Possible Racism in the Delivery of Civic Services

Tanvi Misra comments on research indicating that individuals with African American names statistically receive less attention from civil servants such as librarians .

Misra notes that "the researchers found a spatial discrepancy: The response gap was higher in the Midwest region—and in rural areas compared to urban ones."

This research is evidence for subtle racism, sometimes called microaggression. When I initially read Misra's comments, I thought there may be an alternate explanation, based on my experience working in tiny rural Midwest public libraries, where the desk staff recognizes an amazing number of their patrons by name. In most of these libraries (a) funding is extremely tight, and, (b) as a result, services are limited to cardholders. If a request for help was received from a person who is obviously not a cardholder, the staff would make the response low priority, if they responded at all. Such discrimination based on financial contribution is common in a free market system. But the original researchers seem to have eliminated the economic influence on their results by testing with a variety of ethnic names, with only the African American names reportedly receiving discrimination.

After reading the -DD