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Bridging the Racial Opportunity GapPolitical discourse on race, diversity, and theObama presidency has tended to be both polarizedand simplistic: one camp contends that America hastranscended race and no longer need focus onunequal opportunity (the “postracial society” argu-ment) while some others say that Obama and thiselection cycle are unique, reflecting no deeperchange in America’s legacy of racial exclusion.Although a polarized political debate on these mat-ters is perhaps not surprising, it is a luxury that thenonprofit sector cannot afford. Because we are inthe business of solving tough social problems,expanding opportunity, and improving real people’slives, our work must be rooted in facts, research,and a more sophisticated understanding of twenty-first-century social forces.

The facts and research, in this case, show that wehave made significant progress as a nation in thepursuit of equal opportunity, inclusion, and diver-sity, but that we still have a significant distance totravel. That same body of knowledge shows thattwenty-first-century barriers to equal opportunityare subtle and complex, yet surmountable throughidentifiable, replicable strategies and solutions.

It is true that President Obama’s historic rise wasunique—a phenomenally gifted politician running aflawless campaign in a “change” election year andin the midst of an economic meltdown that playedto Democratic strengths. Yet, just a few years ago,how many of us would have predicted that, underany circumstances, the son of an African immigrantwith the name Barack Hussein Obama had a chanceof being elected president of the United States ofAmerica?

The disconnect exists in part because positivechanges in interpersonal racial attitudes (particu-

larly among younger Americans) have not ade-quately translated to more equal opportunity andgreater inclusion in our nation’s private and publicsystems and institutions. Although opinion researchshows that overt racial animosity has declined sig-nificantly, it has frequently been replaced by moresophisticated, yet equally exclusionary, dynamicssuch as covert discrimination, structural inequality,and implicit bias.

Covert discrimination occurs when decision mak-ers—for example, employers or real estate agents—afford minority candidates civilized, facially neutraltreatment but do not give them the information,consideration, or opportunities afforded to similarlyqualified white applicants. Researchers Devah Pagerand Bruce Western, for example, matched teams ofyoung men of different races but with virtually iden-tical fictitious resumes and had them apply for1,470 real-life, entry-level jobs in New York City.The results were striking: white applicants receiveda positive response rate almost twice that of blackapplicants with the same qualifications, whileLatinos were slightly less likely than whites toreceive a positive response. White applicants whoadmitted to a prior felony conviction as part of theapplication process were still more likely to receivea positive response than similarly qualified AfricanAmerican applicants who had no prior felony conviction.

This kind of discrimination is considered covertbecause the job interactions would likely haveappeared normal (that is, nondiscriminatory) to theapplicants, but for the paired nature of the study.The same is true, other research shows, with respectto the linguistic profiling that can occur in job, hous-ing, and other interactions over the telephone.Another line of research finds that applicants with

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“black sounding” names like Jamal and Lakishafare more poorly in “blind” written employmentapplications (that is, submitted by mail) than doidentically qualified applications with “white sound-ing” names such as Greg and Emily.

A second contemporary racial barrier is institutionalbias or “structural racism,” which scholar johnpowell has defined as “the invisible interactionamong institutions, policies, and practices whichinevitably perpetuates barriers to opportunities andracial equity” (p. 18). This interaction can takemany forms, but examples include historicallyrooted residential segregation and concentratedpoverty in many American cities that, unless affir-matively interrupted, perpetuates racially unequalopportunities for quality education, employment,health care, credit, and other stepping stones to theAmerican dream. They include flawed selectionprocesses such as word-of-mouth recruiting or cul-turally biased tests that can further marginalizealready disadvantaged communities, as well aswildly disparate treatment of similar conduct (suchas use of crack versus powder cocaine) that havegravely unequal consequences.

Finally, a growing body of research documents theprevalence of “implicit bias,” which is the tendencyof human beings to draw on racial and other stereo-types in their decision making, irrespective of theirconscious intention to not do so. One well-knownstudy of physicians by the Institute of Medicine’sCommittee on Understanding and EliminatingRacial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care, forexample, found that they implicitly stereotypedAfrican American patients as less cooperative andwere less likely to treat them with lifesaving drugs.The study used vignettes describing male patients,some white and some black, with identical symp-toms of possible myocardial infarction. Doctorswho self-reported no preference for white patientsover black patients nonetheless showed a preferencefor white patients in the treatment they prescribed.Doctors who self-reported no difference in coopera-

tiveness of white patients versus black patients, infact, showed an implicit stereotype of black patientsas less cooperative. Perhaps most troubling, thegreater a doctor’s bias for white patients, as meas-ured by an implicit bias test, the less likely he or shewas to treat black patients—as opposed to whiteones—with lifesaving thrombolytic drugs. The studythus linked the doctors’ implicit biases with discrim-inatory—and life-threatening—outcomes in healthcare treatment.

Importantly, the study, as with many others like it,documented implicit, rather than conscious or inten-tional, bias; no one contended that these doctorsintended to harm African American patients. Yetlike all of us their implicit stereotypes at times gov-erned their decision making.

In the real world, covert, institutional, and implicitbiases converge in ways that contribute significantlyto unequal opportunity in a range of sectors. In2007, for example, U.S. Census Bureau data showthat African American median income was only 75.2percent of white median income, and Latino medianincome only 72.6 percent. The gap in “wealth,”meaning assets minus debt, is far worse; according tothe latest available (2004) figures, the average familyof color holds less than fifteen cents’ worth of wealthfor every dollar held by white families.

