“That One Time?” Or “Lucky to Be Here?” Black Professionals' Perceptions of Workplace Racial Discrimination

• In Event: 3431 - Theorizing Race in Organizations

Abstract

This paper examines black perceptions of racial discrimination. Researchers have shown that blacks encounter an enormous amount of racial discrimination in the workplace, including but not limited to exclusion from critical social networks, wage disparities, and hiring disadvantages. But fewer studies examine the extent to which blacks believe racial discrimination is a salient factor in their occupational mobility, or the factors which might explain divergent perceptions of racial discrimination among black workers. Based on 60 in-depth interviews with black medical doctors, nurses and technicians in the healthcare industry, we show how occupational status fundamentally shapes how black workers perceive the nature and extent of the racial discrimination they face in the workplace. This finding helps to flesh out currently underdeveloped models of how and why perceptions of discrimination matter. Consequently, we argue that a status-based approach to understanding black assessments of occupational racial discrimination is a more salient measure than current theoretical models.

Authors

• Adia M. Harvey Wingfield, Washington University in St. Louis

• Koji Rafael Chavez, Indiana University