need a little help

[noiretextatique]

i am looking for some research on a peculiar phenomenon i've noticed over the years. my former company employs zero african-americans in senior management positions, and seems to frown upon african-americans who aren't (there is no way to say this delicately) virtually illiterate. i won't go into the gory details, but they really do seem to prefer black people who can't speak standard english to those who can. i have my own theory about this, but it would be helpful if i could find actual some research. i recall a book that was written a couple of years ago about african-american professionals and the discrimination they face, but i cannot remember the title.

can anyone point me in the direction of some research on this subject? thanks.

[Number23]

1. I don't have a clue what book you're talking about but I'm extremely interested

Every professional black person I know has horror stories about corporate America. And you're right, it seems as though the smarter, more educated and more ambitious you are, the MORE problems you'll have. I know I could write a book (or ten) my damned self.

ETA: Just came across this. Laughing and crying at the same time.

20 WAYS TO KNOW YOU'RE BLACK IN CORPORATE AMERICA http://www.freemaninstitute.com/20ways.htm

[Blue_Tires]

3. thanks for that link...

[Fire1]

4. HELL YEAH!! I had to bookmark that shit!!! DAMN, DAMN

DAMN!!! Girl! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! OOOOOOOOOOOOO!! I've NEVER read ANYTHING SO ON POINT!!!!!! LOL!!!

[Number23]

6. Girl

#18-20 are so damn true and on point I actually had to close my eyes for a minute after reading them.

[Fire1]

5. 23!! PLEASE keep in case I can't find it!! Luv ya!! Thank you!

[Brewman_Jax]

23. Too accurate

and unfortunately, too true far too often.

[noiretextatique]

27. here's what i'm talking about

i am talking about people who say "brefus" instead of breakfast and "correc" instead of correct who have been employed with the firm for years and still are. i am talking about the comfort some white people get from having ignorant black people around, and the discomfort they feel around black people who aren't ignorant. i am talking about the fact that i was the only senior level black woman in that company (the other was fired and sued) and how much SHIT i had flung my way...meanwhile the brefus dude and the correc woman are still there...and they are both incompetents. i am talking about being told i am great at fetching while the white folks stumble over each other proving they are "culturally competent" because they don't laugh when dude says "pacific" instead of specific and girlfriend says "ridickaless" instead of ridiculous. that's what i'm talking about.

[Number23]

2. Did a search on Amazon and came up with these

The book titles alone make me want to weep silently.

"Good Is Not Enough: And Other Unwritten Rules for Minority Professionals" http://www.amazon.com/Good-Not-Enough-Unwritten-Professionals/dp/1591842913/ref=pd_cp_b_0

"Working While Black: The Black Person's Guide to Success in the White Workplace" http://www.amazon.com/Working-While-Black-Persons-Workplace/dp/1556525109/ref=pd_sim_b_3

"Minority Rules: Turn Your Ethnicity Into a Competitive Edge" http://www.amazon.com/Minority-Rules-Turn-Ethnicity-Competitive/dp/0060852054/ref=pd_sim_b_5

Hope this helps you a little bit!

[noiretextatique]

7. thanks, 23

:loveya: the book i am thinking of was written a few years ago, but these will help. have to sue the former employer and looking for all the resources i can find for the attorney. thanks again. how's the little one?

[Number23]

8. "have to sue the former employer"

What's going on?? Is this the same company that made the infamous "fetching" comment?? Did something else happen??

There have been a few times over the course of my career that I've wanted to take legal action against a company, including one where my (blonde, female) supervisor was so intimidated and scared sh*tless by me that to my face, she was telling me how fabulous I was but behind my back was apparently running to HR complaining. The broad was so stupid she even sent me e-mails (that I saved, of course) saying how great I was but still had me "removed" from my position in her department based on some cooked up isht she conjured up between herself and her own boss. Everyone in that company could smell her bs from 10 miles away.

I was so mad I was going to sue EVERYBODY, but my mother, an attorney, talked me out of it. To this day, I wish that I had pursued some legal action even if all it did was scare that idiot and make her think twice about doing this mess to the next person. So I admire your courage and fortitude and wish you the best of luck as you go after those assholes.

