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Chapter 2 The Dynamics of Discrimination Devah Pager I n 1927, a New York clothing manufacturer advertised for help with a notice typical of that time period: “White Workers $24: Colored Workers $20” (Schiller 2004, 190; see also Darity and Mason 1998, table 1). At the time, ads like these were common, with the explicit understanding that whites were more highly valued and should be paid accordingly. Today, of course, such overt forms of discrimination have all but vanished. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, rendering previously common forms of unequal treatment illegal. With the shifting legal context, the social context of discrimination has transformed dramatically as well. Today the vast majority of Americans endorse the principle of racial equality and repudiates acts of racial discrimination. Yet, despite these progressive developments, a range of social science evidence indicates that significant discrimination persists in contemporary society. Whether conscious or unconscious, explicit or covert, individual or institutional, systematic differences in the treatment of whites and minorities contribute to the economic marginalization of minority groups. This chapter examines the ways in which discrimination continues to operate by asking five basic questions: What is discrimination? What is the relationship between discrimination and poverty? How can we identify discrimination when it takes place? What causes discrimination? How can we reduce the incidence of discrimination ? In answering these questions, we will examine the range of evidence available from social science research, as well as considering the factors that are not adequately captured by existing measures of discrimination. WHAT IS DISCRIMINATION? Racial discrimination, according to its most simple definition, refers to unequal treatment of persons or groups on the basis of their race or ethnicity. In defining / 21 racial discrimination, the National Research Council differentiates between differential treatment and differential effects, creating a two-part definition: “(1) differential treatment on the basis of race that disadvantages a racial group and (2) treatment on the basis of inadequately justified factors other than race that disadvantages a racial group (differential effect)” (Blank, Dabady, and Citro 2004, 39-40). The second component of this definition broadens its scope to include decisions and processes that may not themselves be racially motivated, but have the ultimate consequence of systematically disadvantaging minority groups. Beyond more conventional forms of intentional discrimination, institutional processes such as these are important to consider in assessing how valued opportunities are conditioned by race. WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DISCRIMINATION AND POVERTY? Not all those who have experienced racial discrimination are poor, and not all those who are poor experience racial discrimination, but there is reason to believe that a significant relationship exists between the two. Racial bias and discrimination can contribute to blocked opportunities and economic marginality in several ways. First, discrimination by gatekeepers across a range of social institutions inhibits members of minority groups from key social, economic, and residential opportunities that form the basis of economic self-sufficiency. To the extent that employment discrimination contributes to elevated rates of unemployment, underemployment , lower wages, or less stable employment conditions, members of racial minority groups will experience greater economic insecurity and elevated risks of poverty. To the extent that discrimination in mortgage or lending markets contributes to higher rates of loan default or financial instability, members of minority groups will experience greater economic hardship. Discrimination across a wide range of social and economic domains adds to the psychic and financial burdens of everyday life in ways that contribute to pervasive disadvantage among minority individuals and communities. Second, discrimination (both past and present) underlies systematic differences in the structural conditions facing minority and white households. For example, persistent residential segregation— caused in part by past and ongoing discrimination—has led to poor African American children growing up in environments that often differ radically from those of their white counterparts. Nearly 30 percent of poor black children, for example , grow up in high poverty neighborhoods yet fewer than 3 percent of poor white children do (Jargowsky 1997, table 3.7). This concentration of poverty compounds initial disadvantages by increasing the frequency and intensity of harmful environmental exposure, including joblessness, failing schools, poor housing stock, and crime (Massey and Denton 1993). Poor white children, by contrast, more often experience conditions in which their exposure to poverty is in part offset by exposure to the networks and resources of their nonpoor neighbors (Brooks-Gunn, Duncan, and Aber 1997). Individual disadvantage is thus compounded by the structural by-products of...

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