In May 2010, the Economics Department at Stanford University published an interesting study. Titled, The Visible Hand: Race and Online Market Outcomes, the study examines the role race plays in the decision making of online consumers. For those who believe racism is a thing of the past, if Stanford's study doesn't change your mind I don't know what will. Without question, we have come a long way in combating racism. However, the battle isn't even close to being over.
Personally, I have had success selling items online. Then again, I don't post photos of my hand holding the item... just the item itself. It now makes me wonder if my first name has ever prevented someone from buying something from me online. To those saying, "what?!", I'll let you in on something. There are some who believe that "Malcolm" is a black person's name. An ex-girlfriend (who incidentally is white) once told me that one of her brothers figured I was black based on my first name. My guess is he figured that because arguably the most famous Malcolm (X) is black, so was I. To quote Mr. Cross, "I know it's crazy, but it's true." Apparently, her brother wasn't familiar with Forbes, McDowell, McLaren, Atterbury, or Muggeridge.
Below is a clip of The Young Turks in which they break down the study conducted by Stanford. Towards the end of the clip, co-host Ana Kasparian brings up a separate study done in Italy which shows the correlation between empathy and race.
7 comments:
I've never really thought about it, truthfully, as I can't recall ever seeing a product with a person's hand holding it.
Or maybe I have and just haven't really made the black/white distinction and thus it hasn't stood out to me.
I'm sure a lot can be said about the allure of an item with a certain hand holding it. I'd assume a woman's well manicured hand would do better than a man's hand, too.
Not to pooh-pooh the study, because I really don't know much about it, but this kind of thing seems best summed up by De Niro with the whole "it is what it is" thing. Markets are fickle.
If it is possibly legitimate racism and people making the conscious decision that they do not want to buy items from black people at the same rate, then there's a whole list of things that need to be addressed starting with the public's perception, and what can be done by everyone to change it, and what it is about skin tone that causes people to distrust the hand.
For me, it ventures into the whole comfortabile category and brings up an important question of what racism "is."
Example: Are you a racist for being more comfortable as a white person buying an item from a white person?
Yes? Are you then a racist for being more comfortable dating a person of your own race and wanting children that look like you?
Ahh. I think time is the only remedy. It's a shame, though. Really.
Perception is reality. I have a feeling parts of the culture may be backfiring and throwing an inadvertent monkey wrench in unaffiliated parts.
Josh: Good point about how consumers might view a woman's manicured hand as opposed to a man's.
In addition to time, education will also help eliminate racism. Like I said, things have gotten better. I can only imagine what Stanford's study would have uncovered if it was conducted in 1970.
I hope that Stanford continues to do these types of studies on a periodical basis (every 5 years or so) just to see how far we have or haven't come in regards to race relations.
Well, I'm with you in wanting to see more detailed and more frequent studies.
But I also want them expanded to stretch beyond the X when already having the Y supposedly figured out.
A lot of these studies are conducted through a calculated measure that it is racism. Therefore, they don't necessarily seek out anything beyond making the conclusion mirror their predetermination.
And having studies just abruptly stop at the conclusion they were conducted to find leaves all of us with a picture of "racism" that might not actually be racism.
Black people in America not selling products online at the same rate as white people in America. "Okay," says Stanford. "We'll examine the racism behind this."
But if they stretched it out and examined it over a world culture, and tested to find if the majority always has the same behaviors, then they may find that what we push to be and what we perceive to be "racism" is actually nothing sinister.
Rather it would show an unchanged factor of our few hundred years of integration; our "togetherness" not yet overcoming our separatist coding.
We were all, as races, segregated long enough to develop races. Coming together long enough to say we're unified doesn't mean people can just turn off evolution.
I'm not convinced it's racism. At least not all of it. It could very well be a subconscious feeling of identification. And to that end, I'm interested to find out if black people choose black hands, Asians choose Asian hands, Latinos choose Latino hands, etc, on a people scale and not an American "whites-are-racist" scale.
It seems they turn these studies political when they have a real opportunity make breakthroughs in the way we handle education.
Who's to say what the motives are for this type of survey. For all we know, the people at Stanford may have originally felt that this type of racism was dead/dying and conducted the survey to prove their point.
As you said, I would also like to see the surveys expanded to include other races because we all have something to gain from these types of exercises.
If they did, then that proves my point. So does calling it "racism" when there's still no proof that racism is causing the disparity.
A wrong diagnosis doesn't allow for a cure. Labeling sneezing as a cold might be right. It might not.
Josh: On the "is it racism or is it not" angle, we'll have to agree to disagree.
Naturally. :)
Although, we don't technically disagree. You seem to think it's racism; I only want proof and not hack-a-lot BS science-twisting like global warming where numbers are pushed to one side intentionally by not even taking numbers on the other side.
I mean, it's only in the name of SCIENCE, right? Why would anyone want to know definitively if they're looking at racism or an unflattering byproduct of evolution?
It's like instant replay in baseball - use the technology if you have it, ffs. lol
Post a Comment