Racism: Still Around

THE RECENT EVENTS in and Around St. Louis, U.S.A., in which young African Americans were killed by European American police officers, resulting in protests by much of the black community, should have been enough to remind us that racism, the most durable American tradition, is still very much with us. If not, consider this. A team of researchers found one thousand job vacancies around the United States, and sent out two applications for each. In each case, one application used a black sounding name, black sounding address, and black sounding resume, and the other application used stereotypically white names. All this merely to create an impression, a vague hint of ethnicity, on paper. The black sounding applications were made a little better than the white ones, to hedge the bet. Overwhelmingly, across the board, the white sounding applications got the more attention, responses, and job offers, even though the "black apps" were, on paper, more qualified. it turns out that we have not eliminated racism, we have merely hidden it away, changed its name, and repackaged it.