Final Blog

After completing all of my experiments, my research leaned more and more towards the way I initially thought it would. I started off assuming that store workers would treat everyone equally and not be concerned with race. My starting observations left me with unusual results of favoring the opposite race...as if they were concerned about appearing racist. However, as the experiment went on and I watched more workers, my results started to average out to a greater number of store workers treating everyone equally.

I'm Watching You...

Throughout the week I started people watching at the Willowbrook Mall. The first store I entered, my results were very interesting...Surprisingly, I was basically ignored. The person who was supposed to greet me was texting instead of doing their job. She looked up, said "Hi!" and went back to texting. However, when a black-American girl around my age walked in.... she shot up to greet her! I think that possibly the worker greeting us was worried about being seen as having a prejudice against black-Americans  so she made sure to greet the black girl rather than me.

In the second store I entered, my results were very different. I was quickly greeted with a happy smile, and so was the teenage black girl that walked in after me. These were more of the results that I was expecting.

In the final store I went to, I watched adults interact. A younger girl was working in the store, and when greeting adults, she communicated better with the white adults. When a black adult came in, the girl greeting them gave a polite hello and moved onto the next customer. However, when approaching a white adult, the girl greeting looked much more comfortable around them and attempted to make conversation. 

Overall, my results were very scattered. In one store, the greeter seemed to favor black-Americans, while the other favored white-Americans. The second store I went to had results that were much more expected. When being paid to do a job, I would have expected that a greeter would treat everyone equally.

Update On My Somewhat Creepy People Watching

As of right now my plan is the same as stated in my last post. I will still be using the method of natural observation by secretly watching how both employees and shoppers interact based on race. I will take notes on my phone, however I will now be bringing along a friend who will help me point out certain responses so I do not look like a creepy girl all by herself watching people. I realized that by being by myself I would look more out of place and I do not want to cause any attention to myself during the experiment. My friend will be the same age and the same race as me, so she will have little to no effect on the results of the experiment. I expect that employees will not treat customer's differently based on race, since their job is to be polite to everyone. However, this idea may just be me being optimistic. I hope that there will be no drastic change based on race to support the idea that racism towards Black-Americans is becoming less frequent. 

Strategy

By using the method of naturalistic observation, I plan to observe Black-Americans in the Willow brook Mall. With the holiday season coming up, the malls are sure to be packed with people. By going to the mall at the popular time of late afternoon-night time, there will surely be enough people to unknowingly participate in this experiment.

When in a clothing store, (these will vary so the experiment will not be obvious) I will pretend to be shopping when in reality I will be watching how the worker in the front of the store greets each incoming customer. I will take notes on my phone of how the worker acts toward two different Black-American customers as well as two different White-American customers (including myself). I will spend as much time as I need in this store to record information on the way the four different customers are greeted.

I will then move on to another store and observe the way that employees assist customers based on their race. I will once again take notes on my phone and record my findings when once again observing two different Black-American customers as well as two different White-American customers (including myself). I will look for a change in attitude (such as being more or less patient), tone of voice, or a change in body language. 

Research Method

For the topic of Racism Against Black-Americans, I've chosen the sociological research method of naturalistic observation. I feel that this will be the best way for me to achieve unadulterated information about my topic.  I will be going to a clothing store to see how employees interact with customers. I plan to observe whether or not employees treat customers differently based on the customer's race. Will employees treat a black customer differently if they think no one is watching them? With the possibility of a differing greeting or lack of assistance due to race, I became very interested in doing this research. 

Here, Eat It.

A short article that I have recently come across was titled 'Dining While Black'. This immediately drew my attention. The article described a poll taken in North Carolina stating that "After polling 200 servers in 18 North Carolina restaurants, researchers found that a shocking 38.5% discriminated against black customers."

What surprised me the most about this statistic, was the fact that the servers openly admitted to giving black customers poorer service. The article then describes the server's reasoning for doing so. Waiters said that many gave black customers poorer service due to  their expectations that black diners would be poor tippers, demanding and rude.  How could someone who is paid to provide service to customers, be prejudice towards them simply because their race is "known" for being demanding and tipping less?

This stereotype of black-Americans is one that I have heard before, however have not had much personal experience to back it up. I have been out to dinner with one friend who was equally as polite as the rest of us at the table. However, when my friend's mother ordered, she was in fact very rude and demanding. I found that my differing experiences made it difficult to see whether or not this stereotype is actually that common among the black community. What do you think, are black people demanding and rude simply because they're.... black?

Read The Article Here!

I Can't Get Enough Fried Chicken!

A common stereotype affiliated with Black-Americans, is that all blacks love fried chicken and watermelon. This stereotype was taken too far when displayed in a newscast shown in 2009. The news update spoke of how the fast food chain Popeye's ran out of chicken on the day that they advertised to have a special deal.

Without seeing the video, this would sound like a completely appropriate news cast. However, when the news team interviewed those who went to Popeye's and left unhappy, I noticed something very interesting. Every single person interviewed was black. Black men, black women, black families, and not a single person of a different race.

Now, personally I love chicken and I'm about as white as one can be! I am pale with blonde hair...I am borderline albino. Yet I've been to Popeye's before! I found this newscast extremely racist because it portrayed the black community as the only people upset by the lack of chicken. I am sure that people of other races went to Popeye's that day, so why didn't the newscast interview them? Even if they did... why didn't they show their interviews to the public? 

My initial thought was that by interviewing black-Americans, the news cast would appeal more to those who eat chicken. Once again, this brings in the stereotype that all black people love chicken. Did anyone else find this newscast extremely racist?

Watch The Video Here!