What happens if a white server and a person of color with the same qualifications apply for jobs at 100 different upscale Seattle restaurants? A new study using pairs of actors found out.

I know that this kind of paired test must be really expensive and difficult to run, so it’s frustrating that it’s the only kind of thing that will convince Certain Types of Internet Commenters that racism wasn’t solved in the 90s or whatever. Still! Nice to have a link on hand.

  • tune_solaris@slrpnk.net
    1·
    2 years ago

    “On a Friday in December, a Black female tester and a white female tester in their twenties applied for employment at a fine-dining restaurant in Seattle … The GM told them [both] the restaurant was not hiring servers at the moment. The GM encouraged the Black tester to apply at a fine dining restaurant far north of the city. The GM joked with the white tester and asked if she had a flexible schedule, if she was interested in a position as host, and if she could start immediately. The GM referred to both testers as ‘sweetheart’ at the end of the interview.”

    That’s pretty damning, especially tied in with the earnings tied to a lot of the positions they are citing. Directly from the study the Seattle Times is citing:

    The reality is that white workers in Seattle are nearly twice as likely as workers of color to earn a livable wage. Workers of color have over twice the odds as white workers of working in the lower wage occupation of dining room helper (busser and runner), and less than one quarter the odds of working in the higher wage occupation of bartender, compared to white workers.