When asked about Asians and their work habits, the Atlanta fast food restaurant owner responded, "They never talk back to you or anything. They have that, and work habits probably stand out more than anything. All of them are ambitious" (85).
In the book called Hiring Right, by Susan J. Herman, Herman provides her readers with testimonial truth that race discrimination does in fact occur. While choosing to ignore the rules on discrimination, 94% of the 672 corporate recruiters that participated in a confidential survey that took place in 1988 admitted to discriminating against applicants because of their race (16). .
With this in mind, companies feel that discriminating against race will serve as a benefit to their company. They believe that when a particular race is dubbed with certain qualities, all decedents of that race will have the same qualities. In example, the Altanta Restaurant owner, previously mentioned, favored Asians because of their work ethics. As a result, he will probably consider Asians when hiring before he considers hiring another applicant of a different race. .
Ignoring the rules to racial discrimination can prove to be costly. Coca-Cola, the soft drink company, learned this expensive lesson in April 1999. "The soft drink company has topped the payoffs make by all other companies involved in similar discrimination suits, with a whopping settlement of $195.5 million in November", states Angela G. King, author of the article "Coca-cola takes the high road" (1). .
Despite the fact that companies discriminate against race, they also hurt themselves by exercising reverse discrimination. Reverse discrimination takes place when a company hires a person because of his or her race. "You needn't apply for that job because the next person hired has to be black" is an example of what was told to an employee when he wanted to apply for a new position, quotes Richard Peres, author of Preventing Discrimination Complaints (24).