The Color of Wealth, by Meizhu Lui, as well as theOpportunity Agenda’s continuing assessment, docu-ment how opportunity gaps also persist in other sec-

National Civ ic Review DOI : 10.1002/ncr Fal l 2009

Finally, a growing body of research documentsthe prevalence of “implicit bias,” which is thetendency of human beings to draw upon racialand other stereotypes in their decision making,irrespective of their conscious intention to notdo so.

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tors, such as health care access and quality, dispro-portionate subprime and predatory lending, and thecriminal justice system, where African Americanmen are a staggering 6.5 times as likely as white mento be incarcerated.

An important dimension of these inequities is thatthey are not merely class-based but are specificallylinked with race. That is, even controlling for socio-economic status, racial inequality remains. Con-versely, reduction in socioeconomic inequality doesnot reliably reduce racial inequality; nor does itinevitably reach low-income people of color.

In 2000, for example, U.S. Census data show thatafter a decade of economic prosperity the povertyrate among African Americans and Latinos takentogether was still 2.6 times greater than that forwhite Americans. From 2001 to 2003, as the econ-omy slowed, the poverty rate for most communitiesof color increased more dramatically than forwhites, widening the racial poverty gap. From 2004to 2005, while the overall number of poorAmericans declined by almost a million, the povertyrate for most communities of color actuallyincreased. In 2007, before today’s economic crisistook hold, African American poverty, at 24.5 per-cent, was three times the white rate of 8.2 percent—for Latinos the rate was 21.5 percent and for AsianAmericans 10.2 percent. Improvements in economicsecurity, in other words, do not inevitably closeracial opportunity gaps; nor do they reach all ethniccommunities equally.

This complex reality has a number of importantimplications for those of us in the social change

business. First, while acknowledging the progresswe’ve made, it’s too early to declare victory when itcomes to equal opportunity based on race, ethnicity,and other aspects of our identity. It remains crucialto study systemic barriers, identify promising solu-tions, and advocate for their broad adoption.

Second, government and research institutions mustrespond to the contemporary reality by, amongother things, ensuring collection of data on “oppor-tunity indicators” such as health status, educationalattainment, employment, and wealth, disaggregatedby race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status,and the intersection of those groupings. A researchstrategy must include gathering information aboutpopulations and subgroups, such as NativeAmericans and Southeast Asians, for whom dataare frequently unavailable (particularly importantgiven the imminent 2010 census). It must includemethods designed to detect modern barriers toequal opportunity, among them covert, institu-tional, and implicit biases, such as paired testingand comparative statistical analyses. Only in thisway can we know our progress in achieving oppor-tunity for all.

Third, it’s crucial to close racial and ethnic gaps ineconomic security and mobility while expandingopportunity for all. History and experience showthat focusing on socioeconomic status or povertyalone will not close the gaps that exist on the basisof race and ethnicity. At the same time, achievingequal opportunity to access a broken health care orcriminal justice system, for example, would be apyrrhic victory at best. Interventions should bedesigned to both lift all boats and close the distancebetween them.

Fourth, applied research and policy advocacymust be combined with a strong and sophisticatedcommunications strategy. Opinion research showsthat most Americans lack knowledge about con-temporary bias and inequality and are skepticalthat systemic barriers to equal opportunity remain

National Civ ic Review DOI : 10.1002/ncr Fal l 2009

In 2000, for example, U.S. Census data showthat after a decade of economic prosperity thepoverty rate among African Americans andLatinos taken together was still 2.6 timesgreater than that for white Americans.

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in our society—despite the abundant research tothe contrary. Disseminating accurate knowledgeon this subject is crucial, and it must be communi-cated in a form, and through media vehicles, thatpublic audiences can receive, comprehend, and act on.

Fifth, nonprofit groups must adapt their strategies tomeet the real change that Obama’s election repre-sents. This means, for example, building onimproved racial attitudes to create greater multicul-tural understanding, combining traditional advo-cacy with technical assistance to public and privatesector institutions genuinely struggling to serveincreasingly diverse constituencies, and using newmedia to engage a rising generation of changeagents.

Finally, the current economic crisis and our nationalresponse to it present a crucial chance to addressthese modern challenges. Starting with the AmericanRecovery and Reinvestment Act (known as the stim-ulus package) and the Troubled Assets ReliefProgram (known as TARP), the nonprofit sector hasa crucial role to play in ensuring transparency,accountability, and equity of federal investmentsthat close racial and ethnic gaps while expandingopportunity for all.

ReferencesCommittee on Understanding and Eliminating Racial andEthnic Disparities in Health Care. Unequal Treatment:Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care.Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2004.

Lui, M. Color of Wealth. New York: New Press, 2006.

Pager, D., and Western, B. “Discrimination in Low-WageLabor Markets: Results from an Experimental Audit Studyin New York City.” Paper presented at annual meeting ofAmerican Sociological Association, Philadelphia, Aug. 8,2005. Retrieved July 6, 2009, from http://www.allaca-demic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/2/2/9/7/p22973_index.html.

powell, j. “Structural Racism and Linked Fates: Race as aDiagnostic and Transformative Tool.” PowerPoint presenta-tion at convening organized by Non-Profit Alliance andNational Resource Center for the Healing of Racism, BattleCreek, Mich., Feb. 6, 2006.

U.S. Census Bureau. “Historical Income Tables—People.”Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division.Retrieved July 6, 2009, from http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/incpertoc.html.

U.S. Census Bureau. “Historical Poverty Tables—People.”Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division.Retrieved July 6, 2009, from http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/perindex.html.

Alan Jenkins is executive director of the OpportunityAgenda.

National Civ ic Review DOI : 10.1002/ncr Fal l 2009