On August 8, 1444, a significant historical event unfolded in Portugal, marking the start of a major European slave market. Black African individuals were forcibly taken from their homes in Mauritania and sold to Europeans, an event that Professor Binna Kandola identified as a pivotal moment in the emergence of colour prejudice. Kandola emphasized that throughout most of human history, people were not subjected to stereotypes based on the colour of their skin. He made these remarks during a compelling symposium on the race wage gap.
Kandola explained that following the initiation of the slave trade as a supposedly virtuous, profitable enterprise, various intellectuals, including philosophers and scientists, contributed to supporting the trade by generating “evidence” to promote the notion that some races were inferior to others. Notable scientists like Carl Linnaeus and Johann Friedrich Blumenbach constructed taxonomies and racially-based hierarchies of human beings, which laid the groundwork for today’s race-based societies. Kandola argued that examining wages is an ideal approach to understand how these racist ideas persist.
After analysing data from numerous countries, Kandola observed a recurring pattern: white individuals tend to earn the highest incomes, while Black individuals typically earn the lowest, with other racial groups falling in between. In the UK, white men have the highest earnings, followed by Chinese men and women, as well as Indian men. Black men and women from African or Caribbean backgrounds have the lowest earnings, along with Pakistani and Bangladeshi men and women. In the USA, white and Asian men earn the most, while Black and Hispanic men and women generally earn the least.
Organizations sometimes hesitate to collect or publicly disclose pay-related data. However, a recent analysis by the BBC found that a significant majority of employees earning £150,000 or more annually were men. Kandola re-evaluated the data, focusing on race, and discovered that the racial wage gap exceeded the gender pay gap. This pattern, he contended, is evident in many organizations. A survey conducted by Kandola’s business consultancy, Pearn Kandola, revealed that 60 percent of Black people and 42 percent of Asian people had encountered workplace racism. Other research indicated that minorities are also less likely to receive timely, constructive feedback on their work and are less likely to be given challenging assignments to help them grow. While many experience subtle forms of racism, others face more explicit manifestations.
