Voice and racial categorization in Britain

A comparative consideration of the Black in the United States with his counterpart in Britain led to the hypothesis that third generation West Indian immigrants in Britain would be vocally identical to local Whites from the same socioeconomic background. The hypothesis was confirmed, and in complete contrast to the American findings, working class Blacks in a British city were significantly misattributed as “Whites” 80% of the time. In addition, data collected on how people of different occupational levels are expected to speak showed that Blacks sounding “White” was far from an inconsistent cognition for many White subjects.