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... many people mistakenly interpret W.E.B. DuBois' famous prediction that the "color line" would be the "problem of the twentieth century" as describing race relations between Whites and Blacks. The full quote, however, reads: "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line, -the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea" ([5] Banks, 1998, p. 40).
The US Civil Rights movement and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, or sex were important in reducing overt discrimination in the US during the twentieth century. The impetus for the Civil Rights movement was extreme anti-Black discrimination that had persisted from the end of the Civil War. Despite some successes, significantly lower employment rates, income, and job status for Blacks[1] compared with Whites remain tenacious. Indeed, the "problem of the color line" has continued into the twenty-first century, and concerns more than Blacks and Whites.
In this article, we consider the transition from a racial system that focused largely on Blacks and Whites to a multi-racial hierarchy that reflects the diversity of the US population, including increasing numbers of immigrants of color ("new minorities"). Our work contributes to management theory and practice by revealing the continued strength and tenacity of the value placed on whiteness amid increased diversity, and continued anti-Black sentiment, including preferences for non-Black immigrants over native Blacks. Although scholars in other fields (economics, ethnic and racial studies, sociology) have long investigated topics such as "immigration and racial stratification," "the new immigrants," and "the old minorities and the new immigrants," such topics have received scant attention in the management field ([8] Bell et al. , 2010; [29] Dietz, 2010).
We propose that the new multi-racial hierarchy provides opportunities for organizations to use (literally and figuratively) non-Black immigrants and their descendants to appear diverse, magnifying the exclusion of native Blacks, strengthening the white-focused status hierarchy, and perpetuating inequality. We suggest that the increasing diversity that is evident in many organizations has come through employment of non-Blacks, including native and immigrant Asians and Latinos. This staffing preference, at first glance, would appear to provide opportunities to immigrants...