Lifelines, Race and Survival (on TV shows)
This one's been sitting around for about six months; I knew that similar research must exist somewhere and figured that I might as well just post it since I won't get around to researching the issue in the near future, or ever. The idea is to look at the race and/or ethnicity of the random NYC pedestrians chosen by contestants on the television show Cash Cab, the show where unsuspecting NYC cab passengers might get into the "Cash Cab" and have the chance to answer trivia questions for money on the way to their destination. The show’s rules are basically that the questions get harder and worth more as time goes on, and three strikes and you’re out (i.e. kicked out of the cab, even if not at your destination yet). If contestants do not know the answer to a question, they are given one mobile shout-out and one street shout-out. If they use their street shout-out, the host tells them to “choose a pedestrian who you think might know the answer.” I became interested