We hear a lot of talk about the "Race Card" these days. It's apparently supposed to be a sympathy game that is deployed whenever someone supposedly wants to blame White people for something that must clearly be their own damn fault because America is so kind, and so just and so so Colorblind.
Except that is, when you bother to go out and check.
For example last week when Ta-Nehisi Coates released his tour-de-force article in the Atlantic on the question of Reparations for African-Americans he appeared on the Melissa Harris Perry show with former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros. The interesting thing about this is that Sec. Cisneros went on to absolutely confirm the continuing existence of the types of racial housing discrimination described by Coates because HUD had a practice of sending out Civil Rights Testers who would have identical backgrounds and resumes only one person would be black while another was white. He stated that time after time the Black application for the Home or Apartment would be told that it already been rented or sold, but then when the otherwise identical White applicant arrived after them they were led right up to see the apartment.
According to the National Fair Housing Alliance, there are an estimated four million instances of housing discrimination occurring annually in the U.S.; neither the non-profit sector, nor federal and state governments, can tackle fair housing investigation, enforcement, outreach, and education on their own—cooperation and partnerships are essential.
Well, as it turns out there's new study that shows that this phenomenon isn't just limited to housing discrimination, it can also affect sales being made online -
on craigslist.
Just as was done with the Civil Rights Testers at HUD, the study attempted to make all other factors equal, except Race.
In a year-long experiment, researchers posted ads on online marketplaces like Craigslist selling an old iPod with a picture of the seller holding it, with either a black person or white person’s hand pictured. They also posted ads with a white hand that had a wrist tattoo, which the authors posited might experience similar discrimination to black people and could serve as a control group.
“Our paper asks the following question,” the authors write. “When the typical person engages in a consumer transaction (usually as a buyer), does he or she try to avoid dealing with minority sellers, and does she treat minority sellers differently?” The answer appears to be yes.
Black sellers got 13 percent fewer responses to their ads than white sellers overall. When they did get responses, they got 17 percent fewer offers. Then the offers were 2 to 4 percent lower, or $1.87 less on average than those made to white sellers. The best offers were also $3.56 lower than for white people.
And it wasn't just an issue of the whether they would offer to buy and how much, there was a also a deficit in basic
respect.
The researchers also found that buyers were less respectful and more distrustful with black sellers. About 7 percent fewer people signed their names when responding to a black person. They were 44 percent less likely to accept delivery by mail and 56 percent more likely to be concerned about paying long distance, such as through PayPal, both of which include a bit more risk than an in-person hand off
So as this study shows there may be legitimate contributing factors to the growth of the ongoing Wealth Gap between Blacks and Whites far beyond that lack of a "Culture of Work" as Paul Ryan, Newt Gingrich, Phil Robertson and Cliven Bundy would suggest.
And then there are those who would acknowledge that even though such disparities do exist in this case, or in the case of housing, lending, jobs and most interactions that black people may have with law enforcement, that the fact that this discrimination may occur only a mere 13-17% of the time, that because it isn't 100% of the time that it's essentially "No Big Deal".
Just as ExpatGirl wrote so eloquently the other day the chasm of perception between persons on different side of an social factions - in her case the casual misogyny and verbal violence men commonly use on women - can be immense. However it can be bridged if you simply put the clueless/entitled person in the shoes of the person they happen to be in the midst of trampling upon. Like say, sticking Mark Cuban in a Hoodie and seeing how he likes it as little old ladies repeatedly cross the street to avoid him in fear. (Or for that matter to make a man know the fear of what it's like to be sexually stalked and potentially assaulted by a boorish, entitled "man" - something that usually drives them into an atavistic frenzy of rage, because the last thing they want is to be treated they same way they treat their girlfriends.)
Let me tell you, if someone decided they were only going to break into your house just 13% of the days of the year rather than 100% of the days - would that be "No Big Deal"? If someone decided they were going to eat just 13% of your sandwich, every day, would that be "No Big Deal"?
And if you felt you should be recompensed for having been ripped-off, under-valued and under-payed a mere 13% - how badly would you react when someone says you don't deserve it because it wasn't 100%!!.
I think you'd be more than a bit annoyed by that.
And then some people wonder with some Black people, having lived through this their entire lives - feeling that something here just isn't right, while having those who are in the process of discrimination against them deny it to the hilt - might just be a bit suspicious and skeptical of further denials that this type of thing continues to go on.
Slavery is Over. Jim Crow is Over. Segregation is Over. Lynchings are Over. Why can't you all just Get Over it Already?.
Simple. Because nothing is over, until it actually Stops.
All of it. And since it hasn't stopped, and we continue to be robbed of fair opportunities perhaps there should be something more than "Sorry".
Vyan