The shade of skin color (or skin tone) is another marker of social status and a potential predictor of exposure to discrimination that has received inadequate research scrutiny (Krieger 1999). Research has long indicated that skin tone is a marker of social status and an important predictor of access to socioeconomic opportunities and resources within the black population with the associations being stronger for women than for men (Keith and Herring 1991). Prior research has shown that skin tone is also a marker for discrimination, with darker skinned blacks reporting higher levels of discrimination than their lighter skinned peers (Keith and Herring 1991; Carter 2007). Similar patterns have been observed among Hispanics (Arce et al. 1987), and Jews (Kraus and Koresh 1992). It is not clear though, if this association exists in all contexts. For example, in the CARDIA study of African American young adults, skin color was unrelated to reports of discrimination (Borrell et al. 2007). Insufficient research attention has been given to the relationship of skin color to discrimination in recent research that would allow conclusions regarding either
