...on at least one point.
Slate ran a small snippet designed to amp up interest in the book. I plan to pick it up, perhaps by reviewing it for Africana.com. One of the academic articles that Levitt has made the rounds presenting looks at the impact of black names. What does naming a child Taquiesha for example mean for that child as far as economic impact? While the social psychology research says that people with names like this tend to be hired less often than those without those names, Levitt argues that it isn't the names but the economic status of the parents that do the naming.
Taquiesha isn't poor because her name is Taquiesha, she's poor because her parents are most likely poor.
Levitt is both correct...and off his rocker.
Take a given neighborhood in California, where Levitt took his data from. A neighborhood in South Central, one very poor, and black. The people in that neighborhood are not only likely to have children who themselves will be poor and without resources for most of their lives, those children are likely to have black names.
Fine.
But those aren't the only children with those names. Furthermore SOME OF THOSE CHILDREN MAKE IT OUT. So what happens to THEM?
Here is where the social psychology research comes into play. WHen a given individual with a black name steps up to the plate it doesn't matter what his qualifications are, he is at a deficit solely because of his name. Now we don't know WHY he is at a deficit. Could be that the person making the decisions is racist. Could be that he is classist (Jack and Jill types don't give their kids names like Tyrone on average). Could be both. COuld be something else.
But it is NOT correct to say that "names don't matter." They DO. The question is, what should we do about it in the meantime?
(As an aside, Prometheus slyly rakes Levitt for not putting Fryer down. For what it's worth I don't think Fryer should've been co-author for Freakonomics at all. Not just because he didn't contribute much, but because Fryer doesn't have tenure yet. Books don't mean jack to economists. It's all about the articles. Ask Bomani.)
Posted by at April 12, 2005 11:18 PM | TrackBack
Yeah, and does anyone wanna take best on whether Fryer will ever get tenure?
Posted by: Bomani at October 3, 2005 07:31 PM