission, but
wont allow them to save seats for disadvantaged minority students in each class. The
most qualified people should get accepted, but at the same time the program was trying
to give minority students that werent as privileged a chance to be in the program. This
would have slightly helped minorities get that experience, which could have resulted in a
better job. This would have helped the wage gap, even though its on a very small scale
in comparison to the amount of people in the nation.
Well we see how the situation is being handled in America, but are other
countries having this problem as well, and if so, what are they doing about it? Australia
is having a similar problem with racism. In 2011, around one in five Australians said
they had experienced race-hate talk. About one in 10 people say they have experienced
exclusion in the workplace or social events because of their ethnicity (Triggs). It can be
difficult to bring up discrimination in the workplace. It may be uncomfortable to talk

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about and people may not take the claim seriously if you do manage to bring it up.
Luckily they have acts in place to protect people from discrimination. The Racial
Discrimination Act of 1975 makes it against the law to treat someone unfairly based on
their race, ethnicity, immigration status, and descent. Now Australia has a campaign
called Racism. It Stops With You. This is a good campaign that makes each person
think about what they can do to stop Racism.
Even though there is not equality for all in the workplace, steps are being taken in
the right direction. Discrimination in the workplace also is not only bound to America.
Australia suffers from the same situation, but they do have campaigns out there getting
people to figure out how they can help stop the problem. Here in America we have
Affirmative Action as our main tool leveling the playing field. Race is a title created by
society and as the nations unite their people they can end this bias.

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Work Cited

Desmond, Matthew, and Mustafa Emirbayer. "What Is Racial Domination?"Du

Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 6.02 (2009): 335. 2 June 2009. Web.
27 Oct. 2014.

Kurland, Roybn. MEEBOC: 10 Most Frequently Asked Questions about

MEEBOC. Lansing, MI: MEEBOC, n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.

Triggs, Gillian. "Racism in the Workplace. It Stops with You." Working Life. N.p.,
11 June 2013. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.