Comment on: A black boss, a black sheep?

        We stated before that creating a multicultural environment stimulates  people to get to know each other, reduce prejudice and consequently reduce racism. According to a study (Steve Schifferes, 2002) a multicultural environment will cause more racism. This is of coarse quite opposing.

        It has yet again been proven again that the underlying problem of discrimination is the way that people think and act. Some people will indeed  discriminate more if they are obliged to work together. Others will probably change their view on e.g. black people.

         What if there is a study for every solution we gave which proves  the opposite to be true? Isn’t it a bit naïve to want to ‘solve’ racism? Is it even possible to solve? Nonetheless, I think we found some solid solutions, however, it depends on the character of a person whether they will work or not. 

 Ward Algoet

Solely based on my opinion

Labour unions can help to mitigate racial disparities

In previous blog entries, we already discussed ways to prevent racism at work, but we didn’t mention where employees can turn to if they are confronted with this problem.
Labour unions can definitely help to mitigate racial disparities. By collective bargaining they give the employees the opportunity to speak without fear. Moreover, they can help the racial minorities by  talking to the management of the firm about the problems that these people face, and discussing the best ways to tackle them.


As a conclusion to these  three weeks of blogging, I think we can say that it became very clear that racial discrimination in the labour market is a common problem, but by no means an easy  one to solve. In my opinion, it will never be possible to completely eliminate racism at work, but what we can do, is try to find ways to prevent it and properly address the problem if it occurs.
Furthermore, as Laurence already mentioned, it’s important that we look beyond the most frequent form of racism, which is against people of colour, to discover that the overlooked phenomenon of racism against white people exists as well.
I think these should  be the main points to focus on in our paper and presentation.

(Link to article)

Annelies Delaere

A black boss, a black sheep?

In 2002 Steve Schifferes, a  journalist of the BBC, did a research on racism at British workplaces. Therefore he used a poll on the site ‘BBC news online’. 

One of the results of his study is that racism is much higher at work than in other places. I don’t think that this is something strange. At work, you are obliged to work together with whoever your boss wants to. So you have contact with people that you maybe don’t like: customers, but also colleagues. A racist can do what he wants in his private life, but in his work life he or she has to follow the rules.

Another quite remarkable result was that one in three said “that people didn’t  want to work for someone with another race”. I wouldn’t mind working for such a person as long as that person is a good employer. In my opinion, it isn’t your race that determines how well you work, but your capabilities. 

Martijn De Meyer

(link to the article) 

Racism against white people

I agree with Annelies remark that we need to beware that we don’t turn the situation around and start to refuse white workers. That is why it’s interesting to pay some attention to racism against white people because it exists and it’s still increasing.

Initially, I would like to give two remarks. First, the rate of racism against white people is different according to the country. Secondly, I think it’s a theme that we need to treat with some prudence.

On the one hand you can’t start an organization only for white people because it will be labelled as a racial company, but on the other hand there are a lot of companies only for Asians or black people where white clients are treated impolite and recruiting white workers doesn’t come up for discussion.

In conclusion, I think we need to use the word “racism” with a lot of prudence instead of utilize it in every dialogue or situation between a white person and a person who has another origin.

Laurence de Klerk Wolters

(link to the article)

Multicultural environments can be created naturally

I agree with both, Ward and Laurence, on the fact that creating a multicultural environment and organising workshops are great initiatives to reduce racism in the workplace. Team building activities and workshops create an opportunity for the employees to put their prejudices aside and take this chance to really get to know their co-workers, no matter what their race is. Hopefully these initiatives will lead to a situation of mutual respect.

However, I would like to point out the fact that there is a big difference between trying to prevent employers from refusing applicants because of their skin colour and hiring applicants primarily because they are from a different race. A multicultural workforce is a great ideal to strive for, as long as you don’t turn the situation around and start to refuse white workers instead. As we already said in previous posts, the main reason to hire someone should be the skills he or she possesses, not his or her skin colour. Consequently a multicultural workforce will be created naturally.

Annelies Delaere

The change we need ...

First and for all I agree with Ward and Laurence that racism can’t by solved by using only laws. I think the problems lies much deeper: in the foundations of our society and .. ourselves. Racism along with terrorism,  is one of the biggest threats in our world nowadays. These problems aren’t going to solve themselves and only laws aren’t going to do a lot as well. This doesn’t mean that laws are useless. I think that laws show you what is socially accepted and what not. Without the law, people aren’t going to feel the urge to change the way they behave.

