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Intervention Discrimination and Employment

Name

School

Ling 472

Professor

Intervention Discrimination and Employment

Discrimination is an everyday reality where we face all sources of discrimination at the workplace or as we walk in the streets. This does not mean it is right for people to be discriminated against. There are different forms of discrimination, like linguistic discrimination. Linguistic discrimination is discrimination based on accent. It is the unjust treatment of people based on their native language or other aspects of their linguist abilities (Craft et al., 2020). It is the unfair treatment of a person based on the characteristics of their speech, such as accent, vocabulary size, and syntax. Linguistic discrimination can explain the huge differences in employment gaps among different races in the United States. Minority races face discrimination when seeking employment opportunities due to their linguistic abilities. The unemployment rate of African Americans is 11.4% in 2020 due to discrimination based on their accent (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). Awareness-raising is an intervention that can help reduce discrimination against others based on their accent.

Awareness Raising

Raising awareness is one of the oldest forms of trying to change the behavior of society. It involves educating the people while trying to initiate change through behavioral and attitude change. In most cases, people believe in something based on their knowledge over the years, including being passed on from parents or guardians. Most of the time, the knowledge may be wrong but has an adverse impact on the attitude and behavior of the person. Their knowledge of something having passed down generations may not reflect the true picture of the subject or issue. Therefore, raising awareness tries to change the person's attitude, beliefs, and behavior by informing them and educating them on the topic or issue. The new knowledge gained by the person is supposed to influence their attitude and behavior. This will lead to having new ideologies which are true.

Raising awareness can be a successful initiative when well planned and implemented. Raising awareness can be used as an advocacy tool to help in convincing policy makers of the urgency of a certain issue. Raising awareness can be used to help educate people about topics or issues and encourage them to participate in bringing change (Voirol et al., 2021). There are two thoughts behind raising awareness. The two thoughts can effectively bring change to the society facing an issue.

The current issue of discrimination can be fought by raising awareness. Very few people can define discrimination based on the accent of the person. This is because explaining this form of discrimination is a complex process. Those who discriminate against others based on their accents mostly do it out of fear. Therefore, the intervention is to help educate those who are unaware that discriminating against others based on their accent is wrong and can hurt their employment opportunities. Some of those discriminated against due to their accents are highly qualified. Companies may miss out on the best talent due to this form of discrimination. The education should be about how minority communities suffer from this type of discrimination due to a lack of employment opportunities.

The Goal of Raising Awareness

The main goal of raising awareness on the issue of linguistic discrimination and its impact on employment is to educate the people. People make better choices when they know what can aid in decision-making. They can make better decisions when they are made aware of aspects that can aid them. The education will help change attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs (Ones, 2005). They will start shunning the vice of discrimination and embrace better beliefs and attitudes.

It is difficult to change the habit of the public, especially when dealing with an issue that is deeply rooted. However, raising awareness aims at achieving long-lasting behavioral changes among the people. Reaching out to the public regularly will make people aware that discrimination is a problem that needs solving. This will not be easy as discrimination campaigns have run for over fifty years, yet the issue is still rampant. The public must be educated on the adverse long-term impact of linguistic discrimination on employment.

Target Audience

One of the reasons why discrimination has been rampant is because some of the fears of discrimination have been passed down from generations. Breaking the cycle will help stop the issue of linguistic discrimination and its impact on employment. The target audience will be two generations, millennials and generation Z. These two generations are tech-savvy and different from each other. They are in management and can be used to effect change in their companies as they help end linguistic discrimination. They can be used to break the cycle and enable the longterm solution to the issue of discrimination. The support of the millennials will be required as they are the more mature audience.

Resources

Some of the resources needed will include human, technical, financial, and material. Human resources are the most effective in advocacy. People are supposed to play a key role in influencing others. This will be done through education. Therefore, human resources should be able to educate the masses on the issue. Some of them should be tech-savvy to help in setting systems to be used. The use of technology will help in reaching huge numbers of people. A resource center is needed to help in collecting data on the impact of linguistic racism on employment. The data should show how minority races, especially those with accents not regarded as standard American English, are discriminated against.

Media to be Used

Over the years, several mediums have been used to raise awareness. Some of the most common and popular include newspapers, articles, television, and radio. Newspaper and writing articles are the oldest forms still being used today. They involve writing about the topic or issue and educating the people. Television and radio have been effective as they allow engaging the audience on the topic and issue. When the audience is engaged, they can learn new things, which effectively influence behavioral and attitude change. The various advancements in technology like the internet and social media present other forms of mediums to raise advocacy.

Social media is the most popular form of media, growing extraordinarily over the last decade. More people are active on social media today than there were five years ago. It is estimated that in 2020, there will be 3.6 billion active social media users (Statista, 2021). This is a big crowd to be engaged with when raising awareness on the current issues. The choice of social media as a medium of engaging the people matches the audience's choice. Millennials and

Generation Z are active members of social media tools, making it easier to raise awareness.

