African American History:
Reflections on Employment and Race
By Dave Graepel
February 11, 2001
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o |
me
of you may know that I work for Lucent
Technologies. Given the plunge in the
stock price, I'm sure, you are now thinking, maybe he should save that admission
for the prayers and concerns part of the service.
If I were to describe what I do at Lucent,
I might say that I am the Vice-Principal, the Dean of Students.
My job is one where I make judgments on whom to fire, whom
to terminate because of insubordination, substance abuse and workplace violence
and whom to layoff when the work has gone away. It is not an easy job, one that you can neatly leave at the desk at the
end of the day.
In
my years on the job, a disproportionate number of those employees who are
fired, disciplined or demoted are African Americans. I have struggled with that lopsided reality for years.
I usually don't know the employee whose file
crosses my desk, whose employment fate rests in my hands. I certainly don't have a photograph. And of course Lucent doesn't indicated race
in its files. But quick read of the
file and one can sometimes infer the race of the employee.
But
again the question is this another African American employee that is
going to get fired for some transgression of the company's rule?
I've
sat down with white and black managers, union officials and asked the question
“ Are we discriminating in our treatment of these employees?” It is an
uncomfortable question to ask and we are all quick to deny the possibility, as
a positive response to that question is too heinous to consider.
I've seen cases of obvious discriminatory
behavior, but that seems rare. The
clear-cut examples of racism are easy to take moral stands on.
I
think it is the subtle, unconscious racism that accounts for a lot of the files
on my desk.
In
some strange way, I sure wish more of the files on my desk were white
guys. Maybe then it would be a little
easier to leave my work in the office.
© 2001 .
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