In my opinion, the real solution is reshaping the world and treating the underlying problem which is, I think, fear of the unknown. This can be done for example by learning your children that everyone is equal and maybe even by changing your own opinion. To summarize it with a quote of Michael Jackson: “If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make the change…”

Martijn De Meyer

Based on my own opinion and the reactions of the other team members on my blog entry ‘the client is king’

Video of Michael Jackson's 'Man in the mirror'

Creating a multicultural environment..

Creating a multicultural environment is definitely a step in the right direction. However, I think that it’s more important to stop thinking in divisions. On the one hand you want to stop racism and create an environment where everybody has the same rights but on the other hand you admit that there is still a difference between people with another skin color by putting the focus on the fact that companies need to employ people with all kinds of cultures.

One of the most important factors to create a multicultural environment is to inform your workers about their multifarious backgrounds and cultures. The basic rule is that you need to understand the foreign culture and to admit the existence of differences between these cultures.

Secondly, it’s very important to respect the foreign culture. Finally, the participating workers should use their knowledge of their own culture to gain knowledge about the other cultures. Sometimes it’s enough to sacrifice something that is not too important for us, but it means a lot for another culture.

The main condition of a successful multicultural environment is the understanding, the respect and getting closer to the culture of foreign workers.

Laurence de Klerk Wolters

Comment on: How do you react on a racist attack?

I think that trade unions should indeed help to reduce racism. Nonetheless, they should not be alone! Employers are also worthy warriors in the battle against racial discrimination. There are some things that they could do, I will illustrate with 2 examples:

First, employers can contribute by creating a multicultural environment. Consequentially, different races will get to know each other if they like it or not. By doing that, prejudices will eventually disappear, if not, your staff will.

Secondly, they can form a committee who is in charge of reducing racism in their workplace. This group could put on workshops, improve race relations by making a long-term action plan and deal with complaints from workers.

In my opinion, you might be able to eliminate racism completely by getting rid of capitalism. Our society happens to divide the human population into different groups. What we need to end racial discrimination is world revolution!

Ward Algoet
source: http://www.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/all/library/record/362.html

How do you react on a racist attack?

I agree with ward’s opinion, creating laws isn’t the only solution against racial discrimination at work. The major aim is to change the line of thought of people who have a bad representation of people with another skin colour. That is why it’s important to trace the real cause of the racist attack (for example: fear or a negative experience). Therefore it’s important to distinguish facts and opinions in a conversation.

The first thing you should do is starting up a debate instead of a discussion because you will achieve more if you remain calm. Secondly, try to convince the other person that you are not a thief or a something else that he accused you off. As a last resort, find a mediator (like a trade union) who will try to solve your problem.

I think that you can’t solve racism at work by creating more laws. However, we can reduce racial discrimination by talking to each other in a calm way and eliminate all the prejudices. Maybe trade union can facilitate this process.

(source)

Laurence de Klerk Wolters

Comment on: The client is king…

          No matter how much you change the law in obliging people not to discriminate against one another, there will always be racial discrimination. It’s because we are trying to solve a psychological problem by taking legal measures.

          By having governments  we automatically create stronger and weaker groups. Therefore certain laws help to protect those weaker groups and forcing the stronger to support them. This is an effective way to approach this problem looking at the results. However, you can’t change how people think. They will choose not to violate the law but that doesn’t mean that they agree to accept other races. They choose to not discriminate someone because otherwise they will be punished.

          Martijn has illustrated this very well. Actually employers do not want to hire black people because they will lose profits. However, they are going to hire some to avoid getting sued.
We can’t reduce prejudice therefore there will always be racial discrimination.

Ward Algoet

source: http://www.bullies2buddies.com/How-to-Stop-Racism

Free market penalizes discrimination

First, I would like to react to Martijn’s latest blog entry.
In my opinion, whether a company refuses to hire certain job applicants or not, there’s a possibility to lose customers either way. If the company rejects an applicant because of his or her race, it may also lose some of its clients who don’t want to buy from a racist company.
Furthermore, as you already said yourself, if the decision whether or not to hire a certain applicant isn’t purely based on job performance, but also on skin colour, it’s a form of racial discrimination. So the client may be king, but not if he asks the company to violate the law.

I did some research on this topic and I came across an article written by Robert P. Murphy, in which he states that “bad” discrimination is always penalized by the free market principles.
Allow me to explain this through Martijn’s example of bigoted customers:
As we aim to ensure fair and equal treatment in the job market, companies that refuse to hire applicants because of their race should be an exception. Therefore, a  workforce that consists of only white workers would be a unique situation, but, sadly, a very popular one among racist buyers. Nevertheless, according to Robert P. Murphy, they pay the price for their bigotry, because, as we all know, something unique is generally more expensive. This explains how the free market tends to punish “bad” discrimination.

