In a recent poll, while 70% of African-Americans believe blacks are treated less fairly by the police, only 37% of whites feel the same way. Obviously, the rash of media coverage of police killings of African-Americans has had little if any effect in how the majority of white Americans view police mistreatment of minority populations. This mirrors results in other areas in which whites do perceive discrimination against blacks: For example, 73% of whites do not believe blacks are treated unequally by the courts; 84% think they are treated equally in the workplace; and 87% of whites do not think African-Americans are discriminated against when it comes to voting.
Obviously, most whites, a large majority whites in every case, do not subjectively believe that any bias against African-Americans exists in our society. A large majority of people of color just as obviously subjectively perceive that our society does treat people differently based on the color of their skin, rather than the content of their character, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr. And this perception holds consistently across different regions of the country:
Perhaps most notably, on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, we found few differences in perceptions based on geography. Among all respondents—regardless of race—whether he or she lives in the South or Northeast, Midwest or West did not make a difference in one’s perception about fair treatment of blacks. Among whites alone, there is only one significant difference: those in the South are more likely than those in the Northeast to say that none of their community institutions treat blacks less fairly than whites (53% vs. 43%).
So, this isn’t just a purely red state vs. blue state issue. But perception is one thing. What does the data show us about how people do act?
We’ve long known of studies that show people with “white” names are more likely to be picked for job interviews than those with “black” names. The same sorts of studies have found similar results when it comes to the effect of the racial composition of juries on the outcome trial verdicts.
[We found] evidence that (i) juries formed from all-white jury pools convict black defendants significantly (16 percentage points) more often than white defendants, and (ii) this gap in conviction rates is entirely eliminated when the jury pool includes at least one black member. The impact of jury race is much greater than what a simple correlation of the race of the seated jury and conviction rates would suggest. These findings imply that the application of justice is highly uneven and raise obvious concerns about the fairness of trials in jurisdictions with a small proportion of blacks in the jury pool.
This plays out in the business world, as well, as JP Morgan Chase recently was forced to reveal in its annual statement that it is under investigation by the Department of Justice for “statistical disparities in markups charged to different races and ethnicities by automobile dealers on loans originated by those dealers and purchased by the [the bank].” Of course, this is not a new phenomenon by any means:
A statistical study of more than 300,000 car loans arranged through Nissan dealers from March 1993 to last September — believed by experts to be the largest pool of car loan data ever analyzed for racial patterns — shows that black customers in 33 states consistently paid more than white customers, regardless of their credit histories.
But white privilege, and its corollary, a pervasive bias against people of color, is not just a phenomenon isolated to the United States. A recent paper by two Australian researchers found that the race played a large role in how individuals were treated when it came to public transportation. In a “field” experiment (i.e., not something studied in a controlled academic setting), individuals of various races attempted to board a public bus claiming they didn’t have the money to pay the fare. In effect, they asked for a free ride. How do you think that played out? Well, much better if you were white.
In their experiment, Mujcic and Frijters enlisted 29 volunteers from different racial and ethnic backgrounds to board public buses, tell the drivers that they lacked the roughly $3.50 needed to ride, and say that they needed to get to a stop about a mile away. They were then asked to record whether the driver let them stay onboard. (They were also told to note the time of day and the weather conditions, which the researchers figured could engender compassion among the bus drivers.)
In all, the experiment yielded data on more than 1,500 encounters between volunteers and drivers. Nearly two-thirds of the volunteers’ pleas were successful, but the rate at which they were granted differed greatly across ethnicities. White participants were given a lot more leeway than black ones: 72 percent of white subjects were allowed to stay onboard, while only 36 percent of black ones were. The rate for South Asian subjects was around 50 percent, and for East Asians it was 73 percent.
Here’s a graph from their paper that shows the disparities in treatment among the various groups:
Clearly, race matters. It matters in how juries make their decisions. It matters in whether lenders overcharge minority vs. white customers. It effects how easily a person can find employment. And, on a very basic level, it matters with respect to how we treat one another. It’s a lot easier to be generous and kind to white people, apparently, than it is to those with skin of a darker hue. The perception of the majority of African-Americans that they are unfairly treated by our society and its institutions is correct. The perception of the majority of whites that racism is a think of the past, or that how we treat African-Americans is “getting better all the time” is essentially a lie. The perceptions of most white people does not match the reality that black people face on a daily basis.