I can attest to one of the effects of Hollywood "white-washing": I had no idea, until I drove out there about a decade ago, that California Bay Area was other than lily white. On TV, the streets of San Francisco are all white, all the time. In reality... the Bay area is a Pacific Rim city. It is America's Shanghai, where people of every race found in the Pacific rim mingle in a great port city. Silicon Valley isn't white; it's Indian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, and just about every other flavor of Asian-American you can imagine. There's Hispanic-Americans whose ancestors have been here longer than mine have (people forget the Spanish settled California first), and a few black and white people, too. Also Greeks, Lebanese, and anyone else whose ancestors or they themselves ever immigrated. White Anglo-Saxon-type Americans are a small minority in the Bay.
It was a culture shock living there for a year, but a fun one. Sadly, Hollywood, TV, and even IT industry coverage does not show the richness and diversity of the area--the media leaves one with the image of white people only and everywhere.
As for the "'black' names with the same qualifications get fewer callbacks than 'white' names", one interim solution is to send blind resumes to the people deciding who gets a callback. (Blind == initials or numbers for names, no gender). I believe that some companies actually do that. (Considering that blind resumes were proposed as a method of solving discrimination in hiring back in 1949, by Robert Heinlein in the short story "Delilah and the Space Rigger"....)
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Date: 2017-06-02 06:07 pm (UTC)It was a culture shock living there for a year, but a fun one. Sadly, Hollywood, TV, and even IT industry coverage does not show the richness and diversity of the area--the media leaves one with the image of white people only and everywhere.
As for the "'black' names with the same qualifications get fewer callbacks than 'white' names", one interim solution is to send blind resumes to the people deciding who gets a callback. (Blind == initials or numbers for names, no gender). I believe that some companies actually do that. (Considering that blind resumes were proposed as a method of solving discrimination in hiring back in 1949, by Robert Heinlein in the short story "Delilah and the Space Rigger"....)