The little one is doing marvelously. She is the most precious little fattie. We're still working on the nightime sleeping schedule, but other than that she is a little angel. Thanks for asking, HG (honorary godmother). :)

[Raineyb]

13. Damn I need to peep in more often!

I completely missed the arrival of the little one.

Suing is a double edged sword. Companies don't learn a damn thing unless you cost them lots of money. On the other hand it's the type of thing that when shared by employers tend to make it harder to get employment even when times aren't as tough as these. I have no idea what to tell you. Frankly I'm enough of a bitch to say go for the lawsuit. Especially in light of that whole "fetching" incident. :grr:

[Fire1]

15. I think going through EEOC is better because at least they can

negotiate with the employer that the employee's file be sealed indefinitely. That doesn't eliminate the potential of employers still divulging information to one another, however, and that's almost impossible to prove.

[Raineyb]

16. You're probably right there. Assuming that the EEOC decides to take it up. n/t

[noiretextatique]

19. i don't feel i have much of a choice in the matter

and we (there are two of us suing together) intend to make them pay...a lot.

[Number23]

21. "we (there are two of us suing together) intend to make them pay...a lot."

Girl, you actually just made my blood tingle! I wish you all of the success in the world. I actually feel as though I have a bit of a stake in your lawsuit because I have always regretted not taking legal action against that stupid woman I was unfortunate enough to work with a few years back. So I'm like your invisible third conspirator. :)

Go get'em, noire.

[noiretextatique]

26. it's the ecomony

normally i could just get another job and be done with it. ut not these days...there are no jobs. suing is a mixed bag, of course. but we don't have much of a choice. and we have great cases.

[Number23]

20. Yeah, it is a double edged sword

And I know that my mom talked me out of suing to protect me and I know that lawsuits of this nature are probably more pain on the one doing the suing than the one being sued.

But I've seen so much BS in my chosen career and professions (especially when I was younger and much more naive) that if I had it to do all over again, I'd be telling the folks getting screwed to go for the lawsuit and I'd be doing a hell of a lot more complaining or suing myself. Make the bastards squirm. I'm tired of brown folks always being the ones getting jerked over.

[noiretextatique]

18. yep...it is the fetching folks

can't discuss the details...will pm.

[bliss_eternal]

9. hey...

...apologies that i'm just seeing this (so late). i wish i had some sort of study i could offer. unfortunately, i do not.

can't even begin to express how sorry i am to hear that you may need to take legal action with your prior employer AND of their hiring practices. :( :hug: hope you find a study that helps you.

[RoyGBiv]

10. A couple things ...

These might help you. I'd need more info to try to track down a specific book. Tons of stuff is done on this subject. Most of it in recent years (last decade or so) has tended to focus on specific populations or professions. Much of it is comparative in nature, e.g. comparing African American experiences in general to those of women of both races. (I don't really like the latter for various reasons, but I thought I'd mention it.)

Anyway, as I said, here's a couple things ...

Pardon the sloppy citation. I'm just copy/pasting these out of a library index ...

Collins, Sharon M. Black corporate executives : the making and breaking of a black middle class, Philadelphia, PA : Temple University Press, 1997.

Here are the chapter titles.

1 The Controversy over Race and Class
2 A Politically Mediated Opportunity Structure
3 Racialized Services in the Workplace
4 Tan Territories, Urban Upheaval, and the New Black Professionals
5 Race Tracks and Mainstream Careers
6 Peacekeepers, Crisis Managers, and Conciliators
7 Blacks on the Bubble
8 A Rash of Pessimism
9 Bursting the Bubble: The Failure of Black Progress

This is an interesting book about a class-action lawsuit.

Roberts, Bari-Ellen and Jack E White, White, Jack E.,; Jr. Roberts vs. Texaco : a true story of race and corporate America

"Bari-Ellen Roberts relates her experiences as a senior financial analyst with Texaco and the class action discrimination lawsuit she led against them on behalf of herself and their African American employees."

The following is a master's thesis at Ohio State University from 2005. You could get a copy of it via ILL. I'm mentioning it because the abstract seems to indicate it fits your issue.

