Advancement Project

December 2, 2009

Black Male College Graduates and the Burden of Race

A story in yesterday’s New York Times speaks to the ways in which race is still very much a burden for African Americans, despite the historical milestone achieved in electing the nation’s first African-American president.

The story even raises the question of whether Obama’s election might make it harder to address racial discrimination given that some Americans think race issues are a thing of the past.

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, according to the Times, shows that racial discrimination is still quite a serious problem. Black male college graduates are unemployed at nearly double the rate of their White male peers, 8.4 percent to 4.4 percent, respectively.

The Times spoke to more than two dozen unemployed Black male college graduates from around the country – a number of whom talked about how they had taken pains to hide their race on resumes.

One man who had worked for JP Morgan Chase and had an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago spoke of his need to remove evidence of his membership in African-American organizations.

Another unemployed man, Barry Jabbar Sykes, a Morehouse graduate, who has always gone by Jabbar, took his middle name off his resume and replaced it with simply the initial “J” and then told a Times reporter that using his first name, Barry, might make it seem like he could “be from Ireland.”

One 25-year-old Yale graduate wondered whether the sound of his voice during an initial call for an interview might tip off the interviewer that he was African American and scuttle his chances of further consideration.

Another unemployed college graduate who went to live with his parents in Dallas because he was jobless applied to a money management firm and spoke to a hiring manager who was excited after learning of his background. But when the applicant met two men from the firm for an interview, the men were shocked into silence at the sight of him–obviously because they expected someone who . . . er . . . looked different.

If Americans responded differently to racial differences, being African-American, Latino, Native American or Asian might be viewed as an asset—because all those groups bring cultures, heritages, experiences and networks that could give corporations advantages. But race is so often a taboo subject or viewed so negatively that little room is left to view race affirmatively.

Sometimes the victims of racial bias—as the article demonstrated–would rather think some other reason, other than race, prevented them from access to a job or some other benefit in life. Some of those interviewed surmised that maybe they weren’t victims of bias but, maybe, victims of simply not being perceived to fit in—victims of a kind of cultural preference. But if being Black was all it took to kill their job prospects, then what they really confronted was old-fashioned racism.

If this nation dealt with race differently, the achievement of being a Black male college graduate might be considered noteworthy – given the many hurdles they must overcome. For many, even attending college means overcoming poverty, the burden of single-parent families, and contending with much higher levels of gang violence and deadly crime that take so many of their peers’ lives. The college degree earned by a Black man isn’t necessarily worth more—but, often, it does show some significant fortitude and grit that should be acknowledged.

But, rather than the achievement being recognized, these men’s lives are hampered and diminished by the stigma of race—even as we approach 2010.

To say that the extent of racism revealed by the Times article is sad is obvious. But what is little discussed—which the article sheds lights on–is the self-imposed oppression or cultural and psychological repression that results from a society where one’s identity is frowned upon. A society that requires someone to hide their race, their heritage and their name to survive and prosper is an unhealthy one.

Rushing, is the writer-editor of Advancement Project, a national civil rights organization that advocates for racial justice.