I used to work for an organization that provided legal, educational, medical and social services to inner-city children and their families. These families were mostly Black and Latino.

If we were hiring for a job that had an equally qualified black and white candidates, the choice is clear. In order to be successful, you need to have good professional relationships with clients. It is far more effective if the client can relate to one’s lived cultural experience. It’s also very important for at-risk children to see relatable adults succeed in a world that has been systemically unfair to them.

In Austria, this hiring process may be considered racist. But here, we recognize that there are a lot of fringe benefits when hiring for diversity.

In fairness, race is not something that’s discussed unless it’s directly related to the role. As stated above, you are free to check “Prefer Not To Say” if an application asks about race. Most of the time, that information is used for census and surveys.

Having done a lot of HR in my life, you’d be surprised how many hiring managers are passively racist.

I’ve seen applications rejected simply because the hiring manager doesn’t want to embarrass themselves mispronouncing a name. Or they assume communication language skills without ever talking to someone. Or they not-so-sublte, “I can just feel this one won’t be a good fit”.
Like, “Really, Bob? What’s on Fatima’s resume gives you that impression? She’s clearly qualified.”

I wonder how much worse the racial wealth gap would be if ‘equal opportunity employment’ wasn’t a thing.