You mean that baby-like facial features do actually make black men more competent in decision-making roles?
As long as people perceive a stimulus in a certain way (even if they have no rational reason to), it will have an effect that cannot easily be removed. The decisions that a CEO makes are important, but how others perceive them are also important to the very end, not just in the hiring or promotions processes.
Yup, this is plausible. It's also compatible with what the author says: “I want people to realize that we don’t live in a meritocracy, that we are judged by different standards. A quality that could be an asset in one group could be a liability in another.”
Unless of course you define meritocracy to include being on the right side of people's biases. The problem with this definition is that it is close to making every promotion decision meritocratic by definition.
This is pretty close to what Michael Young was warning about when he coined the term in his 1958 satire, 'The Rise of the Meritocracy'. Here's an article by him on the subject - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment
Decision making is one aspect of being an executive not the whole thing.
But the article doesn't provide a rationale or data to back up its thesis either.
So, both claims are equally ridiculous.
E.g. if someone shows up to work in dirty clothes and unkempt hair, everyone judges them by that, and their boss might even say explicitly "this is not acceptable".
I think we mostly agree that this is OK?
Another confounder is that we all have subconscious drivers. E.g. I really enjoy Jason Statham in bad action movies, and I cut him more slack simply because of his visual appearance (his style). We all do exactly the same with a leader which our subconscious approves of, and we are more inclined to do a good job under such a leader.
If a certain trait of a certain subgroup is something that's frequently featured in people's subconscious idea of a good leader, those traits will neccessarily correlate with better leaders.
As a random citizen walking around the streets I shouldn't decide people are more or less likely to attack me or whatever based on appearance.
If I'm a casting director for a movie, I should definitely take it in to consideration.
The author though doesn't address their recommendations to random citizens or casting directors though. Rather to the board that are hiring CEO's.
The article doesn't cover whether their appearance findings are causal or not in any way, or the importance of social justice over profit. Just straight "found a thing people seem to care about so they should immediately stop caring about it". I dunno if this is what the original poster meant by "not providing rationale" but I felt like the conclusion to the article sort of came out of nowhere.
> As a random citizen walking around the streets I shouldn't decide people are more or less likely to attack me or whatever based on appearance.
Unless you have a deep knowledge of the neighborhood you are walking in, this fits the dictionary definition of prejudice.
> If I'm a casting director for a movie, I should definitely take it in to consideration.
If you haven't been paying attention, casting directors have been accused of discriminating against marginalized groups with casting decisions they made based on actors' appearances.
> The author though doesn't address their recommendations to random citizens or casting directors though. Rather to the board that are hiring CEO's.
> The article doesn't cover whether their appearance findings are causal or not in any way, or the importance of social justice over profit. Just straight "found a thing people seem to care about so they should immediately stop caring about it". I dunno if this is what the original poster meant by "not providing rationale" but I felt like the conclusion to the article sort of came out of nowhere.
Well, the root of this thread is accusing the posted article of proselytizing a "political agenda" by using a study's data to surmise that racial minorities are being discriminated against because of how they look. The post you are replying to is using some type of rhetorical device to argue that it is generally ridiculous to discriminate against people based on their looks. Given this context, I doubt you will find the recommendations you are looking for here.