Mong, Sherry Newcomb, "Down and out" : the employment discrimination experiences of African American men.

Here's the abstract:

The economic marginalization of African American men has been studied in a variety of contexts, from historical accounts of their exclusion from trade unions to their experiences of joblessness in inner cities. Contemporary research on inequality in formal employment has consistently demonstrated unequal employment outcomes, such as wage and occupational mobility differences between black men and their white counterparts. Discrimination, including stereotyping and bias by employers, is often inferred as an influential mechanism above and beyond human capital differences, yet rarely tested or examined systematically. Using unique data derived from a content-coded subsample of serious discrimination cases filed in the state of Ohio between 1988 and 2003, I analyze claims and processes of discrimination for African American men across a wide variety of occupations. Discriminatory firing is the most frequent claim across all occupations, although on-going racial harassment and discriminatory promotion practices are also important. Notably, the form of discrimination experienced by African American men varies systematically as a function of occupational status. Unskilled laborers are disproportionately fired, skilled and semi skilled workers are most likely to experience day-to-day harassment often by several white co-workers, and managers and professionals are the most likely to experience discrimination in mobility (i.e., promotion and demotion). These patterns, I suggest, are largely a function of variations in place organizational structure, managerial constraint (or lack thereof), and historical I competition in certain types of jobs. In terms of discriminatory processes, qualitative case material reveals the persistence of racial stereotyping by employers and management. Moreover, African American men appear to be held to higher performance standards and are sanctioned more harshly, and often in a more arbitrary manner, for rule breaking relative to their white coworkers. I conclude by discussing the implications of these results for stratification literature in general, and that pertaining to workplace organization and inequality in particular.

[Fire1]

11. Even if not for legal purposes these sound like interesting

reads! Bookmarking for future reference. Thanks Roy!

[RoyGBiv]

12. Here's another ...

I didn't include it originally because I don't think it would help the OP. But, if you're looking for reading material, this sounds very interesting. I ran across it while looking for things more directly related and saved the cite so I could ILL it this morning.

It's basically a collection of essays.

African Americans, labor, and society : organizing for a new agenda / edited by Patrick L. Mason.

Abstract:

Over the past twenty-five years, union participation has declined among the nation as a whole. Coupled with increasing racial tensions, cutbacks in public programs at the federal, state, and local levels, and a shift in the distribution of wealth, these changes have undermined the standard of living for American workers' families, especially African American families, as they created greater wealth for the American elite. African Americans, Labor, and Society examines these changes, in particular their effects on the entire African American community, and suggests a move toward a more egalitarian future.

This collection of essays, written by legal scholars, professional organizers, and economists, suggests integrating civil rights and labor laws to strengthen both anti-discrimination and union-organizing efforts. The volume demonstrates the negative effects for union workers of arbitration agreements that undermine civil rights legislation in the workplace. It also provides a detailed case study of the nature and extent of racial conflict within a major industrial union, and analyzes and suggests policy changes that would increase the political and economic power of American workers as a whole, while aggressively attacking racism in social, economic, and political institutions.

African Americans, Labor, and Society presents strategies for creating better opportunities for African Americans through private sector employment that will appeal to legal, union, and labor students and scholars, as well as economists.

List of essays:

Introduction: African Americans, Labor, and Society--Current Challenges and Twenty-first Century Aspirations

Chapter 1 Organized Labor and African Americans: Contemporary Challenges and Opportunities
Chapter 2 How Do Unions Affect Racial Wage Differentials?
Chapter 3 Organizing African Americans: Some Legal Dimensions
Chapter 4 Closing Courts to Statutory Discrimination Claims
Chapter 5 Mandatory Arbitration of Statutory Discrimination Claims in Unionized Workplaces: A Bad Bargain for the Bargaining Agent
Chapter 6 The Pursuit of Equality in the Steel Industry: The Committee on Civil Rights and Civil Rights Department of the United Steelworkers of America, 1948-1970
Chapter 7 Worker-Owned Businesses: A New Civil Rights Frontier?

[Fire1]

14. Thanks so much! Bookmarking. n/t

[noiretextatique]

17. thank you so much

this will definitely be some interesting reading. thanks again.