Social media tools have also grown, making it easier to contact people.

Social media can create a platform for sharing stories, and photos, providing facts and data, engaging the audience, and helping them understand (Wu et al., 2018). The use of social media will help create a community around the issue. The public will be made aware of the issue with stories being shared by the victims, data and facts being shared, and the audience is engaged. Those who do not understand the issue are given a chance to ask questions and understand the issue to help break the cycle.

The use of hashtags has proved to be popular over the years in raising awareness. The hashtag #endlinguisticdiscrimination can ensure more people understand linguistic discrimination and its impact on employment opportunities. The hashtag can be used on all the social media tools to raise awareness of the issue. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are among the most popular social media tools.

References

Craft, J. T., Wright, K. E., Weissler, R. E., & Queen, R. M. (2020). Language and discrimination: Generating meaning, perceiving identities, and discriminating outcomes. Annual Review of Linguistics, 6, 389-407.

Ones, D. S. (2005). Personality at work: Raising awareness and correcting misconceptions. Human Performance, 18(4), 389-404.

Statista. (2021). Social Media & User Generated Content. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/markets/424/topic/540/social - media - user - generated content/#overview

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2021). Labor Force Characteristics based on Race and Ethnicity, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/race - and ethnicity/2020/home.htm

Voirol, C., Pelland, M. F., Lajeunesse, J., Pelletier, J., Duplain, R., Dubois, J., ... & Audetat, M.

C. (2021). How Can We Raise Awareness of Physician’s Needs in Order to Increase

Adherence to Management and Leadership Training?. Journal of Healthcare Leadership, 13, 109.

Wu, Y., Xie, L., Huang, S. L., Li, P., Yuan, Z., & Liu, W. (2018). Using social media to strengthen public awareness of wildlife conservation. Ocean & Coastal

Management, 153, 76-83.

LING 472: Social Justice Final Paper

Due Thursday, May 10, 12:30pm, Dropbox,

Now that you have developed an understanding on the injustice you researched about, and have proposed some interventions, it is time to take ACTION. For this portion of the project, asks you to present a FULL REPORT where you explain the injustice you researched about, and exercise your own agency to enact linguistic justice. In doing so, you will combine material from the Injustice Write-up, Intervention paper and your reflection/understanding of social justice and its relationship to language.

Your final paper should be around 4,500-5,000 words (you may extend, inf necessary). You should include ALL the feedback you obtained (both from me and your peers) . Your final report should include the following sections and labeled as such.

Title

Prelude (5 points)

· A personal short definition of social justice and its relation to language

· Feel free to also add a couple of inspirational quotes from activists or community members that have and continue to work towards a just world.

Injustice (30 points)

· Describe (in detail) the injustice that you investigated about in your injustice write up and explain why it is important to address it.

· Remember that this section should at least address 3 major points (e.g., history, people, power structures, ideologies, etc.)

· Use subsections addressing the different major points (you can divide this as you please)

Previous Interventions (10 points)

· This section should describe interventions that have been proposed or executed. Explain which of these interventions have worked, and what aspects of the intervention have still fallen short. What else is there to do?

· You researched some of this for your Injustice Section as well as your Intervention Draft.

The goal here is to have a short separate section that will make your paper more coherent.

Proposed Interventions (40 points)

· Provide a detailed account of the proposed interventions. If you chose option 1, please, divide them into 3 subsections

1. Awareness-raising / educational projects

2. Policy change (organization policy and/or law)

3. Mutual aid and/or direct action

· Explain the goals and methodologies of your proposed intervention(s):

· What specific aspect of the injustice is this intervention designed to target? o Why this intervention in particular? (Why do you believe it will be effective?) o What kinds of resources would be needed for this intervention?

· Who is the target audience? Whose support will it be necessary to ensure?

· If relevant, you may also want to describe a specific group or organization you want to work with for one or all of your proposed interventions.

· Although these are individually-authored papers, justice is rarely accomplished alone. Most lasting social change is accomplished in community settings. If your proposal involves working with a community, make sure to do some research on existing linguistic interventions in that community before you start designing your own. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, thing about how you could best plug into or support existing projects – including selecting particular organizations or individuals with whom you might work – and make sure to include this information in your proposal.

· Optional

· Any reach out material you created (TikTok videos, Instagram slide deck, Twitter posts, Flyers)

· Additionally, you could also include a lesson plan (if working within education). o This optional material may replace a full page of the proposal itself and you can send it to me as “mock-up draft” for me to give you feedback on. Please note that this mock-up should actually include a meaningful amount of content – i.e., it shouldn’t just be an illustration or logo without any words.

