Racism still a workplace problem.

• Author: Schwab, Robert

On Jan. 9, ColoradoBiz Today, our website at cobizmag.com, posted this news item:

The National Black Caucus of State Legislators released a study conducted by the University of Denver Center for African American Policy demonstrating how credit scores are used to deny African-Americans and other minorities access to credit and financial services .... "Credit scores are a key enabler of wealth, but credit scores today are used in a way that denies minority and underserved communities access to the financial services and products they need ...," said Mississippi state Rep. Mary H. Coleman, the immediate past president of the National Black Caucus.

A recent poll conducted for CNN by Opinion Research Corp. suggests racism has not gone away; it's merely changed forms.

"We've reached a point that racism is like a virus that has mutated into a new form that we don't recognize," University of Connecticut Professor Jack Dovidio said, commenting on the poll. Dovidio has researched racism in America for more than 30 years, and he estimates that up to 80 percent of white Americans have racist feelings they don't even recognize in themselves.

That's why a book I have authored with Denver African-American businessman Herman Malone is important reading for Colorado business owners and managers. "Lynched by Corporate America" is about Malone's court battles--which he is still paying for--with the former U.S. West Communications, now Qwest Communications International, over charges of racial discrimination in contracting that Malone and several other African-American contractors brought against U.S. West in the mid- to late '90s.

Two federal juries in Colorado, one without an African-American juror on board, and a second with a single African-American on the panel, found against Herman Malone and in favor of Qwest after two seven-day trials at the federal courthouse here.

That's why Malone is still paying the legal bills for the trials.

Yet the second trial was forced by a single Hispanic juror on the first panel who refused to go along with her fellow jurors in agreeing that Malone was not a victim of discrimination. Loretta Stockton, the juror, forced the federal judge to declare a mistrial on the discrimination-in-contracting count of Malone's lawsuit against U.S. West.

Her opinion was supported by two other jurors on the panel, but those two other women also agreed with Qwest's lawyer that Malone's claims against the company were filed too late to be...