Try it at: mayaah.github.io/judging-a-book
This brief experiment was a crude yet fast way to examine whether the saying in the book publishing industries that "black covers don't sell" holds some truth in it. This experiment was meant to mimic the action of perusing book covers in a library or book store. Each book cover was timed to mimic this quick act of perusing, forcing us to use our System 1 (the part of us that reacts first and fast, our impulses, where our unconscious biases and prejudices manifest) to make our decisions. Most of these books were taken from this article: http://www.yalsa.ala.org/thehub/2012/12/10/it-matters-if-youre-black-or-white-the-racism-of-ya-book-covers/ If you would like to take a closer looks at the books used in this experiment.
There were three categories of books: ones with white people on the cover, PoC people on the cover, and ambiguous covers (silhouettes, backs turned, etc). A lot of the books in this experiment with white people on the covers actually have darker skin or completely different ethnicity protagonists. And one book showed up twice -- did you catch that? One was with a black boy on the cover, and the other with a silhouette.
Which ones did you choose? Maybe you've discovered some of your own biases and prejudices. Either way, there is a great incongruity in the types of people represented on book covers and this is one step towards exploring why that is. Click on the article mentioned earlier to read more on this topic.
Special thanks to https://github.com/do-web/jTinder/ for base code.