“Thank you for your interest in careers at Mantality Health. Unfortunately, we do not consider candidates that have suggestive “ghetto” names. We wish you the best in your career search.”
Hermeisha Robinson, of St. Louis, Mo, stated she received the email above from Jordan Kimler NP, an employee at Mantality Health, after applying for a Customer Service Representative position.
“I HAVE A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT I AM VERY UPSET BECAUSE TODAY I RECEIVED AN EMAIL ABOUT THIS JOB THAT I APPLIED FOR AS A CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE AT Mantality Health I KNOW IM WELL QUALIFIED FOR THE POSITION AS THEY SEEN ON MY RESUME! THEY DISCRIMINATED AGAINST ME BECAUSE OF MY NAME WHICH THEY CONSIDERED TO BE “ghetto” FOR THEIR COMPANY! MY FEELINGS ARE VERY HURT AND THEY EVEN GOT ME SECOND-GUESSING MY NAME TRYING TO FIGURE OUT IF MY NAME IS THAT “GHETTO” I WOULD LIKE FOR EVERYONE TO SHARE THIS POST BECAUSE DISCRIMINATION HAS TO STOP!” Robinson wrote on her Facebook Page.
This is nothing new. It’s been going on since the beginning of time..blacks being denied employment over unconventional names. According to The National Bureau Of Economic Research, a job applicant with a name that sounds like it might belong to an African-American – say, Lakisha Washington or Jamal Jones – can find it harder to get a job. They did an experiment with white-sounding names vs black-sounding names, in response to help-wanted ads in Chicago and Boston newspapers. They sent resumes with either African-American- or white-sounding names and then measured the number of callbacks each resume received for interviews. Unshockingly, white-sounding names received more callbacks than the black-sounding names.
So what can we assume from the facts, is racism still alive or should blacks name their kids more conventional white-sounding names to be employable?