Page 99 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

4. GROUP-LEVEL EXPLANATIONS
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Allowing unearned privilege to persist in organizations not only rein­
forces a system of domination and institutional discrimination, but also
may also reinforce interpersonal discrimination. Because differences such
as race and gender have been socially constructed to be meaningful in
relationship to other attributes such as competence or worth, our group
identities not only can become opportunities for privilege, but also cues
for interpersonal discrimination. Interpersonal discrimination reflects one-
on-one discrimination that involves avoidance, distancing, and exclusion
based upon a person's group identity (Lott & Maluso, 1995). Social dis­
tancing on the part of employees in positions of power toward minority or
female targets, likely deny and limit minority and female employees' ac­
cess to mentors and to networks that are critical for professional and career
development. For example, Dreher and Cox (1996) found that not having a
White male mentor significantly cost potential proteges (especially people
of color) financially in terms of lost income. In fact, having a low-status
mentor, such as a person of color, was financially the same as having no
mentor at all.
The examination of privilege holds promise for future research on
group-level explanations of workplace prejudice and discrimination.
Those with privilege and those who lack privilege likely have very dif­
ferent perceptions of the extent to which one's demographic membership
affords certain advantages. How do these differences in perceptions of
privilege and advantage affect broad diversity efforts and interpersonal
relationships across demographic groups? For example, having race-based
privilege likely results in a failure to see race as a critical issue within one's
organization.
Another frontier issue involves the extent to which we all have multiple
group identities, some of which afford us privilege and others that deny ac­
cess to privilege. For example White women may be afforded race privilege
but denied gender privilege. Is there a dominant identity lens or perspec­
tive that these women use to understand their place in the organization and
their relationships with members of other groups, such as Black women. If
White women are most connected to their White privilege, they may be un­
likely to see racism in their organizations and unsympathetic to the racism
that other women may encounter. Yet White women who feel denied priv­
ilege because of gender, and who view the organization from that perspec­
tive, may feel a kinship to Black women because of their shared perception
of sexism within their organization. How individuals negotiate multiples
identities and the privilege (or the lack thereof) likely is context dependent.
Some identities become more salient given the demographic composition
of one's workgroup, which we will discuss in the next section. In a group of
women, gender is unlikely to be salient, but race may become more visible.