The Path to A More Perfect Union
Mar 22nd, 2008 at 10:32 am by Susie
Maya Wiley from the Center for Social Inclusion:
African Americans and Latinos are much more likely to have sub-prime mortgages than their White neighbors because of the discriminatory origins of the problem coupled with gutting the few weak provisions we had to create incentives for investment in communities of color. Even if we compare African American and White homeowners who have the same income, African Americans are more likely to have sub-prime loans. In fact, there is a larger subprime-prime gap between Blacks and Whites at higher income levels.
The lesson here is that the path to a more perfect nation that invests in all of us requires policies that do so. The white middle class actually exists as a result of such policies. The New Deal and Fair Deal policies of the 1930s and 1940s invested in the creation of the middle class. It not only create a social safety net (the Social Security Act of 1935), it created government programs that produced homeownership. By the 1950s half of all home mortgages were guaranteed by the federal government. And it was not a race neutral investment. It discriminated against people of color and even refused to guarantee mortgages in integrated communities.
What we need today is a President and a Congressional leaders who recognize that we must produce public dollars for investment in people. This requires government action and it requires paying attention to race to make sure that all communities benefit from the investments we make. In that way we can meet the challenge of addressing race and the slipping dreams of White Americans as well . . . and our union will be more perfect.
This, I think, is the real key to racial and class progress. (There’s substantial overlap there.) Most people don’t seem to understand how the barriers to economic opportunity and inclusion are built into the system (for instance, why is an employer allowed to specify a college degree for a job - instead of adding “or equivalent experience”?) and fall into the habit of assuming there’s a level playing field when there isn’t.
One silver lining in this obscene housing crisis is the effect it will have on credit ratings as a whole. Now that ratings for educated, privileged white folks are crashing and burning, you can be damned sure there will be legislation forbidding the use of credit ratings to screen job applicants.
That bit about “college degree or equivalent experience” you mention:
“Equivalent experience” tends to favor older job applicants who, because of their experience, expect and deserve higher pay. Older applicants also come with a higher risk that it will be hard to weed them out should their performance be “not up to standards,” which could mean anything from mediocre performance to the usual “not a team player” appellation, which is a euphemism for “insists on having a personal life” or “doesn’t submit quietly to whatever Dilbert-like depredations we feel like imposing on him/her.” “College degree” without requisite experience clearly indicates an employer’s desire for younger employees with college loan burdens who will settle for less, not only in pay but in working conditions.
This is the real face of racism: red-lining, hiring requirements way above the needs of the job.
I don’t see this as favoring older job applicants necessarily. It does allow them to put in their resumes for consideration without violating the terms of the application requirements.
Again, this is not my experience in the workforce. I have a friend who has been with a family firm for a decade. She is in her fifties. The owner of the business retired as president and brought in “new young blood” to run the business. Since that time my friend has been micromanaged by a new level boss. By that I mean that her boss hired someone at a level in between him and her, creating a new level. She has been openly humiliated at work. She has been required to write memos outlining all she does - read that as creating a job manual for her successor.
If they fire her, there is not going to be a problem. My friend needs employment, so she is not going to sue the firm even though she has documented everything that has happened.
The experience is only the current example. It is only when the level of firing older workers rises to a level of blatancy and volume that companies are in peril if the so discriminate against a whole group of people. Even then, companies find a way to cover the bases.