[organicmultiloc]

You can call it "catfishing" like you just captured a criminal mastermind, but people of color generally don't have the reference game down and are forced into doing stuff like this in order to avoid having their application thrown in the garbage.

References are more of a "how many connected white people do you know" check than anything else. If you always had references to call on before you even finished school than you probably won't even understand the world of people who did not, and the people who didn't get that first internship and have no way to break in short of fraud.