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January 27, 2007

When racism isn't exactly racism

I've long maintained that at least some of what gets popularly labeled as racism in America is actually classism revolving more around issues of relative economic wealth than issues of ancestory. Ironically, much of the supposed anti-classism rhetoric coming from the ideological right is itself inherently classist prejudice. But that's another issue entirely.

A new study by Joni Hersch, a law and economics professor at Vanderbilt University, appears to show a skin tone prejudice in America which isn't racist.

Joni Hersch... looked at a government survey of 2,084 legal immigrants to the United States from around the world and found that those with the lightest skin earned an average of 8 percent to 15 percent more than similar immigrants with much darker skin.

"On average, being one shade lighter has about the same effect as having an additional year of education," Hersch said.

The study also found that taller immigrants earn more than shorter ones, with an extra inch of height associated with a 1 percent increase in income.

Still seems like racism, huh? That's what I was thinking too. But read on...

Hersch took into consideration other factors that could affect wages, such as English-language proficiency, education, occupation, race or country of origin, and found that skin tone still seemed to make a difference in earnings.

That means that if two similar immigrants from Bangladesh, for example, came to the United States at the same time, with the same occupation and ability to speak English, the lighter-skinned immigrant would make more money on average.

"I thought that once we controlled for race and nationality, I expected the difference to go away, but even with people from the same country, the same race — skin color really matters," she said, "and height."

Although many cultures show a bias toward lighter skin, Hersch said her analysis shows that the skin-color advantage was not due to preferential treatment for light-skinned people in their country of origin. The bias, she said, occurs in the U.S.

I wonder if this bias plays into our attitudes towards Europeans too? How often have we seen the socialistic tendencies of France, Italy and even Spain highlighted by conservatives while other arguably equally socialistic nations which just happen to be dominated by lighter skinned citizenry are virtually ignored? By any measurement I would think that Sweden is every bit as socialistic as France is, yet conservatives never cite Sweden when they want to demonize socialists. They usually pick on France with Italy and Spain appearing to be close seconds.

Is it just coincidence that the French, Italians and Spanish have darker skin tones then the Swedish?

Just to add a possible twist... When was the last time you saw a Swedish restaurant? An Italian or French restaurant? Admittedly there don't seem to be many Spanish restaurants. But I wonder if that can be at least partially attributed to the popularity of hispanic restaurants. To take the cuisine of another very light skinned people, Germans; we do see German restaurants. But they are vastly outnumbered by Italian and Mexican restaurants.

Hypothesis: At some level we tend to equate darker skin with being both "different" (along with whatever prejudices are involved with that) and also somewhat exotic, and thus desirable.

Of course one would think that if it were just skin tone then we should be awash in African restaurants. We aren't, although I suspect that Soul Food restaurants are more popular in other parts of the country. But look at the popularity of Asian restaurants, hispanic restaurants, Southern European cuisines and even Middle Eastern restaurants.

There is something there. Not sure exactly what or that all of these issues are necessarily related. But it seems clear to me that, with the possible exception of Africans and Native Americans, we white Americans seem to have a clear love/hate relationship with darker skinned people. For all that we seem to view ourselves as superior to them, we also find them fascinatingly exotic and spend lots of time, energy and money attempting to vicariously experience this exoticness via cuisine at the very least.

Further hypothesis: If the preceeding makes sense then I wonder if Africans and Native Americans are gastronomically treated differently then other darker skinned people because we view them as indigenous and thus somehow less exotic?

Your thoughs?

Posted by Kevin at January 27, 2007 01:43 PM