Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions
JAN. 3, 2015
By SENDHIL MULLAINATHAN
The deaths of African-Americans at the hands of the police in Ferguson, Mo., in Cleveland and on Staten Island have reignited a debate about race. Some argue that these events are isolated and that racism is a thing of the past. Others contend that they are merely the tip of the iceberg, highlighting that skin color still has a huge effect on how people are treated.
Arguments about race are often heated and anecdotal. As a social scientist, I naturally turn to empirical research for answers. As it turns out, an impressive body of research spanning decades addresses just these issues — and leads to some uncomfortable conclusions and makes us look at this debate from a different angle.
The central challenge of such research is isolating the effect of race from other factors. For example, we know African-Americans earn less income, on average, than whites. Maybe that is evidence that employers discriminate against them. But maybe not. We also know African-Americans tend to be stuck in neighborhoods with worse schools, and perhaps that — and not race directly — explains the wage gap. If so, perhaps policy should focus on place rather than race, as some argue.
But we can isolate the effect of race to some degree. A study I conducted in 2003 with Marianne Bertrand, an economist at the University of Chicago, illustrates how. We mailed thousands of résumés to employers with job openings and measured which ones were selected for callbacks for interviews. But before sending them, we randomly used stereotypically African-American names (such as “Jamal”) on some and stereotypically white names (like “Brendan”) on others.
The same résumé was roughly 50 percent more likely to result in callback for an interview if it had a “white” name. Because the résumés were statistically identical, any differences in outcomes could be attributed only to the factor we manipulated: the names.
Other studies have also examined race and employment. In a 2009 study, Devah Pager, Bruce Western and Bart Bonikowski, all now sociologists at Harvard, sent actual people to apply for low-wage jobs. They were given identical résumés and similar interview training. Their sobering finding was that African-American applicants with no criminal record were offered jobs at a rate as low as white applicants who had criminal records.
These kinds of methods have been used in a variety of research, especially in the last 20 years. Here are just some of the general findings:
■ When doctors were shown patient histories and asked to make judgments about heart disease, they were much less likely to recommend cardiac catheterization (a helpful procedure) to black patients — even when their medical files were statistically identical to those of white patients.
■ When whites and blacks were sent to bargain for a used car, blacks were offered initial prices roughly $700 higher, and they received far smaller concessions.
■ Several studies found that sending emails with stereotypically black names in response to apartment-rental ads on Craigslist elicited fewer responses than sending ones with white names. A regularly repeated study by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development sent African-Americans and whites to look at apartments and found that African-Americans were shown fewer apartments to rent and houses for sale.
■ White state legislators were found to be less likely to respond to constituents with African-American names. This was true of legislators in both political parties.
■ Emails sent to faculty members at universities, asking to talk about research opportunities, were more likely to get a reply if a stereotypically white name was used.
■ Even eBay auctions were not immune. When iPods were auctioned on eBay, researchers randomly varied the skin color on the hand holding the iPod. A white hand holding the iPod received 21 percent more offers than a black hand.
The criminal justice system — the focus of current debates — is harder to examine this way. One study, though, found a clever method. The pools of people from which jurors are chosen are effectively random. Analyzing this natural experiment revealed that an all-white jury was 16 percentage points more likely to convict a black defendant than a white one, but when a jury had one black member, it convicted both at the same rate.
I could go on, but hopefully the sheer breadth of these findings impresses you, as it did me.
There are some counterexamples: Data show that some places, like elite colleges, most likely do favor minority applicants. But this evidence underlies that a helping hand in one area does not preclude harmful shoves in many other areas, including ignored résumés, unhelpful faculty members and reluctant landlords.

Who in the hell wants to promote a pack of thugs, rioters, thieves and car jackers? Anyone want the rapist, shop lifters, multiple babies born from CRACK Moma's and NO Daddies in sight? America should simply PURGE all these azzholes from our soil, and for those that are BLACK and that want to cling to the "poor ol me been a slave" crap, ship their sorry azz back to Afrika, and let them live as most other Afrikans do, killing each other off as they currently do there and have been for centuries. They get NO sympathy from me and I hope, the rest of the SANE majority of Americans of whom are sick and tired of their shit.

Only a fool will argue with the truth. We could export fools from here and keep the world supplied. This society suffers from something even more insidious than racism; the global term would be "exceptionalism". We're "special", just ask us.

We were special when we forced Mexico into a war for no other reason than our "Prostititions" were ordered to from their corporate/banker masters.

Same with
China - Opium wars
Spain - back door access to "owning" the Philippines
Philippines - "gifting" our corporate owners with it
Hawaii - theft - subtle invasion, good for business
Panama - +/- 10,000 civilians slaughtered
Much of Eastern Europe - natural gas, oil and pipelines
Africa - Anything not nailed down, Guinea pigs for big pharma

Most of you haven't a clue that this "land of the free" maintains over 700 combat ready bases in +/- 130 nations around the globe. Most are there to keep their vicious "puppets" in power.

Now, with virtually all the world under control from our bankers/corporations, our "benevolent" Prostiticians and their owners have cast an eye to their final conquest; their own. What the Bolsheviks did to Christian/Muslim Russia et al is about to happen here and most haven't a clue.

re: Mr. Mullainnathan's claim, "you are a racist" Mr Mullainnathan claims to base his conclusion on, empirical research", spanning decades ! That may be.
I'd suggest Mr. Mullainnathan rely on statistics. Most blacks are murdered by other blacks. In 2012, more black babies were aborted in New York than were born!
A large number of blacks have decided to live off the "nanny state". Welfare is chosen over getting up each morning, and going to work. Medicaid is the chosen "health care" provider.
We now have A.C.A. The blue collar labor force will pick up that tab as well. Many people lost the health care they had because it's too expensive for the employers to cover the Act's mandates.
Many can no longer use the doctors they've used for decades. They are searching for doctors who accept them. This is particularly true for those who have pre-existing conditions.
Racism is a two way street Mr. Mullainthan! When this FACT is admitted by all concerned, their may be a start to resolving our racial problems . By the way, the President of the U.S.of A. is BLACK !!!