Charts Show Just How Real 'Shopping While Black' Is

By Adele Chapin Jan 16, 2015, 10:14am EST

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Researchers at Villanova University published a study last month in the Journal of Consumer Affairs called "Shopping While Nonwhite: Racial Discrimination among Minority Consumers." Driven by both recent racial profiling incidents at major retailers and the lack of discrimination research on the subject, Villanova's Aronté Bennett, Ronald Hill, and Kara Daddario asked Americans questions about shopping and then listed the results broken out by ethnic group; Quartz created charts to show the study's results. They found that non-white study recipients were much more likely to pick up on discrimination, and the black study participants were the most likely group to experience discrimination and to expect it.

The researchers hope this study will help consumers understand the problem, and that government agencies like the US Federal Trade Commission will update anti-discrimination laws to deal with covert discrimination. "We have a hard time recognizing these experiences that other people have, because we don't notice them. Many consumers, minority and otherwise, don't think that minorities are experiencing discrimination as a whole," Villanova's Aronté Bennett said.