Tagged: job opportunities

“In 2010, when the Justice Department allowed the two most dominant companies in the live music business — Live Nation and Ticketmaster — to merge, many greeted the news with dread. Live Nation was already the world’s biggest concert promoter. Ticketmaster had for years been the leading ticket provider. Critics warned that the merger would create an industry monolith, one capable of crippling competitors in the ticketing business. Federal officials tried to reassure the skeptics. They pointed to a consent decree, or legal settlement, they had negotiated as part of the merger approval. Its terms were strict, they said: It would boost competition and block monopolistic behavior by the new, larger Live Nation…Eight years after the merger, the ticketing business is still dominated by Live Nation and its operations extend into nearly every aspect of the concert world. Ticket prices are at record highs. Service fees are far from reduced. And Ticketmaster, part of the Live Nation empire, still tickets 80 of the top 100 arenas in the country. No other company has more than a handful. No competitor has risen to challenge its pre-eminence. Now Department of Justice officials are looking into serious accusations about Live Nation’s behavior in the marketplace. They have been reviewing complaints that Live Nation, which manages 500 artists, including U2 and Miley Cyrus, has used its control over concert tours to pressure venues into contracting with its subsidiary, Ticketmaster. The company’s chief competitor, AEG, has told the officials that venues it manages that serve Atlanta; Las Vegas; Minneapolis; Salt Lake City; Louisville, Ky.; and Oakland, Calif., were told they would lose valuable shows if Ticketmaster was not used as a vendor, a possible violation of antitrust law.”

Not only does Live Nation have a monopoly on the concern promotion & ticketing business, but Live Nation (as well as AEG and others) have a race-based monopoly over concerts and ticketing since most of their employees are white and/or “Jewish,” and they maintain employment practices, policies and procedures that prevent qualified African Americans and people of color from being hired to higher-status, higher-paying positions within the company.

Source: Graham Bowley and Ben Sisario. “Live Nations Rules Music Ticketing, Some Say With Threats.” The New York Times. April 1, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/01/arts/music/live-nation-ticketmaster.html.

“Change is most quickly accomplished when we critically evaluate our existing systems and upend those that result in disparate outcomes. Start by taking some time to consider whether you harbor any implicit biases. You might consider taking an implicit bias test, such as the ones offered by Harvard University’s Project Implicit (https://implicit.harvard.edu). The process can be extremely uncomfortable and the natural reaction to the results is often denial and anger. Unwittingly, however, all of us harbor implicit biases, and understanding those biases personally is an important first step in assessing why we react to different people in different ways.Next, look carefully at your hiring, evaluation, assignment and promotion practices. Are these processes open, transparent, uniformly applied and inclusive, involving a group of diverse decision makers? Have the outcomes historically favored some groups over others? Is the same process applied to all candidates, or do some receive certain advantages?Consider your mentorship systems. Are mentors and mentees allowed to self-select, or are mentors assigned, and evaluated on the quality of their supervision and mentorship as comprehensively as the mentee? Are favorable and prominent work assignments limited to a few ‘go-to’ attorneys, or could they be more equally shared to give others a chance to shine?”

Source: “Editorial: Implicit Racial Bias Stands in Way of Truly Diverse Bar.” Connecticut Law Tribune. November 23, 2015.

“To address these racial disparities, we need to take an explicit look at our system. Before making a hiring decision, do we have a ‘vision’ of the ideal candidate? How does that ‘vision’ manifest itself? There are countless factors which go into the complicated assessment of which candidate is more ‘qualified,’ including the assessment of who would make ‘the best fit.’ While these terms seem innocent and objective enough, they can in fact mask our implicit preference to be surrounded by those who look like us, share our experiences, and, therefore, are perceived to more easily reach mutual understanding and common ground.”

Source: “Editorial: Implicit Racial Bias Stands in Way of Truly Diverse Bar.” Connecticut Law Tribune. November 23, 2015.

“Lawyers and academics, who pride themselves on rationality and objectivity, are still prone to subconscious and unwitting manifestations of bias. While we have taken meaningful steps to eradicate overt racism within our profession, implicit bias manifests itself in more innocuous ways, and in many respects, has simply become part of our professional culture.”

Source: “Editorial: Implicit Racial Bias Stands in Way of Truly Diverse Bar.” Connecticut Law Tribune. November 23, 2015.

“So what does this mean for black workers in professional environments? First, it’s indicative of the degree to which race shapes occupational outcomes…[F]or blacks in professional positions, issues of poverty are not the problem. Poverty does not explain biases in hiring, the need for particular types of emotional management, and the careful self-presentation that minority professionals engage in at work. Second, all of this ought to encourage a rethinking of some of the existing efforts to create more diverse work environments. Do diversity and inclusion initiatives take into consideration how minorities placed in those environments feel? How can policies create not just more equitable hiring processes, but address the emotional toll of being a racial minority in a professional work setting? In the current political climate, there is generally support for solving race-related employment challenges by focusing on job training and education—in other words, increasing human capital to improve access. Given the research, it’s also important to consider how to create better workplaces for the minority professionals who are already in these jobs.”

Source: Adia Harvey Wingfield. “Being Black — But Not Too Black — In The Workplace.” The Atlantic. October 14, 2015. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/being-black-work/409990/.

“Racism and sexism in Hollywood remain so pervasive not because of men like Damon, who benefit from the system whether they like it or not, but from the gatekeepers responsible for clinging to a faulty system of judging talent. There are fewer women and persons of color involved in searches like this because their opportunities are reduced. It’s the same principle that necessitated the adoption of affirmative action, an attempt to even the playing field that is inherently unbalanced. The burden shouldn’t be placed on marginalized individuals to try and overcome the broken system, but on gatekeepers to prioritize hearing and supporting marginalized individuals. The problem, then, with Damon’s words is that on “Project Greenlight” he is not just an actor, he’s a gatekeeper. And that by trying to silence Effie Brown, he dismisses the voice of someone worth listening to, not only for her experience, but because she was saying, in essence, ‘There is value to seeking out the voices of those different from us.'”

I got the same dismissive reaction from WME’s all-white senior management when I suggested that the company’s lack of diversity [zero African American Agents in the NY office and I was the ONLY black Agent Trainee when I started] played a significant role in my inability to advance and be promoted to Agent. We are tired of having these conversations about diversity and any company in the United States of America that maintains an all-white workforce in 2015 is clearly violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 INTENTIONALLY.

Source: Libby Hill. “Commentary: Matt Damon Isn’t Racist, The System Is; ‘Project Greenlight’ Proves It.” Los Angeles Times. September 15, 2015. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-matt-damon-project-greenlight-diversity-20150914-story.html.