[Number23]

22. Wow. The abstract from that book touches on common experiences

of both African American men AND women. I know far too many sisters that can testify to these two issues in particular:

"Discriminatory firing is the most frequent claim across all occupations, although on-going racial harassment and discriminatory promotion practices are also important."

"Moreover, African American men appear to be held to higher performance standards and are sanctioned more harshly, and often in a more arbitrary manner, for rule breaking relative to their white coworkers."

Thanks for posting these.

[RoyGBiv]

24. Oh yes ...

I mentioned that piece specifically because it was the only one I found done in the last 5 years or so that was so completely focused on a single African American demographic.

There's a lot of this done on women, and if the men think they have it bad (and they do), well ... they ain't seen nothin'.

The problem I personally have been having lately with the nature of studies on these issues is that they all revolve around comparative history/sociology/etc. and, for some damn reason, tend to lump white middle class women with black women as existing on the same social and class strata. I don't think that's what most of the authors intend to do, but when I get into reading them, that's what they're doing. They don't treat them as distinct groups, and that's an error *if* the focus of the study is the effect of racial discrimination.

I don't want to overstate that and make it sound like I'm accusing the academy of evil intent. I don't think that's the case ... for the most part. Inter-disciplinary studies are all the rage right now in the humanities, and I know that's a lot of what's driving this. Plus, sociology (which is where most of this originates) isn't my area, so maybe I'm missing something, but it irritates me a bit the way a lot of the people I've read lately end up doing it.

Related aside: here's something that is both discouraging and encouraging at the same time.

I put in the words "African American professionals labor discrimination" into one of my searches in a search engine that covers a couple dozen different large databases of books, articles, etc. I got a *lot* of theses being written at the MA level in the last five years or so. Most are focused on one labor sector or one demographic group or a comparative analysis of several groups, so it's very focused work. It's discouraging that this is only at the MA level and that's there's the need for so much of it, but it's encouraging that it's at the MA level, indicating so many young people studying this, people who will be producing more work at the PhD level or out in the real business world. A couple of them I ran across were clearly "Chapter One" in what the author would intend to be a book some day, and another seemed to be a manifesto of how he intended to run his company in an attempt to address these problems. I think there's a lot of really smart people coming up right now that are doing work based in the here and now and recent past rather than pumping out yet another survey of the 50's thru 70's. This period of time we're in now has its own issues that need to be addressed with modern solutions.

And now I'm preaching and will shut up ...

The OP got to me 'cause I've been involved in one of these situations as a manager attempting to help an employee who was discriminated against by one of my superiors. It was pure hell for all involved, but not nearly enough hell for that member of management who, I'm sure, is still living quite comfortably and still being a bully wherever he is now.

[Fire1]

25. For sure, Roy. This would make a great dissertation. Too bad

my thesis couldn't have been in this area.

[Number23]

28. Absolutely

The discrepancies in treatment, socio-economic status etc. between white women and women of color has been well documented. One of the primary reasons that black and other women of color formed their own movement during the ERA period was because of the racism that was pervasive during the equal rights movement. Even the oppressed can still harbor oppressive tendencies. :)

Alice Walker, pearl cleage, Angela Davis and a ton of other folks have done some absolutely gut-wrenching and beautiful writings/speeches on this issue and we've discussed this a bit here in AAIG. I still remember the PUMA's shrieking "wait your turn!" when Obama clinched the Dem nomination. I wasn't surprised at the sentiment at all, just surprised that they had the nerve to put it out there in the open. Obama's nomination and election has put ALOT of isht out in the open.

[RoyGBiv]

29. OT: Alice Walker

I got to see her speak once, shortly before she went to Gaza last year. She has an incredible mind. I like her writing, but I could listen to her speak for hours.

I have no point. I just admire her greatly.

[Number23]

30. Noire, no matter what happens, please please keep us posted

Signed,

23, your invisible co-conspirator :)

[noiretextatique]

31. LOL...well they have been served

they have our demand letters now, and they have 30 days to respond. i will keep you posted so you can get as much pleasure from this as me :7

[AspenRose]

32. I wish you nothing but good luck and success.

I mean that. :hug: