Y’all have friends and family who say they were given “white” names at birth? That’s because it’s assumed that your name plus a checked off “Black/African American” box on a job application may get you turned down. Naturi Greene, from Charlotte, Nc. tested this theory with a Target application and was proven right.
Greene was rejected multiple times from Target over the past few years, according to Insider. Then, jokingly, she tried putting her name down as “Tori”, a more white-ified version of her name, and changed her ethnicity to “mixed race.” Greene said after that, Target finally offered her a job interview. Her TikTok recapping the situation reached nearly 300,000 views.
“I’m not sure how it can be proved to be discrimination. But as a person of color in America, I can’t help but to think that is the reason,” Greene told Insider. Well Naturi, this ain’t the first time Target has been accused of discrimination.
Read of Target’s previous lawsuits from Insider:
Target has previously faced multiple claims of discriminatory hiring practices, which have resulted in legal settlements and vows to change their hiring procedures. More than 20 years ago, Kalisha White, who is Black, suspected her application for a job at a Target in Wisconsin was being ignored because of her race. She sent in another one under another name, Sarah Brucker — and scored an interview, even though the fake resume was less credentialed than White’s.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal agency that enforces civil rights laws involving hiring practices, sued Target on behalf of White and three other Black job applicants, resulting in a $510,000 settlement.
In 2015, Target also paid a $2.8 million fee and agreed to change its job applicant tracking system after the EEOC found it was screening candidates based on race and sex. Then, just a few years later, it paid $3.74 million to settle claims that its background criminal checks discriminated against thousands of Black and Latino applicants.
To dive deeper into this issue, researchers from UC Berkley and University of Chicago did their own test of this theory. According to their report, they sent out 83,000 faux job applications to over 100 Fortune 500 companies: one half with white names and the other half with Black names. They found 20 percent of the firms who discriminated against Black names were responsible for half of the contacts lost to racial discrimination in the experiment.
People lose opportunities over something they were born with, can’t control and shouldn’t have to change just to appeal to an employer. Greene said she no longer has interest in interviewing for Target. “I don’t want to work anywhere where I couldn’t get hired for the person I am,” she said to Insider.
Names should be a means of identification not qualification. In the words of Watermelondrea, “Bitch, if my name was Molly Mae, I promise that would not make me any more qualified for any occupation.”