A recent Wall Street Journal article with comments by members of the federal Glass Ceiling Commission and human resources executives concluded that without legal requirements, most companies will let their commitment wane. This should come as no surprise, since after twenty years of Affirmative action programs, women hold only five percent of senior level jobs in corporations. African-Americans hold less than three percent of top jobs, defined as vice president and above. Laws and corporate policies can coerce individuals to be bias-free. But the reality is that hiring and promotion decisions, particularly at higher levels in companies, come down to how comfortable a manager is with the person who will be reporting to him or her.
Many people lack experience and comfort with people who are culturally unlike themselves.
We are happy that our workplaces are talking about being minority friendly because after all, if people are qualified, they should have opportunities, but the reality is that we go home to our segregated communities and privately express our feelings with friends and family who all seem to look like us. An extensive USA Today analysis of 1990 census data showed that most of the roughly 30 million African Americans living in the U.S. are as segregated in the 1990s as they were in the 1960s when civil rights movement began in earnest. The USA Today data also showed that although we talk about diversity as a real multicultural agenda, the problems of segregation are most entrenched among Blacks. Hispanics and Asians have been more readily accepted in neighborhoods that have never welcomed blacks, no matter what their income level. In this context, the term Black is used intentionally over African American, since the issue really does seem to be about skin color.