4. Black Men Need More Education to Get the Same Jobs

A research made on Steve, a white man, and Kwame, an African American man proves that black men need more education than white men to get the same jobs. Both Steve and Kwame studied at the University of Maryland and they oddly have lots of things in common. Both majored in the same subject, they got the same grades during college and they have the same bullet points on their resumes. Now both are going to spend the summer looking for jobs, it should not be harder for Kwame to find a job than Steve but in reality it is. Black male college graduates have 92.8% of employment rate. And white male college graduates have 97.6% of employment rate. African American men need two or more level of education to have the same job as white men. Receiving a high school diploma has a 50 percent larger impact on a African American man than it does on a white man. And by the time both receive a professional degree level that percent will have increase to 146 percent. Although more African Americans are being accepted into Ivy League schools this discrimination may still pervade until the hiring process. “The legacy of racial discrimination across centuries continues to impact economic disparities, and so young African Americans start on an uneven playing field.” In another study, job applicants whose name sounded African American had 50 percent less callbacks than white-sounding names. “The brightest African Americans may find it hard to succeed without being ‘twice as good and half as black.’”

The author of this article, Margaret Barthel, is very persuading. Persuading towards the discrimination that still happens around the world even though others think it does not exist. She shows the reader how both Steve and Kwame are completely the same and that it should not be harder for a man to find a job just because his skin is a little darker than the other. Barthel uses good language and although this article could have been very opinionative she does her best not to put her opinion into the piece. The reader can tell her perspective about the discrimination however she presents to the viewer many evidences and parts of other articles that show how African Americans are being treated wrongly. The author not only uses parts of other articles but also uses quotes from researches made many years ago by famous and intelligent people. Her article although shorter than other articles is well elaborated and organized, filled with evidence enough to prove that discrimination still exists and that it is indeed harder for an African American to find a job than a white man.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/08/black-men-need-more-education-to-get-the-same-jobs/375770/