ABC News 20/20 Report: White and Black Names

[TonyB06]

Originally Posted by shinerbock

I'm really surprised some of you can figure out how to turn on a computer.

"people like you"--Are you kidding? I simply said businesses will likely hire people with safe names becase customers and partners are more comfortable with them. Simply because someone decides to name their child Letravious doesn't mean the rest of the world needs to rush to accept it as normal.

shinerbock,
I see the point you're making, but consider this scenario. Say , you run shinverbock, inc. and you're making a hiring decision between Letravious Jones and Larry Jones. Both are reasonably strong candidates, however Letravious grades out slighty higher than Larry.

Conventional thinking, as you see it, suggests you would hire Larry. Do you do it, and if, so, do you have any recriminations about the fact that Letravious could go to a competitor and come back to haunt. Or do you hire Letravious?

curious as to your thinking.

[shinerbock]

It would obviously depend on the person. Despite my distaste for minority popular culture, I generally love to see people from unfortunate backgrounds do well for themselves. I think they're often the most motivated and they've worked the hardest to get there. If Latravious or whoever we decided the applicant was...was well spoken, clean cut, and fit the requirements better than other applicants, I imagine I'd hire him.

Note- I'm not saying all people with "blacker" last names are from rough backgrounds, but I imagine we can agree that some of them are.

Other Note- Part of the reason I feel this way is from family experience...My dad hires a lot of people on a regular basis, and he's run into problems before where there is a really well qualified minority applicant, good scores, etc...but they don't speak well or present themselves as professionally as the company expects. Thats where I think presentation does matter.

[OtterXO]

Originally Posted by shinerbock

It would obviously depend on the person. Despite my distaste for minority popular culture, I generally love to see people from unfortunate backgrounds do well for themselves. I think they're often the most motivated and they've worked the hardest to get there. If Latravious or whoever we decided the applicant was...was well spoken, clean cut, and fit the requirements better than other applicants, I imagine I'd hire him.

Note- I'm not saying all people with "blacker" last names are from rough backgrounds, but I imagine we can agree that some of them are.

Other Note- Part of the reason I feel this way is from family experience...My dad hires a lot of people on a regular basis, and he's run into problems before where there is a really well qualified minority applicant, good scores, etc...but they don't speak well or present themselves as professionally as the company expects. Thats where I think presentation does matter.

So all other things being equal you would assume that a Brad or Larry would present better than the well qualified minority?