Asymmetrical Information

I think that there may be a reflex against some names that sound "unfamiliar" to the one making the hiring choices.

Many of the current "black" names could possibly provoke undesired subliminal resistance...but I believe that this is true for any strange name regardless of racial origin.

I have a cousin named Zenobia. Now that's a pretty unusual name. People always (ALWAYS) stop and do a double take when they hear it. Is it possible that it might negatively affect a personell manager's decision? What about the name Latishiqua? How about Ferdinand or Ebenezer?

When a white applicant doesn't get a job through no fault of anyone's discrimination (he simply wasn't the one out of two hundred and twelve applicants) he usually doesn't think "I bet it was because I'm white". But the black applicant has heard all his life that The Man is out to get him so it's natural that a lingering suspicion remains.

As I pointed out over at Armed Liberal's blog a while back, the "black vs. white names" study is incredibly flawed (if not fatally). The entire study hinges on the names, yet the names were selected (seemingly) basically at random. Considering that it's possible to get different results by choosing different subsets of the names, I think that's a very important point. Without doing studies on the names themselves (e.g. the perceived "blackness / whiteness" of each of the names) and better techniques in trying to measure "blackness / whiteness" of applicant names vs. callback rates the study is essentially worthless.

Jane, your post is exceptionally thoughtful and incisive (even for you). When friends become agitated about this or that, I often encourage then to think in statistical terms. Alas, few of them possess even the remedial background in statistics to understand the implications of the "Bell Curve." Robin's comment is good, but I would go farther. Doesn't it seem vaguely racialist to suggest - and to base an analytical study on - the assumption that name "X" is white and name "Y" is black?

The entire study hinges on the names, yet the names were selected (seemingly) basically at random.

From the study:

To manipulate perception of race, each resume is randomally assigned either a very African American sounding name or a very White sounding name.

To decide on which names are uniquely African American and which are uniquely White, we use name frequency data calculated from birth certificates of all babies born in Massachusetts between 1974 and 1979. We tabulate these data by race to determine which names are distinctively White and which are distinctively African American. Distinctive names are those that have the highest ratio of frequency in one racial group to frequency in the othe racial group.

As a check of distinctiveness, we conducted a survery a various public areas in Chicago. Each respondent was given a personal name and asked to assess features of the person, one of which being race. In general, the names led respondents to readily attribute the expected race for the person, but there were a exceptions, and these names were disregarded.

This study is clearly flawed, but I think it'd be tough to get it right.

Names carry a lot more freight than just race -- how do you isolate just the one factor you want to test?

I'd put Serena, Venus, Condolezza and Colin up against Gertrude, Chastity, Edeltraut and Angus any day. Aisha or Daisy? You be the judge.

-- Erik

Jane, thanks very much for the commentary. I've just posted a much sharper critique of the study (from a reader's email) than my initial post; on reflection, I think I gave the study way too much credit. But--as Mickey Kaus would say--my initial point stands! --The main things I've been trying to point out via that study are, a) Our perception of race relations would change A LOT if we knew that Lakisha Watson was "as discriminated against as" Chava Rosenstein or Yahyin Shao, and
b) Whatever the question is, affirmative action isn't the answer. I blogged about that a couple days after I posted the initial thoughts on the job-application study.

Eve

Eve gets to the heart of the matter. I grew up in the segregated South, attending several segregated schools. What I learn then - what we learned then - is that discrimination based on race is wrong. It was always wrong, and it will always be wrong.

Eve, I didn't mean it as a critique of your commentary -- which was excellent! -- but as a possible additional way to think about it.

Is it not perhaps strange (after the manner of your own post on Susan McDougall below), to assume that someone would think that the best way to protect themselves against a possible prosecution for an unjust or frivolous accusation of discrimination, would be to commit an actual, actionable act of illegal discrimination?

I don't know how "actionable" it is, d^2. Even in American courts, it would be extremely difficult to make a discrimination case based only on the relative frequency of sight-unseen callbacks...

Dsquared, that sounds like an indicator of how fouled up our judicial system is.

By the way, I just found out (by way of some mis-delivered mail) that our new neighbor is named Latoya. I haven't seen her, but her kids are definitely white...

of course you do this, because its that much harder to prove something in the hiring process, and very few people are going to sue over a job they didn't get (it's usually someone rounded up by an interest group...)

happens all the time to women early in their carreers... don't want to risk a pregnancy, hich is expensive.. alot of discrimination against young women is caused by older women (hiring young and attractve omen in any role in your office is a very dangerous thing to do if you're married...)

