“Black Males Do Not Do Well In This Business”
What do the Training Manager say when the Sales Manager has told a minority candidate that “Black males do not do well in this business…at least in this area”
In late 2007 I interviewed a young African American candidate in his early twenty. I usually see the candidate in the third step of a series of interviews the candidate must complete. The candidate was very articulate, very professional appearance and was a college graduate. (Details of this candidate must be held in the strictest of confidence. I am held by a covenant of privacy and confidentiality.)
Doing my interview with the candidate I usually explain the licensing process which includes securities and insurance licensing. I also give the candidate an idea of what the first year of producer training will look like for him or her. During the course of this session, the candidate has the opportunity to response in a question and answer segment. During this segment, the candidate express doubt that they could in fact do the job…in this part of our territory. It was then that the candidate informed me that the hiring sales manager was very frank when informing him that “Black males do not do well in this business…at least in this area”
Ok…hold the phones, close the office doors and get Human Resources Department on the phones as we need to put the company on notice of a potential class action lawsuit. This was my first thoughts, but the good news is that the candidate is interviewing for his first real job. He is looking for answers. As a seasoned Financial Services Professional that happens to be African American, I can give him my perspective and I did.
First, I admitted that racism is alive and well. It surrounds us in many subtle forms and once in while it will raise its ugly head to feed. We do have our job as African Americans cut out for us in continuing proving we can do the job. We have made tremendous progress. Yet stereo types prevail.
I gave the young man an example of sterotypes that prevailed. In a side by side comparison of 2000 census data by sociologist
John R. Logan at the Mumford Center, State University of New York at Albany, black immigrants from Africa average the highest educational attainment of any population group in the country, including whites and Asians. For example, 43.8 percent of African immigrants had achieved a college degree, compared to 42.5 of Asian Americans, 28.9 percent for immigrants from Europe, Russia and Canada, and 23.1 percent of the U.S. population as a whole. That defies the usual stereotypes of Asian Americans as the only “model minority.” Yet the traditional American narrative has rendered the high academic achievements of black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean invisible…as if by choice.
In our company, we have multiple diversity intiatives that daily seek to eradicate these types of attitudes. The programs includes diversity sensitivity training. Will the problem go away overnight? No? But we continue to work on this one day at a time.
I also pointed out to this young candidate that the hiring Sales Manager’s boss does not think like this. In fact, two years ago he tried to promote me to this same office to build a dynamic multicultural team. I refused as my interest was elsewhere. This is not racism leadership.
I did suggest to the candidate that if he passes all required tests and steps in the pre-hire process, we would put him with a manager that would welcome him with warm and nurturing arms. The offending manager would be recommended for additional diversity training.
I explained the following to the candidate. “I want our best (people of color to represent you and me in the Financial Services Industry. I had a desire to clean up the food chain by delivering a better informed candidate to the doors of Financial Services Companies. These candidates would populate the management teams and leadership teams of these companies in years to come. Meanwhile, this new blood would grow into the Financial Services forces that are responsible for growing and protecting the wealth of all nations.”