Racism. Discrimination and racial inequality. Essay

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Racism
Today, everyone wants to reap the benefits of a diverse workforce. However, racism continues to be a major challenge to achieving this goal. People will never see things the same way and hence the many reforms that are brought forward in the hope of attaining common ground. In the U.S., for example, “roughly six-in-ten (61%) Americans say the country needs to continue making changes for blacks to have equal rights with whites; 30% say the country has already made enough changes” (Pew). The diversity in opinions in this statement says it all. People will always have differing views and in a setup where people are trying to achieve the same goal, it is crucial to find common ground. There are different ways that can be employed in the workplace and that can help reduce instances of racism. Even though there are many, this paper will focus on training, the creation of safe spaces where people can have difficult conversations, and internal investigations to help determine the areas where instances of bias can happen.
Even though people consider racism to be obvious, it may not always be and hence the importance of training. Some people go about life normally and believe they are not racist until someone points it out to them that they are in fact behaving in a racist manner in certain instances. Racism may not be as obvious as people think. Some racial practices are ingrained in people’s behaviors and they become oblivious to them because they have lived that way since they were children. These are difficult to deal with unless someone is shown how racist they are and how their behavior affects others. In Starbucks, a certain story caught the eyes of the entire world after two black men were arrested for sitting without purchasing anything. The company decided to have a racial bias education training to help deal with the issue. Some employees were angry, others felt let down because they felt some issues were not addressed, but others felt that progress was made (Calfas). Training employees should not be the last step of eliminating racial bias in the workplace but a pointer towards where problem...