Letters to the Editor
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My issue with this study
I have a very basic problem with this study, and it is simply this: how do you define "black" and "white"? It is a non-quantifiable abstract. On looks alone there are some clearly "black" players and some clearly "white" players, but before I agree with a study that is showing such a slight bias, I want to know what their definitions are. For example, is a Latin American player with light brown skin black or white? Or put more simply, where are they putting Yao Ming? You can't test for two polarities in a system with unquantifiable gradients.
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redacted ref names
To be fair to the NBA, it'd be hard to redact names of referees and not have someone ID them all. If you assign each ref a random number, someone could go back to past games and count up which ref made so many calls, etc. They'd probably get ID'd eventually. Regardless, it seems dumb for them not to make some kind of effort to combat any bias in foul-calling. At least seem open to the idea.
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Only...
...a rich white guy like NBA Commissioner David Stern would suggest there's not racial bias in officiating in the NBA. Stern may be, as you say, generally thoughtful about race (I'm not convinced, but I won't argue the point), but what he is not is reasonable or open to criticism when it comes to the officiating in the NBA, which sucks hard. Beyond that, as you say, his rejection of the study simply doesn't pass the sniff test.
The real problem though is the narcissistic prima donna approach too many NBA referees have with their job. Racial bias may be difficult to control. Even people who actively combat in themselves may demonstrate it unconsciously. But what the NBA could do is stop hiring referees with delusions of grandeur and related personality disorders. And then, oh, I dunno, officiate consistently with the same rules for everyone and for every game.
Crazy talk, I know, but it might just work.
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NBA's reaction is counterproductive to their own interests
The league's reaction to this study isn't very smart. If they said "hey, it looks like there's a problem, but it's small and manageable, and this is how we'll deal with it" this study would blow over in a hurry.
Because when I read the story about the study, that was my reaction--it's a problem, but small and manageable and easily dealt with, and given how race works in this society, it's actually a smaller problem than could be expected.
But then I got to the part about the league's reaction, and I thought "oh, they're really blowing it here." I think their reaction could, potentially, turn a small issue into a much larger one.
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An increase of how much?
Black players are tagged 2% to 4% more by white referees? What's the margin of error in that study, 4%? I don't dispute that there's an element of racial bias in referee-ing (hey, that was a white ref who tossed Tim Duncan for laughing on the bench, wasn't it?) but unless I'm missing something here, the numbers seem to make a pretty weak case for it.
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2%
is nothing.
Really.
Much ado about nothing. The headline might as well read "Some NBA referees human."
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Re: Unquantifiable Gradients
If I learned anything as a non-white non-black person, it's that whites see all non-whites black, and blacks see all non-blacks white ;-)
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As someone noted yesterday on Deadspin...
The study also showed that Violet Palmer makes a disproportionately large share of calls against male players.
I agree with what Gene said, but I'd take it a step further. The NBA is a major league - perhaps the only major league - in which its players are constantly derided for their thuggish, new-school ways. Baseball's taken about a million lumps for steroids, but you won't find a huge contingent of fans/sportswriters complaining about the style of play or the attitudes of the ballplayers. Much ink has already been spilled on the topic of NFL players' licenses to get frigging crazy.
On that note, I'd want to see data comparing, for instance, tattooed vs. lightly- or non-tatted black NBAers (Allen Iverson and Stephen Jackson vs. Tim Duncan and Andrew Bynum). Or maybe guys who wear their hair in cornrows vs. fades. Maybe it's a generational thing. Maybe you've got a contingent of refs longing for the days of Kareem and Walton, and so any brash young black man (see: Wallace, Rasheed) is going to face the wrath (in a small but statistically significant way, that is). I wouldn't be surprised in the least that some refs maybe see "blackness" as a gradient, with Dennis Rodman at one end and Joe Dumars at the other.
But I'm inclined to give more weight to the anecdotal interviews with African-American NBA vets. You'd think the subject of racist refs, however unconscious, would've been broached way before now. If it exists, it apparently took the Times to get even the players to notice... unless the thought of Stern justice has somehow cowed everyone into ignoring it.
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And in a related note
NBA players no longer play any fucking defence at all. I blame whitey for that one.
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Shame on King
“This column is a proponent of the theory that not a single conversation, interaction or transaction occurs in the United States without race playing at least some small role.”
Someone find a tourniquet for King’s heart. Look at that sentence. Ridiculous. Absolutely mind-boggling. I just lost a ton of respect for you. King Kaufman, the embodiment of white guilt. Nothing happens in America without race rearing it's ugly head? I bought a newspaper this morning, I don't recall the undercurrent of race.
This ‘study’ is also ridiculous. If an African American, who makes millions upon millions of dollars a year, fouls someone, and that foul is called by a white guy, it’s pretty apparent that white people hate black people – right? RIDICULOUS.
This has been weighing on my mind. Let me know what you think.
White people brought people from Africa to America to work as slaves. For a few generations these slaves labored under the MOST oppressive conditions for no pay, no respect, nothing. This was easily the most egregious and shameful chapter in our nation’s history. Even reconstruction was a bear for southern blacks. But, as time has passed, the situation has improved for African Americans, more doors have opened up and more opportunities are available to black Americans. They are now living in the freest, richest, most tolerant, least oppressive nation in the history of the world (I understand it’s not a cake-walk, but compared to 99% of human beings living, African Americans are doing pretty damn well). Here is my question: as bad as American slavery was, is it almost ‘worth it’ to today’s blacks, considering if slavery didn’t happen, they most likely would be living in the most war-torn, diseased, poorest situation in the world, instead of America? Think about it. Let me know what you think about my question, not what you think about me.