Quote:
Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
How do I know the "system" is "rigged" to favor whites?
Because when I sit in hiring meetings otherwise well intentioned people have questions about candidates from towns or cities they're less familiar with (e.g., not suburbs) or favor those who share their preferences in everything from sports to stores to shop in to churches to schools to cultural organizations. Because the person hiring doesn't know much about black colleges or how to compare them with "their" schools. Because they get really excited about someone who was on the sailing team at their old school. Or someone who comes from a "good" family (e.g., they know someone who knows someone who knows them). Because there are a hundred other ways in daily interactions about decisions that are important that someone (such as hiring), especially if that someone comes from a city (where most African American people in the north live) or a rural southern community (where a lot of African American people in the South live), treat people more as curiosities than candidates.
To suggest otherwise is to be ignorant of the world around you, to not realize what is happening at meetings you attend. To suggest otherwise deserves ridicule.
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I am the only black partner at my firm. I am one of three attorneys. The other day I organized a client panel in Boston with an amazing group of speakers (black and white) from companies we would love to get business from about the state of the market when it comes to inside counsel's expectations when it comes to outside counsel. One of the administrators who help set it up ran into a partner who didn't attend and said, "Hey! You missed a great panel." The partner said, "Yeah, I'm not a diversity kind of guy." Wasn't joking. Didn't care how it was taken.
TM
