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Comment by contergan | Hacker News Reader

>Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?

That's impossible to say on an individual level, but it is very likely. If you phrase the question differently, there's a pretty clear answer:

>On average, are two white people more employable than two black people?

Without knowing any further info about the possible candidates - Yes. Looking at education statistics in the US, it becomes clear pretty quickly, that the average white person has a higher education level, than the average black person for example. That's a pretty important factor to look for as an employer. I'm sure statistics on work experience will look similar.

And of course this is quite racist, but as long as different races exist, that really just means taking reality into account. Pretending there are no differences between different population groups is insane and counterproductive.

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Education statistics cut both ways.

Ask the question this way.

Are Brittany McKnight and John Wilson more employable than Lukwesa Nakazwe and Hijani Lungo?

Yes and it is obviously about race. Why? On average, Africans immigrants are more highly educated than native born Caucasians.

It's not about education. It's not about statistics. It's about racism. There have been studies where researchers submitted resumes with identical education and employment backgrounds but substituted "white sounding" names for "black sounding" names and the ones with the "black sounding" names were half as likely to be contacted by prospective employers.

With the same education and the same work experience, "Je'Marcus Johnson" is half as likely to even be interviewed as "Mark Johnson".

Survivorship bias. I went to a happy hour a week ago right after the Baltimore riots when a real estate exec starting going on and on about how blacks just needed to work harder - like many different immigrants.

This is survivor ship bias - comparing immigrants who left hell for the American Dream vs people living an American Nightmare. This is akin to comparing Olympic gold medal winners to members in a high school band. A better comparison would be comparing people of a similar socio-economic level in different countries.

I thoroughly enjoy those kinds of situations.

I use them to either get the person to re-evaluate their thinking or admit in public that they're just a racist.

One of my fiance's family friends works for the FBI and we were discussing racial profiling. He didn't understand why innocent people object to it. I explained to him that I'm not a criminal and it's always be a negative experience if someone treats me like I am one.

He asked if it doesn't make me feel safer to know that law enforcement is doing its job. I explained that if their only reason to suspect me of anything is the color of my skin, that it's racist and that I already know that I'm not a criminal. I wasn't a criminal yesterday. I'm not likely to become a criminal tomorrow and if law enforcement is wasting time, both theirs and mine, by bothering me; they're not out there actually catching criminals. I saw the expression on his face change. That thought had never occurred to him. The discussion ended with him conceding that he had never considered that before.

I think you missed the point that the studies actually found that black-sounding names got more callbacks despite having the same credentials, e.g., degree, GPA, etc.

Exactly wrong. They get fewer callbacks.

Thanks. I meant to say fewer callbacks.

> On average, are two white people more employable than two black people?

Instead of above, the question you need to ask is "On average, are two white people who are applying to your job more employable than two black people who are applying to your job ? I don't believe the answer is yes. A person who has overcome the statistics you quote has the same ability and employability regardless of race.

> Instead of above, the question you need to ask is [...]

Yes, excellent point. (And we can go further still.)

I've been calling this the "fallacy of ignored instantiation". Personally, this is something I've been ruminating on for a while and have meant to do a writeup on it for a couple years now. Hopefully, though, that name is descriptive enough that a certain crowd would, upon hearing it alone, understand almost exactly where I would go with it.

(Alternatively, if anyone knows of any good treatments that already exist on this topic, please let me know.)

Two white people are definitely more employable on average, even if they're felons and the black people have college degrees!

We perpetuate those statistics on work experience, etc., because the playing field is uneven to begin with. We have a nice little system in which further discrimination is "taking reality into account" once we've ensured a substandard elementary education and reduced chances at a good first job. Read the study: it, of course, controls for educational and work experience.

The thing is that when you're looking at job candidates, you typically have far more reliable indicators of employability than race. So it is not justifiable to make race a significant factor in your decision. These sorts of biases tend to show up even when race is absolutely demonstrably non-informative. (E.g., when reviewing journal articles.)

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