Right now I am filling out job applications and many employers in my field claim to be “affirmative action” and “EOE” and they have separate “optional” sheets one can submit that, among other things, asks one about what supposed race/ethnicity they are. It also says that the information will not be used in hiring (right).
Suppose one was “white” but on such a form claimed to be “black.” Other than simply considering such a person to be an idiot, how could any potential employer disagree with someone about what race or ethnicity they claim to be?
I think there have been thirty threads on this (mainly dealing with colleges), with the consensus being that people are simply assumed to be honest in their replies.
If someone’s appearance didn’t jibe with what their stated race, these days a lot of people would be too polite or fearful of causing offense to actually contest it. I really doubt if someone in a professional setting will say outright “you don’t look black” but instead would err on the side of caution as verifiably mixed people can look completely white.
At the same time, lying on an application can carry penalties, and if an answer in one area is fishy or raises eyebrows, you entire application may be called into question and be scrutinized more.
Stupid anecdote, but I recall a case in (I think it was) Michigan where a white man from South Africa checked off his race as “African-American,” and had some trouble with it later. He contended that he was both African and American, and the authorities declared that wasn’t what they meant. Maybe someone can come along and fill in the details here…
I saw a very insightful movie in the late 80’s about this.
It starred Ponyboy from “the outsiders”
He actually had to pretend to be black to go to harvard (I think it was). Took tanning pills, joined the black student union, his last name was Watson, but people kept calling him Washington. He had a white girlfriend and her family members all had these stereotyped fantasies about him with their daughter/sister. The mom had the jungle fever one, the dad pictured him as a pimp, the brother pictured him as Prince.
oh, wait, it wasn’t so much insightful as silly.
Didn’t black people with light skin used to try to pass themselves off as white in order to be able to fully participate in society?
Not stupid at all. It just highlights the difficulties and absurdities in enforcing a racial spoils system. Nobody wants to come out and define anything because it’s, as yet, completely unscientific. We could go back to using phrenology. Those guys were always good for meaningless racist distinctions. Last I checked the whole human population is alleged to have sprung from one small population which came out of Africa.
Seriously, this raises the same issues that used to come up in New Orleans circa 1800. Mullato or octoroon? Do we really want to go down this road?
That would be Soulman, pretty funny movie, with Rae Dawn Chong as the “real” minority student who gets shafted out of her scholarship because the “fake” minority student got it instead. James Earl Jones was in it too.
Could you? Yes? Could you get away with it? I suppose if it wasn’t obvious- or if you claimed- “I just checked the wrong box”.
Should you? Well, unless you do so as a act of civil disobediance, and won up afterwards- no.
One small wiggle here. You can exaggerate. My Grandmother was from Spain- thus she was “Hispanic”, thus I am “part-hispanic”, and I sometimes so claim if I think it will get me some sort of advantage. But DO NOT do this for American Indian- there is actualy a legal definition of this status. There is none such for “part hispanic” so then- it is whatever I say it is…
What could they actually do to dispute ones racial claim? Suppose some blond-hair blue-eyed pale dude claimed to be African American. What could they do to prove him wrong? Bring in a panel of experts to declare him European? Hold him up to a color wheel? To what extent is something vague like “ethnicity” simply subjective?