It is undeniable that systemic racism is still an issue in the United States. Oftentimes, however, we do not always assume the consequences it can have on the economy and its vitality. In this article from msn.com, the authors argue that systemic racism is a challenge to the U.S. economy. They attribute two reasons to this: knowledge and talent. According to them, “Knowledge is developed by talent, and it takes talent to effectively make use of knowledge.” Systemic racism stalls economic vitality in the sense that it restricts supply of talent which, in turn, threatens both our prospects for growth and social cohesion. Moreover, it deprives and/or limits minority groups and lower class individuals from access to key structures and goods and services which would play in their knowledge and talent development, which the authors categorize as intangible capital.
The authors also state that “by opening the gates of knowledge and talent, we can advance social justice, combat prolonged recession and build much-needed social cohesion.” In fact, for example: “research journals suggests that between 20 percent and 40 percent of the growth that took place in the United States between 1960 and 2010 can be explained by the removal of racial and gender discrimination in talent development.” All evidence from research and others mentioned in the article show and indicate that addressing systemic racism is critical for U.S.economic recovery and long-term vitality. What are your suggestions on how systemic racism can be addressed, and how that would specifically transform the U.S. economy?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/systemic-racism-is-a-drag-on-the-us-economy/ar-BB1aJw0u?ocid=uxbndlbing
2 comments:
One of our professors here at OWU told us about an experiment to see whether recruiters were biased when hiring employees. They sent out similar resumes to different companies with 'black' sounding and 'white' sounding names. It was found that people of color were less likely to get a call for an interview as compared to their white counterparts. So I do agree with you that systemic racism exists and we have a long road forward to make an actual difference.
Most definitely. Your example is a form of implicit bias and it is very recurrent in different spheres of american society. Another example would be redlining which basically involved Federal Agencies marking minority neighborhoods as risky investments, discouraging bank loans, mortgages and insurance there. There are many other examples to cite, unfortunately. These results in economic inequalities and disparities, and while it seems like it is only affecting a certain demographic, as the article shows, it is causing a drag on the economy. This country needs to work towars eradicating these inequalities, and the first step should simply be to acknowledge that they exist.
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