Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good IntentionsPosted in Articles, Economics, Media Archive, Politics/Public Policy, Social Science, United States on 2015-01-04 20:29Z by Steven |
Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions
The Upshot
The New York Times
2015-01-03
Sendhil Mullainathan, Professor of Economics
Harvard University
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…
Read the entire article here.