Transcending Racial Barriers: Toward a Mutual Obligations Approach

by Michael O. Emerson

One example of indirect discrimination is the use of social networks to find a prospective employee. Royster (2003) documents the role that families, school officials, and employers play in enabling whites, rather than blacks, to more smoothly transition to good-paying blue-collar employment. She found that the social networks of whites enable them to enjoy more economic success, even if they are not more academically prepared, than their black counterparts. In and of itself, there is nothing inherently racist about using social networks to find a new hire. Waters (1999) documents that one advantage to doing so is that there the person who provides a reference for a potential employee has some accountability. That accountably makes it less likely that they will recommend an inefficient, troublemaking, or crooked worker. However, our social networks tend to be composed of individuals within our own racial group (Fetto 2000, Joyner & Kao 2000, Korgen 2002). Therefore, the people referred to a potential employer are overwhelmingly likely to be of that recommender’s and that employer’s race.