Race and the Invisible Hand: How White Networks Exclude Black Men from Blue-Collar Jobs (George Gund Foundation Book in African American Studies) [Paperback]

Deirdre A. Royster (Author), Stephen Steinberg (Foreword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520239512 | ISBN-13: 978-0520239517 | Publication Date: October 2, 2003 | Edition: 1

From the time of Booker T. Washington to today, and William Julius Wilson, the advice dispensed to young black men has invariably been, "Get a trade." Deirdre Royster has put this folk wisdom to an empirical test--and, in Race and the Invisible Hand, exposes the subtleties and discrepancies of a workplace that favors the white job-seeker over the black. At the heart of this study is the question: Is there something about young black men that makes them less desirable as workers than their white peers? And if not, then why do black men trail white men in earnings and employment rates? Royster seeks an answer in the experiences of 25 black and 25 white men who graduated from the same vocational school and sought jobs in the same blue-collar labor market in the early 1990s. After seriously examining the educational performances, work ethics, and values of the black men for unique deficiencies, her study reveals the greatest difference between young black and white men--access to the kinds of contacts that really help in the job search and entry process.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Deirdre Royster's moving and engaging study convincingly and uniquely captures racial differences in school to work transition. Her data on and analysis of the differential employment experiences and outcomes of comparable young black and white working class males are very compelling. Race and the 'Invisible Hand' is an important book that will be widely read and cited."

From the Inside Flap

"Deirdre Royster's moving and engaging study convincingly and uniquely captures racial differences in school to work transition. Her data on and analysis of the differential employment experiences and outcomes of comparable young black and white working class males are very compelling. Race and the Invisible Hand is an important book that will be widely read and cited."--William Julius Wilson, author of The Bridge Over the Racial Divide

"As acute in its analysis as it is rich in ethnographic detail, Royster's captivating study shows in telling detail how inequalities in the securing of good working class jobs are reproduced in the anything-but-colorblind contemporary United States."--David Roediger, author of Colored White: Transcending the Racial Past

"An unflinching look at the experiences of young blue collar job-seekers on both sides of America's color line. This book powerfully demonstrates the hidden workings of racial discrimination today."--Chris Tilly, co- author of Stories Employers Tell: Race, Skill, and Hiring in America

"Timely and challenging, this book exposes race as the key arbiter of employment outcomes for young black and white men. This beautifully written study is absolutely essential for policy makers, educators and researchers."--Mary Romero, author of Maid in the USA

"An important study. As policymakers keep trying to improve blacks' employment opportunities with new versions of job training programs, Royster shows how irrelevant such efforts are as long as blacks lack access to essential social contacts."--James E. Rosenbaum, author of Beyond College for All: Career Paths for the Forgotten Half

"A powerful and original empirical account that persuasively demonstrates how visible hands invisibly reproduce racial inequality in the blue collar trades. Systematically comparing young black and white men who share the same educational credentials, grades, attendance records, commitment to hard work, motivation and character, Royster convincingly illustrates the process through which white students gain the inside track to jobs. Differential employment outcomes, she demonstrates conclusively, are the result of bad old-fashioned race discrimination in new guises."--David Wellman, author of Portraits of White Racism

"Accessibly written, Race and the Invisible Hand makes visible the powerful role of racially segregated and race-conscious social networks in creating labor market inequality. This important book is theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich--a must read for students and scholars interested in social networks, employment inequality and how race really works in the United States today."--Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, author of Gender and Racial Inequality at Work

"A vitally important contribution to the literature on employment opportunities and race. In a period in which affirmative action is under increasingly bold attack from those who argue that market forces alone should shape employment decisions, this book provides strong empirical support that racially-homogenous acquaintance networks routinely trump the market. One can only hope that appellate and Supreme Court justices read this book."--Troy Duster, co-author of Whitewashing Race

"This beautifully written book blows apart the notion that black young men don't get decent blue collar jobs because of their own deficiencies. . .. This is a unique and powerful study of the way racial disadvantage is perpetuated in the working class, even in this era of so-called color blindness. I predict it will be a classic."--Edna Bonacich, coauthor of Behind the Label

