Workforce Management
December 2007
Reactions to recent (and not so recent) news events show that black and white Americans see things very differently. As businesspeople we must ask ourselves a very difficult and important question: Is it possible that a company’s policies are being viewed differently by different minority groups within its overall employee base? By Ann Carlsen
To begin to fathom the breadth and depth of the cultural and racial divide in America, you need look no further than three major news events involving athletes; two of them recent, and one which dominated the headlines just over a decade ago:
The 1995 murder trial of football star O.J. Simpson.
Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick’s guilty plea to dogfighting conspiracy charges
San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds’ breaking of Hank Aaron’s home-run record, amidst allegations of steroid use.
All tell us in no uncertain terms that we are, in many ways, a divided nation when it comes to how we view and perceive certain occurrences. Despite facts which have proved to be incontrovertible, blacks and whites viewed each of these events differently and hold vastly dissimilar opinions about the relative guilt and innocence of the individuals involved:
Following Simpson’s acquittal, while the majority of African Americans rejoiced, most whites felt shock and anger. U.S. News & World Report found in a survey taken immediately after the trial that 55 percent of all blacks felt Simpson was not guilty, while 62 percent of whites felt he committed the murders.
An ESPN/ABC News poll found that 74 percent of African Americans wanted Bonds to break Aaron’s record, compared with only 29 percent of whites. Forty-six percent of African Americans felt Bonds was treated unfairly by the media, compared with just 25 percent of whites. An overwhelming 85 percent of African Americans feel Bonds belongs in the Hall of Fame, compared with just over half of all whites.
In a recent poll conducted on the Web site YourBlackWorld.com, 46 percent of African Americans responding said they believe that the Michael Vick case involves race, while only 14 percent of whites believe it does.
Dr. Boyce Watkins of Syracuse University, who helped construct the Vick survey for YourBlackWorld.com, says the results are not surprising. "Every time we have a controversy in America involving race, it’s always very clear that whites and blacks see it differently. The polls during Katrina, O.J. and many other tragedies showed similar trends," Watkins says.
These polling figures seem significant for a number of reasons, but perhaps the most compelling might be the quantitative differences between them. Whether these differences are ultimately a product of race or class, or a combination of both, this much seems clear: In America, whites and blacks view the world through the prism of personal and cultural experience and each group processes information very differently and forms opinions accordingly.
And given that as a backdrop, as businesspeople we must ask ourselves this very difficult and important question: Is it possible that a company’s policies are being viewed differently by different minority groups within its overall employee base?
And, most important, could your own company’s policies being deemed as racist and/or sexist by one or more of these groups?
The high cost of being viewed as a racist organization Having read to this point, it would be very easy to click to another Web page and go on believing that our companies are, as we’ve always believed them to be, racially neutral and culturally sensitive. And to some degree, with some companies, this may indeed be the case.
But what the polling data above tells us is that any two groups of people can look at the same set of facts, the same combination of circumstances, and perceive them entirely differently. And for a major corporation, that can be a dangerous and costly thing.
[To view the entire article, go to: http://www.workforce.com/section/09/feature/25/26/63/index.html]
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