A year-long study has shown that potential buyers were less likely to contact Craigslist sellers with brown skin and/or tattoos.
And when contact was made, according to the research, the prices offered for identical items were less.
Sociological Images has the story:
Over a one year period, economists Jennifer Doleac and Luke Stein placed fake ads for used iPods in local online classified. They included photographs of the product held by a hand. Some hands were light-skinned, others dark, and they also included a second potentially stigmatized identity, men with tattoos. Otherwise the ads were all identical.
Doleac and Stein found that buyers were less likely to contact or make a deal with black sellers; they received 13% fewer responses and 17% fewer offers. When they did receive an offer, the price suggested was slightly lower than that offered to presumably white sellers….
Notably, buyers discriminated against people with wrist tattoos at about the same rate, suggesting that both tattoos and brown skin inspire similar levels of distrust.