Huh. May be a benefit to drug testing at work...

[LMNO]

But it's not what you'd think.

Nearly half of U.S. employers test job applicants and workers for drugs. A common assumption is that the rise of drug testing must have had negative consequences for black employment. However, the rise of employer drug testing may have benefited African-Americans by enabling non-using blacks to prove their status to employers. I use variation in the timing and nature of drug testing regulation to identify the impacts of testing on black hiring. Black employment in the testing sector is suppressed in the absence of testing, a finding which is consistent with ex ante discrimination on the basis of drug use perceptions. Adoption of pro-testing legislation increases black employment in the testing sector by 7-30% and relative wages by 1.4-13.0%, with the largest shifts among low skilled black men. Results further suggest that employers substitute white women for blacks in the absence of testing.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

But it's not what you'd think.

Nearly half of U.S. employers test job applicants and workers for drugs. A common assumption is that the rise of drug testing must have had negative consequences for black employment. However, the rise of employer drug testing may have benefited African-Americans by enabling non-using blacks to prove their status to employers. I use variation in the timing and nature of drug testing regulation to identify the impacts of testing on black hiring. Black employment in the testing sector is suppressed in the absence of testing, a finding which is consistent with ex ante discrimination on the basis of drug use perceptions. Adoption of pro-testing legislation increases black employment in the testing sector by 7-30% and relative wages by 1.4-13.0%, with the largest shifts among low skilled black men. Results further suggest that employers substitute white women for blacks in the absence of testing.

Wait, who are these people who assume that drug testing would have negative impact on black employment?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

But it's not what you'd think.

Nearly half of U.S. employers test job applicants and workers for drugs. A common assumption is that the rise of drug testing must have had negative consequences for black employment. However, the rise of employer drug testing may have benefited African-Americans by enabling non-using blacks to prove their status to employers. I use variation in the timing and nature of drug testing regulation to identify the impacts of testing on black hiring. Black employment in the testing sector is suppressed in the absence of testing, a finding which is consistent with ex ante discrimination on the basis of drug use perceptions. Adoption of pro-testing legislation increases black employment in the testing sector by 7-30% and relative wages by 1.4-13.0%, with the largest shifts among low skilled black men. Results further suggest that employers substitute white women for blacks in the absence of testing.

Wait, who are these people who assume that drug testing would have negative impact on black employment?

~ 87% of America.  Because Black people are scary.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Interesting unintended consequence, though. Not sure whether to find it more or less depressing, given the multitude of connotations. Racism; alive and well in the 21st century.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Not to mention sexism.

Oh my god, my head hurts.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Interesting unintended consequence, though. Not sure whether to find it more or less depressing, given the multitude of connotations. Racism; alive and well in the 21st century.

Alive, but not well.

It's wearing a body cast in a wheelchair, when stacked up against the past.  Now, we just have to find a convenient staircase.   

The main thing that's allowing it to survive, in my opinion, is that everyone likes to think that it's already all the way dead.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Interesting unintended consequence, though. Not sure whether to find it more or less depressing, given the multitude of connotations. Racism; alive and well in the 21st century.

Alive, but not well.

It's wearing a body cast in a wheelchair, when stacked up against the past.  Now, we just have to find a convenient staircase.   

The main thing that's allowing it to survive, in my opinion, is that everyone likes to think that it's already all the way dead.

I think that while things are definitely better than they have been in the past, racism is also so deeply entrenched in our institutions (education, medicine, politics, business, etc.) and simultaneously so invisible to most of the people who are not negatively affected by it that it is far from being in a body-cast.

Overt racism has been largely replaced with systemic, unconscious racism, the kind that means that in a science major cohort of 200, in a city where 20% of the population are nonwhite, in a college where over 50% of the students are nonwhite, there is only one student of color. And yet, there is no one thing we can point at to say, "Oh, there's the reason. There's the point at which brown kids are getting discouraged".

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The kind that means that in the absence of drug-testing policies, employers default to hiring white women for unskilled positions, because the unacknowledged assumption is that black men do drugs.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Because white women make more desirable unskilled labor than black men on drugs; however, if we can prove that black men aren't on drugs, they're more desirable unskilled laborers than white women, who are in turn more desirable unskilled laborers than black women because who wants THOSE?

The whole thing makes my stomach turn. All of it.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Interesting unintended consequence, though. Not sure whether to find it more or less depressing, given the multitude of connotations. Racism; alive and well in the 21st century.

Alive, but not well.

It's wearing a body cast in a wheelchair, when stacked up against the past.  Now, we just have to find a convenient staircase.   

The main thing that's allowing it to survive, in my opinion, is that everyone likes to think that it's already all the way dead.

I think that while things are definitely better than they have been in the past, racism is also so deeply entrenched in our institutions (education, medicine, politics, business, etc.) and simultaneously so invisible to most of the people who are not negatively affected by it that it is far from being in a body-cast.

Fair point.

Overt racism has been largely replaced with systemic, unconscious racism, the kind that means that in a science major cohort of 200, in a city where 20% of the population are nonwhite, in a college where over 50% of the students are nonwhite, there is only one student of color. And yet, there is no one thing we can point at to say, "Oh, there's the reason. There's the point at which brown kids are getting discouraged".

Yes, I see that now.   

[Junkenstein]

Because white women make more desirable unskilled labor than black men on drugs; however, if we can prove that black men aren't on drugs, they're more desirable unskilled laborers than white women, who are in turn more desirable unskilled laborers than black women because who wants THOSE?

The whole thing makes my stomach turn. All of it.

That's exactly where my thinking went to straight away. Fucking vile. With the unspoken indication that if a non white woman jumps through ridiculous hoops she may be entitled to the same opportunities. So it's YOUR FAULT if you don't bend over to prove that you're employable.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Because white women make more desirable unskilled labor than black men on drugs; however, if we can prove that black men aren't on drugs, they're more desirable unskilled laborers than white women, who are in turn more desirable unskilled laborers than black women because who wants THOSE?

The whole thing makes my stomach turn. All of it.

That's exactly where my thinking went to straight away. Fucking vile. With the unspoken indication that if a non white woman jumps through ridiculous hoops she may be entitled to the same opportunities. So it's YOUR FAULT if you don't bend over to prove that you're employable.

One day, we're gonna have to eat a bunch of people.  I don't like the idea, but I don't see many alternatives.

Our grandparents hashed the (very) basics of this shit out in the 30s, but we were too smart for their solutions.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I think racism has gotten pretty fucking overt since Obama took office. I see/hear a lot of shit in public settings that would have been whispered among the yahoos ten years ago. Fuckers got bold.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I think racism has gotten pretty fucking overt since Obama took office. I see/hear a lot of shit in public settings that would have been whispered among the yahoos ten years ago. Fuckers got bold.

I think of that as draining a boil, really.  Now I know who the idiots are.

[Junkenstein]

Credit where it's due, one thing Obama's presidency has been good for has been finding out all the people who "Aren't racist but...."

Kind of like what UKIP is doing here I suppose.