Cancun Cruz wrote:
And none of these HR people or managers doing this recruitment would say they are racist, nor would you even think they are racist. But it exists.
It is 'human nature', but it should be overcome, which cannot be done without admission of existence
I don't really disagree with any of this, but it's no different than all our other inherent biases for other physical traits: age, gender, height, hair color, voice, weight, clothing style.... Something to be aware of, something to try and avoid, but nothing sinister.[/quote]
Not sinister?
None of those biases are ok, unless relevant to the selection, but if you are not selecting someone for an interview, purely on a suspicion of ethnicity based on surname- you haven't even seen the person to make a choice- then it is sub conscious racism that comes from your upbringing, the lingering racism of past in your culture etc.
I'll make a specific example. Remember that these racial biases were in fact law, or de facto law, in the not too distant past, in most post colonial countries.
In one of them, they had a system called Apartheid, but others weren't that different, except the colonials had the numbers over the natives, so no need for draconian legislation.
True story from around 1982, a young graduate with the surname Wells, was as black as they come. Obviously pre social media particularly, the assumption was that he was English and he picked up interviews at a disproportionate level to peers who were better/more experienced.
Except, he didn't progress after interview, most of them cut short.
This was a funny guy too, and he used to hilariously relate the one instance where he rang the door bell at the bottom of a staircase, asked for his host, "Its xxx Wells here". When the receptionist saw his face in the CCTV, she suddenly changed tune, "sorry , we think there has been a mistake".
These biases may have been legally outlawed, but the sub conscious bias built up over generations of parenting doesn't disappear in one or two generations.
The study in Australia picks that up, because the interview call up rate correlated with the 'acceptability and assimilation' and length of time the ethnicity has been present in Australia, i.e. eastern Europeans had about a 70% call up and Africans on other scale about 30% (vs anglo = 100%). Except for aborigines though :-(