Theresa Kenerly, mayor of Hoschton, Georgia, allegedly pulled back on a job candidate who applied for an opening as the city administrator. As an investigation by the team at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) found, Kenerly allegedly did this because the candidate in question is black.
The AJC pulled documents and interviews with city officials, including one in which Mayor Kenerly told a member of the City Council that she removed Keith Henry, the job applicant, from a packet of four finalists for the job. Why? Because “he is black, and the city isn’t ready for this.”
Almost 90 percent of the residents in Hoschton, which is located outside of Atlanta, are white.
Yikes!
This incident reportedly happened on March 4, while the mayor was speaking to a member of the council during a closed-door council session. The AJC reports that Hope Weeks, also on the council, said the mayor repeated the remarks in the parking lot after the meeting.
“She proceeded to tell me that the candidate was real good, but he was black and we don’t have a big black population and she just didn’t think Hoschton was ready for that,” Weeks wrote in a document that reporters accessed via an open records request.
Understandably horrified, Weeks talked to fellow council member Susan Powers. From there, both of them went to city attorney Thomas Mitchell.
“Both of us were just appalled, so we thought we had to do something to stop it,” Powers said.
When asked about the racist remark, Kenerly initially said, “I can’t say I said it or not said it,” which is not remotely reassuring.
Not long after, she issued the following statement:
“I do not recall making the statement attributed to me regarding any applicant for the City Administrator position, and I deny that I made any statement that suggest [sic] prejudice.”
Henry, who participated in a phone interview prior to the incident but withdrew his candidacy after being asked to pay for his own travel from Texas to Georgia for an in-person interview, told reporters he didn’t pick up on any particular racism when speaking to Kenerly on the phone. Still, he isn’t surprised at how things turned out.
“It comes with the territory,” he said. “If you live in America as a minority you can’t be naïve that it is the reality that you face.”
And wouldn’t you know it, someone else in town offered up some remarkably racist sentiments on the situation. In this case, council member Jim Cleveland isn’t sold on Kenerly being wrong. Even worse? Interracial relationships make his blood boil.
Seriously. He gave the AJC the following quote:
“I’m a Christian and my Christian beliefs are you don’t do interracial marriage. That’s the way I was brought up and that’s the way I believe. I have black friends, I hired black people. But when it comes to all this stuff you see on TV, when you see blacks and whites together, it makes my blood boil because that’s just not the way a Christian is supposed to live.”
Again: Yikes!
At this point, Kenerly can sit in during interviews, but not otherwise participate in the screening process for job applicants. Which … doesn’t seem like nearly enough of a response?
You might remember the story about a tech recruiting firm that posted a job ad looking for “Caucasian” applicants. The ad went absolutely viral on social media, with people bemoaning the obvious racism. That’s all well and good, but a story like this one is an important reminder that more often than not, this sort of insidious behavior doesn’t happen out in the open.
Racism (and all forms of discrimination) often happens behind closed doors. Think, for example, about the studies which show that having a certain kind of name can make you less likely to get an interview. On the other hand, certain hobbies can make it more likely for your resume to be passed along. Why? Racial bias.
The easiest way for minorities to get more job interviews? Studies show, disturbingly, that “whitening” your resume does the trick. That has got to change.