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Product Details

• Paperback: 242 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (October 2, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520239512
• ISBN-13: 978-0520239517
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #53,213 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Right on, Dr. Sistagirl!, August 17, 2004

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Jeffery Mingo (Homewood, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Race and the Invisible Hand: How White Networks Exclude Black Men from Blue-Collar Jobs (George Gund Foundation Book in African American Studies) (Paperback)

Since so many conservatives think that racism no longer exists, the market will cure all evils, and blacks do poorly because of individual rather than social failures, Dr. Royster puts these ideas to the test. She interviews 25 white men and 25 black men who studied the same vocational courses at the same high school to see if they did just as well in the marketplace. Though the black men get just as good grades and attend classes just as much, their individual initiative does not explain why their white counterparts consistently found jobs easier, were paid more, worked in fields in which they prepared, and were just generally better off.

So many people nowadays feel that racism is so nebulous in the post-civil rights era that surely it must not exist. Dr. Royster explodes this idea and gives American racism a real face. In this study, white employers would forgive white males with criminal backgrounds but condemn black men in the same situation. White teachers gave black males verbal support but they only went out of their way to find actual jobs for white, male students. White males had tons of contacts who could find them jobs, no questions asked; while black men were consistently asked to prove their skills and proceed through bureaucracy. White male job applicants met white employers in predominantly-white parks, golf courses, churches, and many other places where few black males would have access. White employers would rather tell white applicants "You didn't get hired due to affirmative action" rather than "You were far from the most qualified person." The only successful black in this study said he has to constantly grin and bow and that white co-workers purposely used racist epithets hoping to make him explode and get fired. Though white males unanimously agreed that "who you know" gets you into doors, they never once realize that they know more well-off peopole than black men. In addition, though white males consistently fared better than their black counterparts, white employers would continually imply that they must give preferential treatment to them to counteract affirmative action policies.

This book is well-written and sophisticated, though I think lay readers will be able to understand it generally. This book doesn't become overly descriptive and fall into simple narrative. The first individual interviewee discussed isn't brought up until page 66 of this 200-paged book.

Dr. Royster stated that she originally intended to interview black and white females as well, but didn't due to time constraints and a lack of an interviewing pool. Thus, this is men's studies by default. Still, since the trades mentioned here are predominantly male, this exclusion makes sense. In fact, Dr. Royster suggests that black males have limited contacts because they can only go to similarly-classed black women, rather than the powerful white male mentors that young white males had. This was a fascinating gender politic.

Dr. Royster describes herself as "a very, light-skinned African American." Hence, white subjects revealed things to her that she is sure they wouldn't have revealed to a phenotypically black researcher. This undercover interviewing is fascinating, but lead to truthful and accurate results.

Though a new scholar, Dr. Royster critiques the most famous living black sociologist, Dr. W.J. Wilson, yet he even has to admit that her research is excellent. (See the back cover of the book.)

I wasn't expecting this book to be a sociological study. I thought it would be a history of racism in labor movements and unions. Still, I was not displeased by the results. I am a better person for having found and read this text. Big applause to Dr. Royster.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exclusionary Networks, October 4, 2004

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A. I. Baruti KMT-Sisouvong "RadicalScholar" (Atlanta, Georgia USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Race and the Invisible Hand: How White Networks Exclude Black Men from Blue-Collar Jobs (George Gund Foundation Book in African American Studies) (Paperback)

In examining the seeming intractability of race and exclusionary tactics of white-male social networks, sociologist, Deirdre A. Royster asks and answers five fundamental questions that serve as a foundation for substantive discussions and analysis, among academic and non-academic audiences alike. Her questions are: (1) What happens when whites and blacks share a track placement, the same teachers, and the same classrooms? (2) Can desegregated institutions, in this post-civil rights era, provide equal foundations and assistance for blacks and whites? (3) Does the problem of embeddedness - in this case, historically segregated job networks - stifle the emergence of cross-racial linkage mechanisms and networks beyond schools? (4) Or does the post-Civil Rights era provide a new, color-blind labor market in which blacks show signs of work-readiness and achievement succeed on a par with white peers in terms of initial employment outcomes? (5) Finally, are black students, as the racial deficits theory suggests, lacking something that should make them less desirable as workers than their white peers? Of her questions, I find number one of considerable interest, for it illustrates what are some outcomes even when the playing field is leveled.

