Use of black English and racial discrimination in urban housing markets - New methods and findings

The authors argue that racial discrimination in housing markets need not in volve personal contact between agents and renters. Research indicates that Americans can infer race from speech patterns alone, thus offering rental a gents an opportunity to discriminate over the phone. To test this hypothesi s, the authors designed an audit study to compare male and female speakers of White Middle-Class English, Black Accented English, and Black English Ve rnacular. The study was conducted during the spring of 1999 in the Philadel phia metropolitan area. The authors found significant racial discrimination that was often exacerbated by class and gender. Poor black women, in parti cular, experienced the greatest discrimination.