Tagged: African American unemployment
“The unemployment figure of 5.9 percent does not reflect the realities of many African Americans as African American workers continue to be unemployed at over twice the rate of whites. And if we count the workers who are marginally attached to the job market or working part-time for economic reasons, as many as 25% of all African Americans are under-employed. What’s worse: wages in the job sectors where African American workers are concentrated remain far below what anyone would consider a ‘living wage.'” — Dedrick Asante-Muhammad’s, Sr. Director of NAACP Economic Department , response to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) September 2014 employment report.
“The circumstances surrounding Black unemployment and underemployment point to the persistent systemic inequalities and racism that continue to affect African American job seekers at an alarmingly disproportionate rate. This is not an issue of Blacks being lazy, unmotivated, undereducated, or unqualified. At every turn African Americans are faced with a system set up to fail them and them blame them for a condition that they did not cause.”
Source: Susana Morris. “Are African Americans Getting Left Behind in the Nation’s Economic Recovery?” Ebony. September 11, 2014. http://www.ebony.com/career-finance/are-african-americans-are-getting-left-behind-in-the-nations-economic-recovery-4#axzz3FJHvGOcr.
and whether I was an employee or not, it still doesn’t change the fact that a “private attorneys general” could, under DISPARATE IMPACT theory alone, pursue and prevail on claims that William Morris is violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964, New York City Human Rights Laws and additional antidiscrimination statutes prohibiting discrimination in employment on the basis of race…
Since disparate impact theory was restored through the 1991 Amendments to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it is clear with my case that our nation’s majority conservative judiciary has been successful at weakening this theory once again. In 2009, one Republican appointed Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia stated in Ricci v. DeStefano, that disparate impact was quite possibly “unconstitutional” and constituted disparate treatment against whites. My case clearly proves otherwise, which is why — consciously and/or unconsciously — all of the finders of fact that have been involved in my case, have tried so hard to ignore the pyramid of historical and statistical evidence demonstrating William Morris’ intentional violations of the Civil Rights Act predating, as well as occurring during, my employment. Of course William Morris and Loeb & Loeb LLP could play their games of ignorance and pretend that this evidence was never mentioned and/or is irrelevant to the overall claims that I have raised in this case (e.g. which include violations of antitrust law and conspiracy to interfere with human rights of people of African descent), but the same cannot be said for the finder of fact challenging the institutionally racist practices, policies and procedures of William Morris, given that s/he is presumed to be “impartial,” “neutral,” “independent,” “ethical,” “objective” etc., has a duty to “administer justice without respect to persons” and “faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon [a federal judge] under the Constitution and laws of the United States.” It has been 50 years since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed and 23 years since it was last amended. It is clear that this law must be strengthened in order to eradicate structural and institutionalized forms of racism that still persist throughout the American workplace.
If you are African American (or a person of color) who applied to William Morris’ Agent Trainee program in New York of Beverly Hills between 2000 and present, and was rejected, please contact me at humanrights.areamust@gmail.com. Also, if you were hired and feel you were discriminated against because of your race, color and/or national origin, contact me as well and share your story.
will it take me going to prison or even dying to show the world how corrupt and racist Hollywood, our judicial system and the U.S. gov’t are?
“Congress directed the thrust of [Title VII] to the CONSEQUENCES of employment practices, not simply the motivation.”
One of the most obvious “consequences” of an employer’s violation of Title VII, is the existence of zero and/or a gross underrepresentation of qualified African Americans employed in meaningful positions throughout the workplace. If this occurs over a period of decades and no “legitimate, nondiscrminatory” reason can be provided by the employer to explain the dearth of blacks in the workplace, one must logically conclude that the employer’s employment practices, policies and procedures are NOT lawful and statistically, this is NOT “due to chance.”
Source: Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 432 (1971) (emphasis added).
Google and Twitter release its first “Diversity Report[s].” Both companies state African Americans represent a MEASLY 2% of their respective work forces!
Lack of Diversity at Twitter [July 23, 2014]:
Twitter disclosed the diversity numbers for its global and U.S. employees Wednesday, following in the footsteps of Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and LinkedIn.