Annelies Delaere

THE CLIENT IS KING...

Suppose you’re an employer and your clients are racists. Would you work with black people? And most of all: is it legal not to accept an employee based on his race in order to satisfy your customers?

Let’s take a look at what the article written by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has to say about this topic. Is it legal to refuse job candidates in this situation? The article mentions that the law is very clear: this is a form of intentional discrimination. Intentional discrimination is described as: “ when an employment decision is affected by the person's race”. Conclusion: it definitely isn’t legal.

In my opinion,  this is a rather difficult question, if not an impossible one to answer when you look at it in an economic point of view. Imagine you do hire for example a black person, but consequently  you lose your customers… Normally the rule of thumb is that the client is king, but by following this rule, aren’t you a racist as well?

Martijn De Meyer

(link to the article)

(an interesting video on discrimination by employment agencies)

You’re white? Please come again!

Is race an important factor when hiring a person? That was the question that Devah Pager, an American sociologist, tried to answer.

The study focused  on job interviews. In order to compare the difference between black and white when dealing with hiring decisions, Devah Pager looked at the likelihood that job appliers were called back for a job interview. Therefore she divided the applicants in four groups: black people and white people, both with or without a criminal record. The results of her study in 2003 were quite shocking. She found that white applicants (without a criminal record) were most likely to be called back whereas their black counterparts with a criminal record were the least likely to be invited. Although it isn’t very surprising that someone with a criminal record isn’t loved by most employers, there is a huge difference between black and white applicants: white applicants are almost twice as much called back! So it seems that racism isn’t a problem of the past.

Martijn De Meyer

(link to the article)

Why will no one help the unemployed minorities?

I recently came across an interesting article on http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/06/race-gender-ethnic-minorities, in which Iqbal Wahhab talks about the problematic position of the unemployed minorities in the UK and the fact that, despite his hard work, still no steps are being taken to help them.

Since 2006, Iqbal Wahhab is chairing an ethnic minority advisory group to inform ministers about the best ways to reduce the ethnic minority employment rate. Sad to say, in all this time and in spite of several long unproductive meetings, nothing has changed. In fact, the unemployment rates of minority groups haven’t changed in twenty years and we all know that the current recession definitely won’t make things better. But still, ministers can’t be convinced to take a single step in the right direction to assure equal treatment in the job market.
Nevertheless, Wahhab won’t throw in the towel. The government should start with itself, he states. More precisely, the procurements of the government departments. Suppliers should be asked for details of the diversity of their workforces. If certain ethnic groups are under-represented, the companies have to take steps and come up with an action plan if they still want to win a contract. This approach has proven very effective in the US and Northern Ireland.
Annelies Delaere

Racism and Recession in Europe By Jayati Ghosh, June 10, 2010

I have read a quite interesting article about racism and recession in Europe.  I would like to share this information that is why I’m giving a short summary and at the end my opinion about the article.

       Due to the economic crisis all over the world and measures taken by governments, unemployment rates have risen dramatically. That is why people all over Europe are becoming more angry every day. The European population does not blame the government or even the financial institutions. Instead they choose minority groups as their targets.
       As we all know, Europe was confronted with a huge demand for all kind of workers during the economic booms. Migrants came legally and illegally from all over the world, often tolerating poor wages and working conditions. Nowadays those very same migrants who have helped us booming don't have the right to live in Europe (according to most Europeans). This is of course very unjustified and unethical.
      This is very well illustrated in Italy where most 3D (dirty, difficult or dangerous) jobs are handled by migrants. They continue to do jobs that locals refuse to do. Nevertheless, they are accused of driving down wages, making public places insecure and much more.
      The contrast between needing migrants and the dissatisfaction of their presence is becoming a problem.

I share the opinion of the author. I think this is a problem that we should properly address.  I would like to know what you think about this.


http://www.fpif.org/articles/racism_and_recession_in_europe 
Ward Algoet

Immigrants on the labour market: Is there a problem of racism?

I read an interesting article on the website http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1939.  This article permits me to give some arguments against the statement that there is a problem of racism on the labour market:

First, the way you present yourself on the labour market really is important. Although Moroccans don’t always end their education, their criminal record isn’t often empty and they don’t get any start-up capital. This is a problem for the employers because for them the background is more important than the colour of the skin.

Secondly, profit maximization is the most important aim for most companies. That is why it’s important that the employers can reckon on their workers. On this point there is a problem because Moroccans have often a lack of motivation. They use the word “racism” as a story for their unemployment in contrast with the real explanation that is a lack of motivation.

Laurence de Klerk Wolters