Stern must be pleased: Study of N.B.A. Sees Racial Bias in Calling Fouls

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Originally Posted by Frank Brickowski

This explains why Dirk shoots so many free throws. :spin

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:toast :p: :p: :p: :p: :cry :cry

Great use of somebody's money.

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Originally Posted by wildbill2u

It could be true--but I'm gonna bet that these 'unbiased' professors went into the study expecting to find what their conclusions turned out to be.

There's no news and consequently no additional money if you find out that things are hunky-dory.

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As a friend of mine likes to say.... "That's a fact, Jack..!!!!!

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Originally Posted by Ryu

That's what the multi-variable regression accounts for moron.

Regardless of trainwreck's obvious lack of intelligence in making his comment, I do see a potential "variable" for which no regression can be run, the variable that (of all people) NorCal pointed out: what if black players are in fact more "physical" or "foul prone" than white players?

Seriously, not in some Republican apologist kinda way.

If the African American basketball culture emphasizes more physical play than the Anglo American basketball culture, this study is shot to hell. That's not a variable you can "control" for, because it's "racist" to make that claim, but also impossible to quantify.

I'm not saying that's the way it is, but it's worth considering, and from what I can gather from this article and the reality of statistics, that possibility was not accounted for at all.

No stone left unturned indeed. Apparently, when all you've got is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail.

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THe problem with this logic is that only the white referees are calling this, while the black referees aren't.
The analysis did not state that black players commit more fouls, or are called for more fouls, it states that black players are called for more fouls by white referees vs. black referees, and white players are called for more fouls by black referees vs. white referees, after taking into account home court, seniority, all-star status, and minutes.
Personally, I don't see it, but I would love to see how the NBA talks itself out of it.

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Originally Posted by SRJ

Ryu:

You've had many interesting things to say on this topic; I was therefore surprised to see you say the above quote.

Is there, in your mind, a certain ethinc standard of behavior black people should adhere to? It reminds me of a black guy I went to school with who was called "oreo" because he didn't "act black enough". (The guy calling him "oreo" had a Hispanic father and an Anglo mother, FWIW)

That sort of thinking is ridiculous. People should be free to behave in whatever ways they will. To me, Tim Duncan is as black as Chris Wilcox, Grant Hill, Darius Miles, Jerome James, Gilbert Arenas, Chris Webber, Kobe Bryant, Richard Jefferson, Ben Wallace, and on and on and on. These men are black men, but their backgrounds and life experiences have imparted each with their own unique personality and worldview. To suggest any of them don't act black is insulting at best.

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One mistake people make is over-attributing group tendencies to individuals.

It's easy to identify people in skin color groups -- generally, you just look at their skin color and you instantly know what group they belong to (although there are exceptions). Then, a whole set of assumptions (call them "biases" if you wish) about that group gets applied to the individual, whether warranted or not. The individual has to prove to you that they do not have those tendencies before you will even start to consider that they may not be like the "group average".

Another mistake is seeing patterns that aren't there. The human mind is built to see patterns, even if they don't really exist. If you are playing the slots in Las Vegas, you will start thinking "this machine is hot" or "this machine is cold" based on what you perceive as patterns in the random spins. Similarly, you will see patterns of behavior and attribute them to racial characteristics.

The reality is that individual variation is much, much greater than racial variation -- if racial variation even exists (which is debatable). When I say "much, much greater" I mean like 1000 times greater, conservatively.

So, the intelligent thing to do when evaluating an individual is to, well, evaluate them as an individual and ignore the skin color issue. This is easier said than done -- we are genetically programmed to identify people by their "tribal association" so that we can instantly tell "friend from foe". You have to rise above your caveman tribalistic heritage to be color-blind.

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Originally Posted by ambchang

THe problem with this logic is that only the white referees are calling this, while the black referees aren't.
The analysis did not state that black players commit more fouls, or are called for more fouls, it states that black players are called for more fouls by white referees vs. black referees, and white players are called for more fouls by black referees vs. white referees, after taking into account home court, seniority, all-star status, and minutes.
Personally, I don't see it, but I would love to see how the NBA talks itself out of it.

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Not that I've taken the time to read the report, but the actual variation seems quite small (like one foul call per five games, or less). It's hard for me to see how you can take box scores and statistically figure out that that tiny variation is exactly due to racism, vs. any other factor that doesn't show up in the box score.

It's like trying to measure player effectiveness based on statistics -- and we all know how controversial and unsettled that is.

It would be like someone saying they can demonstrate that player X scores one more basket per game than player Y exactly because they are one inch taller. There are so many other factores to consider that don't even show up in the box scores that that assertion would be laughed at. Yet we take this one seriously, because it's not about height, it's about race.

