Welcome to Rastafari Speaks
  Login/Create an Account Homepage | Interactive Home | Weblog | Links | Forums  

Main Menu
· Interactive Home 
· Search 
· Stories Archive 
· Surveys 
· AvantGo 
· Recommend Us 
· Feedback 
· Web Links 
· Private Messages 
· Your Account 
· Amazon Shopping 

Website Links

· AfricaSpeaks Home 
· Rasta Times 
· Articles/Archive 
· News Weblog 
· Rastafari Archive 
· Marcus Garvey 
· Haile Selassie 
· Message Board 
· Reasoning Forum 
· Black Africans 
· Reasoning Archive 
· Sudan Crisis 
· Zimbabwe 
· Haiti's Coup 
· Venezuela/Chavez 

Website Info.

· About Us 
· Terms of Use 
· Fair Use Notice 
· Privacy Policy 

Big Story of Today
There isn't a Biggest Story for Today, yet.

Categories Menu
  • African Diaspora
  • Book Reviews
  • Caribbean
  • Caribbean Views
  • Haile Selassie
  • Israel/Palestine
  • Marcus Garvey
  • Poetry
  • Psychology
  • Racism Watch
  • Rasta Revolution
  • Rastafari
  • South America
  • Spirituality
  • Syria
  • Trinidad and Tobago
  • U.S.A.
  • War and Terror
  • War on Libya
  • War with Russia
  • Women
  • World Focus

  • Old Articles
    Thursday, May 19
    ·
    Monday, April 25
    ·
    Friday, April 22
    · Denying Discrimination: Clintonian Political Calculus and the Culture of Hooey
    Wednesday, December 09
    · The Religious Element of Terrorism
    Sunday, November 29
    ·
    Saturday, November 21
    · The Paris Attacks and the White Lives Matter Movement
    Sunday, September 27
    · Freedom Rider: Ahmed Mohamed and Abdulrahman al-Awlaki
    Monday, August 10
    ·
    Saturday, June 20
    · America Prosecutes the World
    Wednesday, April 29
    · Skip Gates and Sony Exposed by Wikileaks

    Older Articles

    Books
    Buy Books

    African Diaspora: Skin tone important for African Americans seeking jobs
    Posted on Wednesday, August 16 @ 01:51:43 UTC by admin

    Black and White Skin tone more important than educational background for African Americans seeking jobs

    Writer: Philip Lee Williams
    Source: University of Georgia


    Everyone knows about the insidious effects of racism in American society. But when it comes to the workplace, African-Americans may face a more complex situation--the effects of their own skin tone.

    For the first time, a study indicates that dark-skinned African-Americans face a distinct disadvantage when applying for jobs, even if they have resumes superior to lighter-skinned black applicants.

    Matthew Harrison, a doctoral student at the University of Georgia, presented his research today at the 66th annual meeting of the Academy of Management in Atlanta. Along with his faculty supervisor, Kecia Thomas, a professor of applied psychology and acting director of UGA's Institute for African American Studies, Harrison undertook the first significant study of "colorism" in the American workplace.

    "The findings in this study are, tragically, not too surprising," said Harrison. "We found that a light-skinned black male can have only a bachelor's degree and typical work experience and still be preferred over a dark-skinned black male with an MBA and past managerial positions, simply because expectations of the light-skinned black male are much higher, and he doesn't appear as 'menacing' as the darker-skinned male applicant."

    While there have been other studies of effects of colorism socially, this is the first study designed specifically to examine how it operates in hiring and in the workplace.

    In America especially, Harrison says, when people think of race or race relations they commonly think of black and white. In fact, skin tone differences are responsible for increasing differences in perceptions within standard racially defined groups such as "blacks." This diversity within races based on skin complexion has a long history but only recently have researchers begun to understand what these differences can mean.

    Participants in the study that Harrison, himself an African American, directed for his master's thesis included 240 undergraduate students at the University of Georgia, some of whom participated in the study voluntarily, while others got class credit for their involvement. While there were a disproportionate number of females in the study (72 percent), this was due to the high percentage of women majoring in psychology at UGA and was adjusted for in reporting the research.

    Each student was asked to rate one of two resumes that came with one of three photographs of a theoretical job applicant (one man, one woman) whose skin color was either dark, medium or light. Harrison manipulated the skin tones of the applicants with Adobe Photoshop so facial characteristics could not be included in how the students rated the job applicants.

    "Our results indicate that there appears to be a skin tone preference in regards to job selection," said Harrison. "This finding is possibly due to the common belief that fair-skinned blacks probably have more similarities with whites than do dark-skinned blacks, which in turn makes whites feel more comfortable around them."

    Harrison refers in his paper to numerous studies that show that light skin is almost universally valued among all racial groups. Hierarchies based on light skin are prevalent in Hindu cultures in India, for example, and in Asian and Hispanic cultures as well.

    "While the respondents in this study were University of Georgia students, we think we would find the same response no matter where such a study was done in the country," said Thomas. "When you consider that probably no more than 1 percent of industrial and organizational psychologists are black, you can see why a study like this just hasn't been done before regarding colorism in the workplace. There are real-world consequences to these issues."

    Harrison said he was surprised that skin hue was even more important than education in evaluating job applicants.

    "Given the increasing number of biracial and multiracial Americans, more research similar to this study should be performed so that Americans can become more aware of the prevalence of color bias in our society," he said. "The only way we are going to begin to combat some of the inequities that result due to the beliefs and ideologies that are associated with colorism is by becoming more aware of the prejudices we have regarding skin tone due to the images we are exposed to on a regular basis."

    Society, he said, equates lighter skin with attractiveness, intelligence, competency and likeability, while we are often given a "much more dismal and bleak picture" of those who have darker skin.

    "The more we challenge these images and our own belief systems," said Harrison, "the greater the likelihood we will judge an individual by his or her actual merit rather than skin tone."

    ###

    The Academy of Management is a leading professional organization for scholars dedicated to creating and disseminating knowledge about management and organizations. Founded in 1936 by two professors, the AOM is the oldest and largest scholarly management association in the world. Today, the group has more than 16,000 members from 97 nations.

    Reprinted from:
    www.uga.edu/news/artman/publish/060815_SkinToneStudy.shtml

     
    Related Links
    · More about Black and White
    · News by admin


    Most read story about Black and White:
    Skin tone important for African Americans seeking jobs


    Article Rating
    Average Score: 4.68
    Votes: 19


    Please take a second and vote for this article:

    Excellent
    Very Good
    Good
    Regular
    Bad


    Options

     Printer Friendly Printer Friendly



    Views expressed on our Websites are those of the authors and are not necessarily shared, endorsed, or recommended by the management and staff of RastafariSpeaks.com.

    All logos and trademarks in this site are property of their respective owner. The comments are property of their posters, all the rest © 2004- 2008 RastafariSpeaks.com.
    You can syndicate our news using the file backend.php or ultramode.txt

    PHP-Nuke Copyright © 2005 by Francisco Burzi. This is free software, and you may redistribute it under the GPL. PHP-Nuke comes with absolutely no warranty, for details, see the license.
    Page Generation: 0.12 Seconds
    AfricaSpeaks.com