Hiding racism in the workplace

The main premise of the two articles are, that the seemingly equality-seeking practices of the professional fields are in other ways enhancing the inequality. Amy Slaton takes engineering education as the case where the UIC accepted minority students inclusively for entrance, but systematically excluded them from becoming professionals by not changing the existing standards in the curriculum. Though the justification for such open exntrance policy was to have more variety and thus train more competent professionals, it turned out the opposite. In Avery Gordon's piece, he criticizes the 'diversity management' practice in the corporate 'culture', which was a shift from the previous affirmative action paradigm. Though this paradigm was implemented to overcome affirmative action's limits such as the assimilation rule, it shows its own limits by assuming that diversity can be managed, and ultimately justifying racist outcomes such as stereotyping as well as a return to assimilation.

In any case, the very effort of the management or institution to separate unequal conditions such as race, class and gender actually contribute to strengthening it by making it look 'neutral' - and by this, hiding the clearly existing connections. This premise is linked to the main argument of this class: the need to uncover hidden systems in labor. Complicated as it may be, the stratifications among various lines and the interaction among them that result in inequity should be revealed, acknowledged and remedied as it is.

However, balacing it out with the professional need for efficiency is another thing. As mentioned in the texts, even equality is only pursued in those fields because it contributes for more (sometimes long-run) efficiency. How can be the uncoveing of hidden labor practices and systems be justified in terms of efficiency? Or how can it replace that firmly existing discourse? A large question to ask, but a crucial problem to think of if these discussions are to spread beyond the academic table.