Jabbar, Meet Barry

On June 20, 2004, Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan, of the prestigious Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago, released a report in the American Economic Review – entitled Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Study on Labor Market Discrimination – that sent shock-waves through the human resources/ employment market. By using very controlled techniques – significantly by using resumes with “vanilla” names and others with names clearly associated with African-Americans – the study proved rather conclusively that job discrimination based on race continues to be a major fact of life for most Black Americans.

Bottom line, the report concluded, “Whites receive 50% more callbacks for interviews. Callbacks are also more responsive to resume quality for White names than for African American ones. The racial gap is uniform across occupation, industry and employer size. We also find little evidence that employers are inferring social class from the names.”

But 2004 was a different time – long before the current meltdown – and the study heightened awareness in the employment community… or did it? Exactly what did the financial crisis of the last few years do for the African American labor market, particularly for those young men and women from this minority community who made their way through college, many from the most prestigious universities in America?

Employment for the uneducated and untrained, comparing Whites to Blacks, didn’t budge remotely by the same percentage that the educated were impacted; the Bureau of Labor Statistics noted that in 2009 Black male college grads over 25 were almost twice as likely to be unemployed as their White counterparts – 8.4% versus 4.4%, respectively. Stunned that college may not have broken down employment barriers and may have subjected Black Americans to new and equally pernicious discrimination barriers? In short, a college education for an African American male widens the unemployment gap with comparable Whites, while remaining under- or uneducated does not! This, in a country that elected a Black man to be President of the United States?!

And when it comes to supervisorial jobs, Blacks and women still hit glass – or brick – ceilings: “A more recent study[September 2006], published… in The Journal of Labor Economics found white, Asian and Hispanic managers tended to hire more whites and fewer blacks than black managers did...There is also the matter of how many jobs, especially higher-level ones, are never even posted and depend on word-of-mouth and informal networks, in many cases leaving blacks at a disadvantage. A recent study [Networks of Opportunity: Gender, Race and Job Leads, August 2009 Caliber, University of California Press] published in the academic journal Social Problems found that white males receive substantially more job leads for high-level supervisory positions than women and members of minorities.” New York Times (Nov. 30)

The Times also provides anecdotal information from three young college-educated Blacks, Johnny R. Williams (MBA, University of Chicago), Barry Jabbar Sykes (a math major from traditionally Black Morehouse College) and Terelle Hairston (a Yale grad). All three were having problems getting interviews and callbacks, seemingly based on names and descriptions in their resumes suggesting that they were African American. Williams deleted the resume reference to his participation in an African American business students association. The technique worked, and when a money management firm in Dallas invited him to any interview, excited that they had finally attracted a grad from a top business school, they were stunned to meet him in person: “ ‘Their eyes kind of hit the ceiling a bit,’ he said. ‘It was kind of quiet for about 45 seconds.’ … The company’s interest in him quickly cooled, setting off the inevitable questions in his mind.”

Sykes lost the name by which most people knew him – Jabbar – and became Barry J. Sykes. He continues his search in the information technology field, where people with his math skills are still desperately needed. Hairston even worries about telephone interviews: “It does weigh on you in the search because you’re wondering, how much is race playing a factor in whether I’m even getting a first call, or whether I’m even getting an in-person interview once they hear my voice and they know I’m probably African-American?” Tough times often bring out the worst in many of us, but I am still appalled. What would you say to any of these young, accomplished Black men if you looked them in the eye?

I’m Peter Dekom, and I thought you might want to know.