Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do

by Jennifer L. Eberhardt

Even when the employers’ job posts declared a commitment to diversity, the researchers found that those companies were just as likely to reject the candidates whose race was most obvious. The students who trusted the diversity language wound up being disadvantaged. That led the researchers to conclude that whitening “presents a dilemma rather than a solution” for minorities. The research findings and the experiences of those students run counter to views on race that have been percolating in this country for years: Affirmative action has tilted the playing field so that minorities have the advantage on everything. White people are losing ground economically because of our society’s infatuation with diversity. More than half of white Americans—55 percent—believe there is discrimination against white people in the United States today, according to a 2017 survey by Harvard University’s School of Public Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and National Public Radio. “If you apply for a job, they seem to give the blacks the first crack at it,” one middle-aged white man from Ohio told interviewers. “It’s been going on for decades, and it’s been getting worse for whites.” He was disgruntled because a black man made the finals for a promotion he didn’t get. The job wound up going to a white man many years younger than he.