Ethnic Groups and Discrimination – Part Two

Modern avenues for de facto discrimination

With the exception of extremists, racial prejudice, ethnic discrimination, and gender bias have substantially diminished.  A deeper look at social practices, however, reveal discriminatory acts have gone underground.  White male dominance in business, finances, and politics has facilitated the introduction of less overt practices with much the same result.  Discrimination affects all minorities and women, but the focus of this essay is on African Americans and African American women.

Dual labor market

 Labor market dualism is a subtle practice of discrimination.  Sociologists classify three categories of job quality:  good, mediocre, and poor (Hudson, 2008).  Good jobs have higher pay, good fringe benefits, and improved chances for career advancement.  These jobs are dominated by White males.  Mediocre jobs offer better pay yet earnings remain less than White workers holding the same position.  Employers often resort to manipulating work hours to avoid providing full fringe benefits; e.g., health insurance.  Women and minorities with quality education have the best opportunity to obtain these jobs.  This is particularly true for African American women.  Poor jobs are menial, offer unpleasant working conditions, minimum wage, irregular shifts, and few to no fringe benefits.  These types of jobs fell to minorities and women with substandard education and little training.

Environmental justice issues

According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s definition:

Environmental Justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. EPA has this goal for all communities and persons across this Nation. It will be achieved when everyone enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards and equal access to the decision-making process to have a healthy environment in which to live, learn, and work.

In actuality, poor communities carry an unfair burden of pollutant’s effects on health.  As reported by the National Black Environmental Justice Network, companies have traditionally located “landfills, garbage dumps, incinerators, sewage treatment plants, chemical industries and a host of other polluting facilities” in African American and poorer communities.  Because the population of these areas did not have sufficient political clout to resist such placements, their communities were favored dumping sites.  Dickson County, Tennessee, has been fighting for more than 20 years to have the local landfill cleaned up to avoid continued pollution of that area’s well water.  Dickson County is not alone in facing this problem, but their situation is a rallying point and wake-up call for needed action.