Race Relations in the Obama Era: Better and Worse – Implications for Managing Diversity

by Andrés T. Tapia — Race relations continue to undergo profound shifts as the first ever African American US president is about to complete one year in office. Are things better or worse? The answer is both. Understanding this is essential to be able to better manage diversity in these transformational times. 

Evidence of better is fueled both by the powerful imagery of a black commander-in-chief showing up daily in the news and by shared difficult economic times. Worse is evidenced by the rise in hate crimes, a significantly polarized political environment with racial undertones, and the fact that for many minorities many things don’t seem to have changed much.

Let’s just take a look at a couple of recent news stories telling these two diverging tales. Here’s an excerpt from the New York Times’ “A Racial Divide Is Bridged by Recession.”

During the housing boom, Henry County, a suburb of Atlanta, had its share of racial tension as more and more blacks joined the tens of thousands of others pouring in, creating a standoffish gap between the newcomers and the county’s oldtimers.

But the recession has begun to erase those differences.

Blacks and whites have encountered one another in increasing numbers recently in the crowded waiting rooms of the welfare office and at the food pantry, where many of both races have ventured for the first time. Struggling black-owned businesses are attracting the attention of white patrons. Neighbors are commiserating across racial lines.

… “There used to be a lot of racial tension here, but everybody knows that we need each other to survive this recession,” said Eugene Edwards, the president of the Henry County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “People now, they seem to be starting to care for one another.”

But on the other hand, here’s another recent New York Times story that shows that little seems to have changed, “In Job Hunt, Even a College Degree Can’t Close the Racial Gap.”

There is ample evidence that racial inequities remain when it comes to employment. Black joblessness has long far outstripped that of whites. And strikingly, the disparity for the first 10 months of this year, as the recession has dragged on, has been even more pronounced for those with college degrees, compared with those without. Education, it seems, does not level the playing field — in fact, it appears to have made it more uneven.

College-educated black men, especially, have struggled relative to their white counterparts in this downturn, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate for black male college graduates 25 and older in 2009 has been nearly twice that of white male college graduates — 8.4 percent compared with 4.4 percent.

…A study published several years ago in The American Economic Review titled “Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?” found that applicants with black-sounding names received 50 percent fewer callbacks than those with white-sounding names.

These two articles pull us in different directions in terms of whether race relations have improved. They are further evidence that in these upside-down times we’d better get better at Both/And Thinking and analysis and less trapped in the current either/or mindset dominating the airwaves and blogosphere. Not only is it less polarizing, it is also more helpful in determining what is going on and in so doing be better able to develop solutions that more realistically take into account paradox rather than submerging one truth to prove the other.

A good place to explore this issue and make the discussion on inclusion relevant is through diversity training. How are you applying Both/And Thinking in your organization?

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