“Qualified: How Competency Checking and Race Collide at Work” by Shari Dunn

Evoto Check your work. When you were in school, you probably heard that a lot. Look over that math equation. Be sure your spelling is right. Reexamine your answers. Doing those things should result in rewards, then, right? Unless, as in the new business book, “Qualified” by Shari Dunn, someone’s over-checking you. In her experience as a consultant, Shari Dunn firmly acknowledges that being an employee is complicated and not-so-easy. For Black employees, though, there’s additional level of difficulty, “competency checking,” or the constant need to prove themselves and their intelligence. Says Dunn, the demand for competency checking can start before someone gets the job, sometimes merely with a name: studies show that employers who carry stereotypes, even subconsciously, favor resumes with so-called white-sounding names. Historically speaking, Black workers have been fighting competency checking since they arrived on these shores four hundred years ago. It shows in the words we use that sound innocent but that have dark origins. It shows in our foundational beliefs, ones that we don’t often even know we have. It’s embedded in white supremacy. And it shows up as a legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. So what can employers do to ensure that their...