For those that don’t like the term colorblind:
If I were the boss of a company looking to hire an accountant, what would be wrong in being colorblind in my choice?
Nothing, it would be great. But how exactly are you going to achieve that?
By not being racist? Deciding to analyze them based upon their merit?
And this is verified how?
what do you mean?
I said I’d bail out of this discussion, but I’ll reiterate my point just this one time…
The whole “I’m color-blind” thing is supposedly an answer to charges of racism. But it’s circular logic. Being “not racist” and being “color-blind” is the same thing. I can say that I’m not racist, or I can say that I’m color-blind, but why should someone who has been oppressed believe me – just because I say so? I might not even know, because a lot of such things are subconscious. Do you think the Google guy who wrote the manifesto is color-blind? I bet he thinks he is.
Also, if I’m the CEO of some giant company, I may have to delegate the hiring process to senior employees below me. Even if I honestly want the hiring process to be “color-blind”, how am I going to guarantee that happens? How can I verify that my employees acted in a color-blind way? By accepting that it’s true if they say so? There generally need to be processes in place to ensure it is systemic and verifiable. Otherwise nobody would have any reason to believe it - it’s just words. It also wouldn’t hold up in court.
Being color-blind is an awesome goal, but again, just claiming that it’s so, isn’t compelling at all.
So just what the heck would you suggest then?
That was my question to you! I didn’t claim to be the expert.
That said, I have served over the past year as my department’s equal opportunity representative in hiring of faculty. For this, I had to go through a lot of training. So I know SOME things about the subject - and, like most things, the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.
You say there’s not much we can do except try the best we can – well that’s NOT TRUE at all. There is a LOT that can and is being done. And it starts by educating oneself on potential sources of hidden bias, and trying to avoid them. One simple example of something to be wary of, is trying to decide how well a candidate will “fit in”. That is pervasive in many hiring situations, and often leads to racial and gender bias, without the interviewers even realizing it.
Another is to replace the mindset of trying to ignore race/gender, with instead educating oneself about issues and situations that could arise in an interview. That is, actively trying to identify patterns ahead of time that can lead to bias, rather than trying to avoid the issue and assume that by being “blind”, it won’t happen. That leads to “winging it”… it’s better to be prepared. For a simple example, suppose a candidate shows up and she’s obviously eight months pregnant? What are you going to do? You should be prepared for that possibility, and many others.
I had never considered our department’s practices biased at all. But after going through the training, it was clear that some of our procedures needed to change. I’m sure I have a lot more to learn as time goes on.