In asking such questions Royster lays a foundation that challenges conventional wisdom as it relates to African Americans and their economic, political, and social achievements. Not unlike a 1992 Atlanta newspaper article by Leonard Steinhorn, wherein he writes, "rather than asking why blacks have achieved so little, it is more appropriate to ask how blacks achieved so much given the odds against them," Royster begins her work by examining the social networks of her African American and American Anglo male respondents; networks that allow for successful school-to-work transitions for white males, but which are lacking in African American blue-collar social circles. Historically, with fewer and fewer African American men in quality blue-collar jobs, coupled with the lack of social networks, young black males seeking entrée into the sector were not met with a hand up, but a proverbial boot in the face.

Examining the landscape of African American unemployment, coupled with massive deindustrialization in many American cities, I conclude that not only do African American males face seemingly entrenched "stigmatization" as articulated by Glenn Loury in his work "The Anatomy of Racial Inequality", they are also victims of a mistaken belief among white males that if an African American male has a particular job the Anglo male covets, it was not earned by merit alone, but by means unavailable to white males, i.e. affirmative action. Recognizing this faulty logic among many white males is particularly telling in that they seem to ignore historical impediments, i.e. deadly threats and actual death faced by African Americans in general and African American males in particular seeking quality employment. Even among black and white males of like educational, social, and economic standing, as proffered by Royster, white males persist in asserting that blacks are undeserving of their position, which some white males argue is due to legislative intervention.

Partially employing Granovetter's theory of the strength of weak ties, Royster, shows how white males partake in a system often unnoticed by black males and never given a second thought by white males themselves. So much so, that white males do not observe that even when they engage in "typical `boys will be boys behavior'," white males are not without access to a web of networks. She goes on to write, "whereas white men can be thought of as second-chance kids, black men's opportunities were so fragile that most could not have recovered from even the relatively insignificant mishaps that white men report in passing." Such comments in "passing" by Royster's white male respondents illustrates their lack of an acute understanding of their "white-skin privilege" as articulated by Peggy McIntosh and their membership within a social structure/network that affords many opportunities for "mishaps" to be routinely accepted by both peers and potential employers. Mishaps that often leaves the African American male possessing a criminal record and effectively barred from potentially lucrative employment.

Royster does a very good job of writing in an approachable style for non-academics and in a way that is intellectually redeeming for the hardcore academic mind. While some researchers may find fault with her "passing" as white to gather data, little can be said against both its utility and effectiveness of moving into a comfort zone with her respondents, such that her interviews with white males prove both disturbing and enlightening. As she states at the outset, "because I can pass for white, I have often overheard conversations among whites to which people of color are not ordinarily privy," Royster understands the risks, but proceeds and produces a masterful work.

Overall, Royster has provided a work that, as William Julius Wilson noted, "will be widely read and cited." For this work and the ideas generated, this reviewer applauds the author's efforts and contributions.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The BEST book on race discrimination since maybe ever, November 10, 2004

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A. Hyde (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Race and the Invisible Hand: How White Networks Exclude Black Men from Blue-Collar Jobs (George Gund Foundation Book in African American Studies) (Paperback)

Give this book to relatives, friends, students who think that race discrimination is history in America. Royster is a fabulous interviewer and writer. Her fifty young graduates of vocational high school (half African-American, half white) open up to her with heartbreaking honesty. White kids are successful because of the web of older white friends, relatives, and teachers in their school who make sure that they have jobs, even when they have criminal convictions. They praise the skills of some black classmates but feel no obligation to help them, as they themselves have been helped. The black young men think many of the white men are "cool," but make no demands. Anyone who doesn't see the need for affirmative action should read this book.