美国国家公共电台 NPR Some Black Americans Turn To Informal Economy In The Face Of Discrimination

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Race and our perceptions of it affects what happens in the workplace. NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health conducted a poll. And most African-Americans who participated said they had experienced discrimination at work in hiring, in pay and in getting promotions 2. NPR's Sonari Glinton looked into that. And he found that when faced with those obstacles, many people choose to get out and strike out on their own.

SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE 3: It's an October heat wave in Los Angeles, and Dennis Jackson is making the best of it selling solar panels. Jackson has essentially 4 always been an entrepreneur. He started in landscaping and moved to solar panel installation.

DENNIS JACKSON: Both the reason I chose landscape and solar - there's not many black people in the industry. There are some black guys that are landscapers, and we look at each other as unicorns 5 because there's not many of us.

GLINTON: Jackson is 40. He moved to LA in his teens from Detroit. Now, there have only been a few brief times when he's had a boss.

JACKSON: When I first started, I did have a boss. And I didn't like having a boss. It's harder this way.

GLINTON: Jackson has a very small operation - five employees and some independent contractors 6. And in many ways, he says he's always had the entrepreneurial spirit. It's his way of avoiding the glass ceiling.

JACKSON: You know, so a piece of me says, yeah, I'm not going to have to go through that because I'm going to write my own ticket. I'm going to write my own ticket to not have to face, you know, discrimination.

GLINTON: NPR and Harvard have published a survey that says 56 percent of African-Americans say they've been discriminated 7 against in the workplace. Now, this is when they're being considered for promotion 1, applying for jobs and raises. Marc Morial heads the National Urban League, and he says discrimination can deter 8 African-Americans from applying for certain jobs.

MARC MORIAL: I'm not going over there to apply for a job because I'm not going to get it. I'm not going to go over there and apply for a job because I heard they don't like blacks. I'm not going to go over there and apply for a job 'cause after all, I've applied 9 for five jobs in the last two months, and I haven't gotten one. There's a lot of that that goes on in the real world, particularly among younger workers.

GLINTON: Now, the unemployment picture for black men has improved significantly since the Great Recession. But Marc Morial says what's hidden in these low jobless numbers is that many black men have simply fallen out of the workforce 10. Now, there's a whole menu of problems that lead to giving up. Race affects networking, education, mobility 11.

STEVEN PITTS: First thing is the issue isn't really perception. It's reality.

GLINTON: Steven Pitts studies labor 12 at UC Berkeley, and his expertise 13 is employment in black men. Pitts says there's real evidence of discrimination against African-American men in the workplace. And in response, black men especially look for alternatives outside of the traditional job market.

PITTS: It can be simply the hustling 14 - right? - where I need somebody to fix my car and I call a friend of mine to fix my car - right? - or someone who's painting my house or those sort of things. So the employment economy is not so much just the idea of on-the-corner drug stuff. It's a vast array of economic activity that simply isn't governed by traditional labor laws.

GLINTON: Pitts says many black men face real barriers, whether it's a criminal record or the need for a license 15 to get a particular job. But there's been a shift overall, including for white workers. The idea of getting one job and working for 35 years is a thing of the past for almost everyone.

PITTS: For the last 30 years or so, we've seen a rise in informal economic activity. And we've seen a rise in kind of the shift in labor market activity away from an old model to a newer model.

GLINTON: Pitts says the hustle 16 which has been vital to the survival of black men for centuries - this is a shift the nation is going to have to embrace eventually. Sonari Glinton, NPR News, Culver City.