Hmmmmm ... I've just had another idea. Wouldn't it explain a lot, if the what was really going on was that a lot of white employers just don't want to employ black people because they don't like people different from themselves? Mad, I know, but I think it deserves some consideration.

Of course, it would be horrifically unfair to enact any legislation which interfered in employers' ability to hire anyone they wanted, and the current system is something of an Orwellian nightmare, so why don't we just address the balance by reserving a huge chunk of government jobs for black people? Like, say, the police department. Worked wonders for the social status of the Irish ...

1. Police departments do, in effect, reserve a huge number of jobs for minorities, as do most other government agencies

2. I am not saying that my explanation is the correct one -- I have no idea. But I think it's possibly a plausible contributing factor. I'm sure there is some lingering racism, but I find it hard to imagine it's a major effect.

happens all the time to women early in their carreers... don't want to risk a pregnancy, hich is expensive.. alot of discrimination against young women is caused by older women (hiring young and attractve omen in any role in your office is a very dangerous thing to do if you're married...)

Is it really possible to argue that there isn't much racial discrimination anymore, but lots of discrimination like the above?

Help me out, DD: when you say "horrifically unfair", are you being serious or is it dry british wit? Most of the time I can tell, but you do occaisionally get a bit subtle for us colonials...

Back when I hired engineers and aides, I explained the scope of the job to applicants, hired them [As a working engineer I did not have time to sort through dozens of applicants] and observed their work. No can do, no can stay. I pity "Human resource" people.

The name doesn't always give things away. My last name is a variant on the good ol' German name Kaufmann. When my wifes' current employer saw her application, he wasn't all that interested, as he thought she was just another Anglo type. When he saw that she was educated in the Philippines, therefore being a Filipino, he wanted her to interview right away, as his experience is that Filipino women work hard and do well in any job they undertake. She's been there a year now, and he's very happy with her job performance.

Jimbo: No, it's my opinion. I'm just not comfortable with that level of compulsiory interference in someone's life. I'm actually quite libertarian on these sorts of issues; I just think that a) people don't half go on about "liberties" like free speech which are hardly ever used, and b) if you're going to argue against state intervention, you are in some way obliged to come up with a solution to genuine problems which doesn't involve just saying "tough luck"

> b) if you're going to argue against state intervention, you are in some way obliged to come up with a solution to genuine problems which doesn't involve just saying "tough luck"

Where is this world where all problems have solutions that are less costly than the problem?

>>Where is this world where all problems have solutions that are less costly than the problem?

Costly for whom?

The advocacy of violence as a solution to all manner of problems is the hallmark of the modern day statist. Hand always on the whip, they stand ever-vigilant, ready to lash any person who is perceived to be part of a problem. All in a days work of omelette-making....

Lest the above remarks be perceived as a personal insult, dd, let me clarify. I merely am disputing the notion that there is any such thing as a benign action by the state. Violence is an integral component of all state activity, and most modern day statists either refuse to acknowledge how they commonly, nearly always, advocate violence as a solution to problems, or refuse to acknowledge the moral import of violence. It is my contention that violence, whether implicit or explicit, is always an extraordinaily grave behavior for people to engage in, and that it's exercise can be legitimate only when it is required to prevent still greater violence. This test leaves much room for disagreement, but no doubt would also inevitably mean, if it were universally agreed upon, the curtailment of many solutions that are currently being applied to many problems.

I merely am disputing the notion that there is any such thing as a benign action by the state.

Jesus, Will. *No* benign actions by a state?

Nope. All activities by the state involve the implicit threat of death to those who don't contribute the support required by those entities which have gained control of the levers of the state. Therefore, all actions of the state are implicitly violent, and there is no such thing as benign violence. Often necessary, but never benign, which is why great circumspection should be employed prior to expanding the scope of state activity.

>>Where is this world where all problems have solutions that are less costly than the problem?

> Costly for whom?

Surely no one will argue that any program that benefits someone is therefore justified.

So, let's go with "society as a whole". Is it actually true that every problem has a solution that is cheaper?

Also, note that some solutions are cheaper later.

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