Like these companies, Twitter is composed of a workforce that’s primarily white and male, especially when it comes to tech-related positions.
At Twitter, 70% of employees are male and 30% are female. When you look at the numbers for tech-related jobs, that ratio switches from 90% male employees to 10% female workers. The statistics are split straight down the middle in terms of gender for non tech jobs, and male employees account for 79% of leadership positions within the company.
The majority of Twitter’s employees are white as well. At Twitter, 59% of U.S. employees are white, while 29% are Asian, 2% or African American or Black, and 3% are Hispanic. And 72% of leadership roles are occupied by white employees.
While these numbers are troubling, Twitter isn’t the only company with a diversity problem. Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn, and Google all reported similar statistics earlier this year.
Similar to these companies, Twitter admits that it has a lot of work to do in the diversity department. As part of its initiative to improve diversity in Silicon Valley, Twitter says that it supports Girls Who Code, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping women get into computer engineering. The social media giant also mentions that it regularly hosts Girl Geek Dinners in San Fransisco and Boston.
Lack of Diversity at Google [May 29, 2014]:
The lack of diversity among Google’s workforce has been highlighted by the company’s first diversity report, which reveals that only 30% of its staff are female.
The search company’s US workforce also comprises 61% white people, with Asian staff making up 30%, Hispanic people 3% and black staff just 2% of employees.
The data highlights the lack of representation of women and ethnic groups in technology companies, despite a much more diverse customer base for mainstream technology products and services.
“Put simply, Google is not where we want to be when it comes to diversity, and it’s hard to address these kinds of challenges if you’re not prepared to discuss them openly, and with the facts,” acknowledged Laszlo Bock, senior vice president of people operations at Google, in a blog post…
Google has released this, the first of its diversity reports, because the company believes that an open dialogue about diversity issues is the only way to solve them, something others like Nunno agree is the right course.
Google believes that tackling diversity in computer science education is the way forward, and has donated over $40m (£24m) to organisations aiming to help increase the number of women and girls in science education.
The company is not alone in its efforts to aid science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) diversity in education. Many groups from both the UK and globally have been set up to actively encourage girls into Stem education, while the government has worked to remove barriers to women in science.
The problems facing both gender and ethnic diversity in technology are not insurmountable, but no one organisation can do it alone, according to Nunno, which makes Google’s release of its data a good step forward in tackling the issues as an industry.
We ONLY account for 2% of their work forces?!? I am quite sure that most of those individuals fill the lower-status, lower-paying positions (e.g. support staff, mailroom) like at William Morris Endeavor Entertainment.
What’s crazy is that this is the first time they are releasing diversity reports, although I thought all businesses had to submit this type of data to the EEOC each year. Hmmm…it is clearly industries like this that the EEOC’s Systemic Initiative needs to focus on. If there wasn’t a demand from the public for various companies in Silicon Valley to start releasing information on its workplace demographics, this problem would continue to go unnoticed. Yet, companies like William Morris Endeavor Entertainment and other businesses in Hollywood, as well as other industries like advertising and Wall Street, can continue to maintain their discriminatory employment practices, policies and procedures without any repercussions or intervention from our government.
At the macro level, how does this impact African American unemployment and why isn’t this REALITY — discrimination occurring in the present — being discussed by the media or our nation’s “first black” President as the cause for why our unemployment numbers in this country have historically remained double that of whites? If Google can acknowledge its wrongs (at least with regards to its lack of gender diversity), why can’t William Morris do the same? They don’t, because after 116 years of spreading racism throughout the world, they have no desire to change. Smdh.
Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/twitter-massive-diversity-problem-two-210742686.html [Twitter] and http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/29/google-diversity-women-black-people [Google].
“In 2013, more than half (55.9 percent) of employed black recent college graduates were in jobs that did not require a four-year degree. Not only did young black college graduates have the highest underemployment rate of the groups examined here, they also saw the greatest increase in underemployment during the latest economic downturn. Between 2007 and 2013, the underemployment rate for all recent college graduates increased 3.7 percentage points. Since 2007, the underemployment rate for young black college graduates rose 10.1 percentage points, reaching a high of 55.9 percent in 2013.”
