Subtle, and stubborn, race bias

The Boston Globe
Editorial
July 6, 2009

EVEN WITH a black American president, a white man is still considered more capable and trustworthy. This sorry truth has been reconfirmed in a new study from business researchers at the universities of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, British Columbia, Michigan, and Washington and at West Point. Controlling for objective measures of performance, white males got higher customer satisfaction ratings than women or people of color, whether they were doctors, university bookstore employees, or staffers at a golf course.
No one was more surprised at the findings than the study’s lead author, David Hekman of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He said it may help explain why wide pay gaps persist in the United States between white males and everyone else, as businesses may be induced to give raises and promotions to white male employees who are disproportionately praised by customers.
The bookstore study is especially poignant, because it captured unconscious lingering attitudes among college students, who were a huge reason Barack Obama was elected. Even women and people of color exhibited biases, but not as starkly.
“I had no idea the effects were this huge,’’ said Hekman, who is white. “People simply feel like they’re getting a better deal from white guys. Customers are more grateful for service from a white guy, even if it’s just an oil change or a glass of water.’’
Co-author Karl Aquino, who is of Asian descent, said, “What’s unsettling about our study is that when women and minorities perform better, they actually get lower performance ratings and are perceived more negatively. And we don’t yet really know why. They even judged the overall environment [of the doctor’s office, bookstore, or golf course] more negatively.’’
How then to explain Obama’s groundbreaking victory? Aquino and Hekman said Obama was judged by enough people as greatly superior to white rivals (though he still lost the overall white vote to John McCain). For average American workers who are female and of color, higher invisible hurdles of bias remain.

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