Conclusion (10 points)

· In 1 paragraph o Briefly mention the injustice being addressed (1-2 sentences) o Briefly summarize the proposed interventions

· Briefly summarize which of the three proposals you plan or are likely to take on in the reasonable short future and why

· In another 1 paragraph, acknowledge the ways in which your peers have influenced your thinking on this project.

· The most helpful suggestions you received during class brainstorming session as well as peer feedback sessions, and who those reviewers were

· What changes you made to your initial drafts and in what capacity has your paper improved.

References (5 points)

 Provide a list of cited sources using APA.

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Linguistic Injustice: Discrimination and Employment

Name

Linguistic 472

Professor

Date

Linguistic Injustice: Discrimination and Employment

The United States has a population of 331,893,745 based on the estimates for 2021 (United States Census Bureau, 2021). The population is broken down into different races where 76.3% are whites, 18.5% are Hispanics, 13.4% are African American, and 5.9% are Asians. These are the major races in the United States. The data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that other races make up 23.7% of the total population. This means people with accents not considered standard American accents are more than 15% of the general population. This can be used o explain why the unemployment rate of other races, like Africa Americans, is higher than that of the whites. The unemployment rate of African Americans in 2020 was 11.4% (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). Speaking with an accent that is not considered a standard American accent can lead to discrimination creating unequal employment opportunities. This has been a problem in the U.S. as people are discriminated against based on their accents. This impacts employment opportunities and other aspects like wages, growth opportunities at the organization, and others. African-American Vernacular English, or Black English, has also grown in controversy impacting employment opportunities for African Americans. The different African dialects heavily influence African Americans. This has led to the high unemployment rates of African Americans as people link negative stereotypes to the race they think the person’s accent is from. This paper will look at discrimination based on language while focusing on African Americans and show the various legal remedies in Title VII of the Civil Act of 1964.

Discrimination And Unemployment

Discrimination is defined as the unjust treatment of people and groups based on characteristics like race, age, sexual orientation, or gender. Discrimination is an everyday reality as people face discrimination at the workplace and even as they walk the streets. Explaining why discrimination is rampant is a complex process. In most scenarios, the origin of discrimination is fear and misunderstanding. The human brain becomes fully developed by the age of twenty-five. However, even before being fully developed, it can put various categories of the world. A person can distinguish the various differences between white or black persons or boys and girls at a young age. The young person's values on these differences are learned from the parents, peers, teachers, or others.

Discrimination is a public health issue. An American survey in 2015 showed that people who faced discrimination had an increase in their stress levels compared to those who had not faced discrimination (APA, 2015). The employment inequities in the United States can be blamed on discrimination. There are huge gaps in employment opportunities for the different races in the U.S. A. African Americans make up 13.4% of the population in the United States. The statistics show they have to pose a high caliber of professionalism when seeking employment. Being one of the minority aces in the nations, they exhibit a lower power in the corporate sector. However, even when they are qualified for some of these employment opportunities, they face discrimination based on their race. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2021) shows that the unemployment rate of African Americans is 11.4%. In most cases, they face discrimination based on their accent.

Linguistic Discrimination

Linguistic discrimination is discrimination based on accent. It is the unjust treatment of people based on their native language or other aspects of their linguist abilities. Craft et al. (2020) suggest that language discrimination is a subset of national discrimination in the definition of language discrimination. It is the unfair treatment of a person based on the characteristics of their speech, such as accent, vocabulary size, and syntax. This type of discrimination focuses on the person’s speech style ignoring their appearance. Language-focused discrimination is part of the social structure in America, which maintains that African Americans are inferior to whites (Henderson, 2001).

African Americans have different accents based on the different regions or countries in Africa. Africa has more than fifty countries, each with different dialects that impact the person's English. The neighborhoods of African Americans also impact their English. African Americans are denied employment opportunities because they speak English with an African accent. They are subjected to discrimination or treated less favorably because they speak English with an African accent.

African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is systematically rooted in history and is an identity marker for its speakers (Rickford et al., 2015). AAVE resembles other vernaculars like Appalachian English as an identity marker for the speaker. Language is usually influenced by exposure, social identity, and peer group influence. The speech patterns are shaped by their family, regional, and social environment. This would explain why immigrants from non-speaking countries at a young age can speak English with the same proficiency as those born in the U.S. while their parents cannot. AAVE is the most vernacular variety in the United States and can trigger discrimination at the workplace, schools, and others like the other vocabularies.

There have been many studies on discrimination, with most being able to show how regional differences contribute to stereotypes. Henderson (2001) was able to show how speech patterns can significantly contribute to a person's wages, especially for African Americans. Others have shown how the same language patterns will impact employment opportunities for African Americans. Some employers will try to place the accent on the different African countries. Workers with regional and racial distinctive speech patterns earn lower wages than those who speak in the mainstream (Politzer-Ahles et al., 2016).