“Recent black college grads ages 22 to 27 have an unemployment rate of 12.4 percent, more than double the 5.6 percent unemployed among all college grads in that demographic and almost a threefold increase from the 2007 level of 4.6 percent, before the Great Recession took its toll on the U.S. economy. More than half of black graduates, 55.9 percent, are underemployed.”
At age 33 and boasting an Ivy League graduate degree, Kitama Cahill-Jackson never thought he’d end up a security guard.
But after years of layoffs and coming in second in job interviews, the Emmy Award–winning documentary filmmaker took the job.
Cahill-Jackson dreamed of a career as a news producer. But now, after years of unsuccessfully searching for journalism jobs, he said he can’t even look at the news.
“When I got to work at 4:30 in the morning, I would listen to NPR. I don’t listen anymore because it makes me sad. That’s the career I didn’t have,” he said.
“I don’t read the paper because it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart that I put on this uniform every day and come in here, and I’m not seen as a professional. I worked so hard academically, and for all of that, to work at a job that only requires a GED.”
Cahill-Jackson is among the more than half of black college graduates who are underemployed, according to a study (PDF) released by the Center for Economic Policy and Research this month.
Recent black college grads ages 22 to 27 have an unemployment rate of 12.4 percent, more than double the 5.6 percent unemployed among all college grads in that demographic and almost a threefold increase from the 2007 level of 4.6 percent, before the Great Recession took its toll on the U.S. economy. More than half of black graduates, 55.9 percent, are underemployed.
Even for those who enter the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, areas where grads are the most needed and paid the highest, African-Americans still have a 10 percent unemployment rate and a 32 percent underemployment rate.
The study’s authors blame racism, a faltering economy and an unequal playing field.
“We live in a racist society,” John Schmitt, one of the authors, told Al Jazeera.
“We internalize a lot of views about the way people are that are deeply embedded in a lot of our economic and social policies. It’s extremely complicated, but the first step is that we need to acknowledge that we have a problem.”
While unemployment for blacks has almost always been higher than the national rate, the recession took an especially harsh toll, with an unemployment gap between blacks and the national rate growing from about 4 percentage points to nearly 6 points. And even for those who have jobs, the moribund economy has come with a financial cost.
“The old adage that sometimes nonblack folks are not always as familiar with but all black people are is that you have to work twice as hard to get half as much,” said Tressie McMillan Cottom, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Emory University.
“That’s something all of our parents have always told us, and it has been so fairly consistent.”
Cottom said that it’s widely known that blacks have a higher level of unemployment than the national rate but that this report is different because it dispels the notion that education shortcomings are keeping black Americans from upward mobility.
“The first thing people say is ‘Oh, well, black people don’t go to school’ or we don’t major in the right fields,” she said. “This report says it doesn’t matter if we go into engineering or the sciences … The report shows that race matters.”
Read more here: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/5/22/black-grads-doubleunemployment.html.
“United States government figures which revealed that 26 percent of male Negro youths were unemployed during July of 1964. The jobless rate among Negro male youth for all of 1963 was 25.4 per cent, nearly twice as high as the figure among their white counterparts.” “The unemployment rate for black youth reached a high of 49.1 percent in November 2009 and as of January 2012 had fallen to 38.5 percent.”
50 years later, the unemployment rate disparities between blacks and whites in America is still the same — at least based on the numbers provided to us by the government. This means, things are actually worse than what’s reported. What’s conveniently omitted from the conversation on employment is that we are typically over-represented in lower skilled, lower waged positions in this country.
Sources: Herbert Hill. Racial Inequality in Employment: The Patterns of Discrimination. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 357:30, 32 (1965); http://www.dol.gov/_sec/media/reports/blacklaborforce/.
Me Against Iniquity: Understanding the Complexities of Global White Supremacy (Racism) Through The Eyes of an Unapologetically BLACK Intellectual 