As to why they do it? I'm guessing that they either don't know not to bring up race or they don't care about discriminating based on race because they probably won't have any consequences.

I've seen plenty of casual workplace sexism and racism in my life. It happens.

At my previous employer, there were some positions with salaries so low that the only people who applied were foreigners who were so desperate that they were willing to take it. White Americans (and American-born Indian Americans for that matter) with computer science degrees simply had more options than to take such a terrible role at such a terrible salary. It had nothing to do with the company discriminating.

None of what I've said has happened at large companies I've interviewed with like Google or Uber, but small startups definitely have some "interesting" practices.

Which I guess would be a question about race? in a way?

I wouldn't ask a white person who spoke swedish and had a very swedish name as I'd assume they are swedish by birth.

Race is orthogonal to nationality and citizenship. Especially in countries of immigrants like the US and Canada.

So if companies are rejecting someone that means as whole (read net), they are expecting more bang for the buck.

Unless your model accounts for such things, it's too simplified. Particularly when it comes to human factors. And if your model is that deficient, it's not really providing useful insights.

Modeling complex phenomena well is tough. But you need to have enough humility to understand when your toy model might be deceiving you.

If the shoe fits....

At least that's what I was told at the talk about diversity and inclusion during my orientation at one of those big tech companies.

Apparently it's because we benefited from being able to make quick judgments before civilized society was a thing.

If there is a strong shortage of supply, you can be sure a lot of people will get over their prejudice -- but in labor markets, there often tend to be more offer than demand, so companies can choose whoever they want, without hurting the business whatsoever.

However, asking in the interviews is unheard of, at least in shudder retail. And while outright denyig someone for their race isn't as common as you might think, people do instinctively like people who look like them, and they also have this bad habit of not questioning it when they like something...

I seem to be lucky in that I haven't directly seen any racist hiring policies. But, then again, I've only worked hourly retail jobs; for all I know, the higher you go, the less likely a hispanic man is to be hired. And it doesn't help that there's so many variables to control for--as other comments stated, it's filters all the way down. As an example ffrom the entertainment industry, I have never owned a computer powerful enough to handle both running a recently released game and recording footage of the gameplay, which means that my dreams of becoming a Youtube Star are rather limited. And don't even get me started on capture cards. The rich kid down the block can afford it because his parents buy it for him; my parents don't, and the reason for that could extend as far back as the lessons my grandmother learned when she had to work her way to the top of the Georgia Pacific packaging plant where she made her living.

False (as stated in a sibling comment)

> because race is always included in the job application

I have not once ever been asked my race. Perhaps because they'll be able to tell at the interview? But it's not "always included"

> and always under the same header as questions for, say, disabled or veteran status.

I've only ever been asked about disabled or veteran status after employment.