African Americans will have wage differences based on a sorting model. African Americans who have mainstream accents will be given jobs involving intensive interactions with customers and earn sizable wages. The others will be denied employment opportunities, or if they are luckily given such opportunities, they will be given low jobs with minimal interactions with customers and co-workers. The wages will also be minimal compared to other African Americans with mainstream accents. This is the same with hiring managers, where pronunciation differences will determine whether one will be hired as a manager (Henderson, 2001).

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is the federal agency tasked with enforcing civil rights laws against workplace discrimination. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was established by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to enforce federal laws that prohibit employment discrimination at the workplace and to eliminate illegal discrimination of employment. The commission strives to eliminate discrimination in employment through law enforcement. It also offers education and outreach intending to prevent employee discrimination. The commission strives to ensure the members of the public, employers, and other stakeholders are aware of their rights and how to prevent, address, and resolve discrimination in the workplace.

EEOC has long recognized the need to reach all segments of the nation's workforce, including the many workers who read and speak languages other than English and may not be fluent in it (EEOC.gov, n.d.). The commission aims to educate the world that linguistic discrimination is linked to discrimination based on national origin. This shows that hiring, firing, and promoting workers is illegal based on their accents. The United States workforce has grown extensively over forty-eight years, making it more diverse. Therefore, there is a need to educate employers and provide technical capabilities to eradicate the issue of linguistic discrimination or any other form of discrimination.

Title VII of the CIVIL Rights Act of 1964 is a group of federal laws that protect people from discrimination based on various aspects like race, national origin, disability, and gender. Linguistic discrimination is looked upon as a form of national origin discrimination. The Act shows that national origin discrimination is illegal, with many courts and federal agencies able to enforce this law. Language is tied to where the person comes making it possible for courts and government agencies to rule that linguistic discrimination is a type of national origin discrimination. Therefore, the federal law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, offers a remedy against linguistic discrimination as it is closely linked to national origin discrimination.

Since the enactment of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the number of immigrants, women, people of color, and older people have entered the workforce has increased. The number of those who have advanced into managerial positions has also increased. These changes in demographics have created opportunities and challenges for EEOC. The commission had had to address new forms of discrimination, including people and groups that speak languages that were rarely heard in the U.S. when Title VII of the Civil Act was passed in 1964 (EEOC.gov, n.d.).

Conclusion

Linguistic discrimination is a major problem in the United States. This form of discrimination involves discrimination of a person based on the characteristics of their speech, such as accent, size of vocabulary, and syntax (Craft et al. 2020). African Americans have borne the problem of linguistic discrimination with problems of accessing employment opportunities, lower-wage gaps, and growth opportunities in organizations due to their different accents. The emergence of Black English in the 70s also increased the problem of linguistic discrimination. Studies have shown that the use of black English in the workplace is detrimental to growth opportunities in the organization (Jackson, 2011). The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that the unemployment rate for African Americans is higher than for other races. Most of this can be attributed to racial and linguistic discrimination. EEOC offers a remedy against linguistic discrimination based on Title VII of the civil rights Act of 1964. EEOC has recognized the changes in the American workplace with an increase in diversity. They have made various changes like the education of employers and employees on linguistic discrimination as the number of non-Engli speaking immigrants increases.

References

American Psychological Association. (2019, October 31). Discrimination: What it is, and how to cope. https://www.apa.org/topics/racism-bias-discrimination/types-stress

Craft, J. T., Wright, K. E., Weissler, R. E., & Queen, R. M. (2020). Language and discrimination: Generating meaning, perceiving identities, and discriminating outcomes. Annual Review of Linguistics, 6, 389-407.

Henderson, Anita. (2001). Is your money where your mouth is? Hiring managers' attitudes toward African-American Vernacular English.

Jackson, Kanika Nicole. (2011). Speaking the part - is black English in the workplace a detriment to climbing the corporate ladder? A sociolinguistic study regarding black English in the workplace. Wayne State University Theses. Paper 124.

Politzer-Ahles, S., Holliday, J. J., Girolamo, T., Spychalska, M., & Berkson, K. H. (2016). Is linguistic injustice a myth? A response to Hyland (2016). Journal of second language writing, 34, 3.

Rickford, J. R., Duncan, G. J., Gennetian, L. A., Gou, R. Y., Greene, R., Katz, L. F., Kessler, R. C., Kling, J. R., Sanbonmatsu, L., Sanchez-Ordoñez, A. E., Sciandra, M., Thomas, E., & Ludwig, J. (2015). Neighborhood effects on the use of African-American Vernacular English. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112(38), 11817–11822. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1500176112

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2021). Labor Force Characteristics based on Race and Ethnicity, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/race-and-ethnicity/2020/home.htm

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (n.d.). Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Language Access Plan. Retrieved from https://www.eeoc.gov/equal-employment-opportunity-commission-language-access-plan