June 18, 2004

I Don't Know Why You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

For ye that are subscribers to diversityinc.com, there’s an interesting article today on a kind of racial profiling that’s color blind. Sort of.

It’s called “linguistic profiling,” and it’s defined as “determining characteristics such as socioeconomic status from the way a person uses language.” It’s something we all do. But Professor Dennis Preston of Michigan State University is earning a living by studying how language is used to discriminate, particularly by violating fair housing laws.

    Preston said in housing discrimination, linguistic profiling occurs when an African- American, Latino or Middle-Eastern sounding prospective renter calls the landlord or representative of the property, and is told the property is no longer available just because of the way certain words have been pronounced.

    "In linguistic profiling, we know that it happens … we know that people are treated differently based on people's perception of them over the telephone," says Nancy Haynes, executive director of the Fair Housing Center of Greater Grand Rapids, Mich. "If some one believes you're African American, whether or not you're African American, you are going to be treated differently."

    Interestingly, African Americans are more likely to be discriminated against than Latinos with an accent, the research had found. "The discrimination rate against Spanish-accented speakers is a little less than the discrimination against African Americans. Apparently, African Americans are seen by some landlords as less desirable renters than Latin Americans," said Preston.

The article is a little weak on the methodological details, but says that Preston found that 72% of respondents could identify the “dialect” (his word, not mine) of the speaker just by the way they said “hello.” Obviously, some landlords are responding with "goodbye."

Posted by dmorse at June 18, 2004 04:18 PM