There was nothing sudden about it. For some of us non-Americans, this has always been the face the USA shows outside its own borders.
And also, internally this has been coming since Appomattox, one way or another.
You say this like the two don’t go hand-in-hand.
You’re talking like late-stage capitalism distinguishes between its white and non-white workers assets. In a way racial equality has finally been achieved in the eyes of some.
Doesn’t it?
IME, a white worker and a POC worker can both be exploited, but in practice that exploitation is unequal. Capitalism’s abstract logic might be colour-blind, but how it actually operates clearly is not. Because actual ruling capitalists like Musk etc. are not.
If capitalism were genuinely post-racial, racial inequality should have declined as capitalism intensified into late-stage capitalism. Instead, it has persisted, and in many cases worsened, which suggests that LSC is not only compatible with racial hierarchy but perfectly capable of reproducing it. Two examples:
Exploitation may be universal, but its most precarious forms are still unevenly distributed.
You are right that LSC treats people as assets. Historically, though, racialisation has been one of the most effective ways to differentially value, devalue, and discard those assets. You can clearly see this in current labour stratification: At Amazon, about 27% of the workforce identifies as Black or African American, yet roughly 85% of Black employees are in warehouse roles, and only around 8% are in managerial positions. So tell me again how LSC is colourblind?
Capitalism does not care what colour you are, because it is an abstraction.
But capitalists profit enormously from the fact that society does.
I am confused by these numbers. Wouldn’t the relevant comparison be to the percentage of white workers in managerial positions? Or comparing the percentage of black workers at each level to the percentage of black workers as a whole?
Agreed; while I don’t doubt for a second that there is massive disparity at Amazon (they are Evil, after all) I don’t know if 8% being in management is wildly different from the percentage of non-POC employees.
Yes, what you want to compare is the percentage of management staff who are Black (not the percentage of Black staff who are management) to the percentage of all workers who are Black. The presumption being that parity in these percentages proves racial equality at that company, or at least is some evidence of it.
There’s actually two different measures here.
If the percentage of black workers is the same at all levels from low to high, that shows the company is egalitarian as to promotions.
if the percentage of black workers matches the local population, that shows they’re egalitarian in hiring.
All of that is made a bit more complicated by the fact that not every worker joins at the bottom and works their way up. And because the racial mix of people able to step into a no-experience-required warehouse worker job is different from the racial mix of e.g. experienced warehouse manager or late career regional vice president candidates.
This latter difference isn’t caused by Amazon necessarily, but may also not be being ameliorated by them. Like Wal*Mart, they are a large enough, and geographically diversified enough, employer that their polices can move the national needle. For good or for ill.
Proportional representation is the comparison. If Black workers make up 27% of the workforce but are overwhelmingly concentrated in warehouse roles and sharply underrepresented in management, that’s evidence of stratification on its own.
I was trying to make that point without centering the story of White workers for a change.
But since you insist - the same 2020 study I got the Black warehouse number from said that only 54% of White employees were in warehouse roles. And overall, POC made up 73% of warehouse workers and only 19% of management. Just do the 100-X maths to get the White numbers.
Incidentally, the numbers are just as shitty for women vs men. But that’s not what this little bit of y’all stanning for the oligarchs is concerned about.
But the numbers you gave didn’t say anything about whether they’re “underrepresented in management.” You said that around 8% of Black employees are in managerial positions; but this is compatible with 100% of managers being Black, and also with 0.01% of managers being Black.
Yes, that wasn’t a useful comparison. But
Is
Under-represented relative to their workforce share. What matters is proportionality. If Black employees are 27% of the workforce but only about 8% of Black employees are in management, then Black representation collapses as you move up the hierarchy. If outcomes were race-neutral, you would expect roughly similar proportions at each level, not a steep drop-off.
The relevant measure is conditional probability, not logical compatibility. The question is: given that someone is a Black employee, how likely are they to be in management compared to their share of the workforce?
At Amazon, actually, 65% of staff is fulfillment (including warehouse staff) - but 85% of Black staff is warehouse (not fulfilment overall, even).
If management were, say, 15% of the overall workforce but only 8% of Black workers reach it, then Black workers are under-represented relative to baseline. The exact racial composition of managers doesn’t change that maths.
For managers to be 100% Black, management would have to be overwhelmingly smaller than the Black workforce, or recruitment would have to bypass the existing workforce entirely. Neither scenario describes Amazon - warehouse managers tend to be internally promoted - so the “100% of managers” case is an abstract mathematical possibility with no relevance to the real structure being discussed.
Or, in other words, not really here for you to play logic games while continuing to stan for Bezos.
But what would matter is if Black employees are 27% of the workforce, but only 8% of the management staff. Not what percentage of the Black workforce is in management… because if only 8% of the white workforce is also in management, it’s still egalitarian.
Your other numbers do paint the picture more starkly (and again, I 100% expect Amazon to be a shitty, racist employer.)
No, that’s not what those numbers imply. I think you’re still committing the Prosecutor’s Fallacy: confusing the percentage of Black employees who are in management with the percentage of management who are Black.
Suppose Amazon has 100 Black workers total: 8 managers, all of whom are Black, and 92 Black warehouse workers. Then 8% of Black employees would be in management.
You could additionally suppose that there are enough other (white) workers, all warehouse workers, so that 27% of the entire workforce is Black.
I’m not confusing those two quantities, and I’m not trying to infer the racial composition of management from that statistic. I agree completely that “8% of Black employees are managers” does not tell us what percentage of managers are Black. I already gave the other statistics that speak to that (which you seem to be ignoring)
The claim I’m making is different. It’s about internal distribution, not about dominance of management. If Black employees are 27% of the workforce but roughly 85% of Black employees are in warehouse roles and only about 8% are in management, that tells us that Black workers are disproportionately concentrated in roles with limited access to management, and disproportionately thinned out as you move up the hierarchy. That conclusion does not depend on the racial makeup of managers overall.
Y’all keep trying to center this on the White people. Why is that?
At least one of us is still confused. I don’t see how it tells us that at all.
(And, in case it needs to be said, I am only disputing the “that tells us” part. Your conclusion may well be true, but I don’t see how it is supported by the percentages you give.)
Which is why I later gave the other percentages (that I was already aware of as they’re in the same report), but did not make explicit because I wanted to center the Black numbers only. That implicit baseline underlies these numbers, but I see no point in repeating them every time I mention the Black numbers.
So by this point, I’m assuming y’all are aware of the 65% overall baseline, and are only harping on the Black-only numbers for shits and giggles (at best).
Those numbers alone don’t tell us that at all. If for example 5% of overall employees are in management then 8% is an over representation not an underrepresentation.
ROFLMAO
Little slow, there, Comrade.
Whiteness, so high-lareeus…
Isn’t there a genocide somewhere you can be denying, motherfucker?
Or wait, do the bit where you pretend that you actually are a POC, that’s always high comedy.
I’m sure white people will be very relieved to learn that they have nothing whatsoever to do with racial inequality.
I’m sure POC everywhere will be very relieved to know it’s what White people think that counts…
Man, White fragility and White defensiveness really comes out on this board when Whiteness is raised, doesn’t it?