In 1978, one of my favorite social scientists – William J. Wilson – published “The Declining Significance of Race” in which he argued that class barriers had become a more important obstacle to black progress than intentional racial discrimination. Perhaps this is true, but thirty years later, well-designed social science studies continue to report evidence of racial discrimination in various dimensions of social and economic life.
The latest evidence comes from a clever study by Jennifer Doleac and Luke Stein of Stanford, who investigated whether including photos of white, black or tattooed hands holding new iPod Nanos in online classified ads on Craigslist has an effect on the offers that prospective buyers make. The short answer: yes.
Read this very interesting story on AOL News (with a link to the original study)