Fortunately, the dress code will eventually fix this problem.

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Originally Posted by ambchang

THe problem with this logic is that only the white referees are calling this, while the black referees aren't.
The analysis did not state that black players commit more fouls, or are called for more fouls, it states that black players are called for more fouls by white referees vs. black referees, and white players are called for more fouls by black referees vs. white referees, after taking into account home court, seniority, all-star status, and minutes.
Personally, I don't see it, but I would love to see how the NBA talks itself out of it.

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I guess the part I wasn't originally clear about is that the possible more-physical nature of black basketball culture applies both to black PLAYERS and black REFEREES. Following that logic through, what a white referee sees as excessive contact is less than what a black referee sees as excessive contact because they often come from distinct basketball cultures. Hence, blacks don't call fouls on black at the same rate that whites do.

That's an explanation for the statistics that's at least plausible and has nothing to do with racial bias whatsoever. Here is kinda my basic point: just because there is a correlation between the race of a person and some particular outcome does NOT mean that that outcome was the result of racial bias. If it were the case, then we'd have to abandon any notion of cultural, psychological, or physiological differences between the races. While there is a strong "altruistic" movement to eliminate such distinctions in the name of racial equality, I think true racial equality is being open to the possibility of inherent difference but not having it effect you judgment of the inherent worth of a person.

However, even if black basketball culture is more physical in a game whose physicality is decided by a committee of referees consisting of 2/3 people from white basketball culture, there are three possibilities which do incorporate racial bias. First, white referees call the game by applying their cultural standards (non-race-based), but black referees hate whites and apply a stricter, race-based standard to them. Second, white referees hate blacks and apply a stricter, race-based standard to them, which black referees recognize and feel bad about, so they try to not call fouls on blacks as much. Third, both white referees and black referees are racially biased, both perceive problems with the basketball culture of the other and opposite race's refereeing reaction to that culture, and both over-compensate trying to "make up" for the opposite race referees perceived racist foul-calling. So it's either blacks are racist, whites are racist, or both are racist.

I'm kind of a misanthrope, so I'd like to say that both black refs and white refs favor their own kind, but honestly, with very few exceptions, I think it would be very difficult for a racist white man to work in a black man's world while still harboring enough racial prejudice to overcome the most important component of his career: objectivity. It just doesn't seem to fit, but that's more of an intuitive thing than a logic thing.

I feel like people here want to make this into some kind of affirmative-action, "victicrat"/policy agenda" thing.

first off, a mis-understanding that I saw:

an all-white ref. crew would call .2 more fouls PER BLACK PLAYER. Thus, 7-8 black players on one side, all white players on the other, turns out to be 3 foul call difference. That could easily be the difference on games. Of course, most teams are mixed, but you get the idea that you have to add up the .2 per player.

NOw, the answers to the "problems" with this study:
1) Peer review! 3 different professors from different places all agreed this study was well done methodoligcally. If you have done research, or if you have checked peer review articles before, that means this was very well done.

2)Psychology research backs the prevalence of racial bias. I have seen other studies saying essentially the same thing: subtle, unconscious workings effect us all, and we don't even notice it. But it is there. Did you see the study that got the Supreme Court to overturn Seperate but equal? Black kids said the black dolls were "bad", and they wanted to be like the white dolls. Look it up, the preponderance of psychological studies backs this up. A young girl last year replicated this as a high school project, and guess what? The video shows the little black kids doing the same thing.


most important, though:
3) Black ref's biased against white players, white refs biased against black players answers the chief "conservative concern"; it is not a conspiracy against blacks, no there is no "victim" here. But the refs need to be alerted to their own subtle biases so they can be self-aware. It will only help them to better their play calling.

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Originally Posted by study

“There’s a growing consensus that a large proportion of racialized decisions is not driven by any conscious race discrimination, but that it is often just driven by unconscious, or subconscious, attitudes. When you force people to make snap decisions, they often can’t keep themselves from subconsciously treating blacks different than whites, men different from women.”

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The problem I have with this "growing consensus" is that, while I find it completely plausible that people subconsciously discriminate, I think it's unfair to attribute a disparate racial impact solely to this "implicit association." Again, you cannot control for non-race-based bias in any study, let alone a statistical one, so even multiple-regression studies like this one (and the famous Baldus study that found that blacks receive the death penalty for capital offenses much more often than whites do) are inherently suspect. (For more on the Baldus study, read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCleskey_v._Kemp, and this from the left: http://www.aclu.org/capital/unequal/...b20030226.html, and this from the right: http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/DP.html#C.Race)

I've taken the implicit association test multiple times with various races (the one where they show you pictures of blacks and whites interspersed with value statements like "happy" and "lazy" and "evil" and shit), and I always come out as favoring the non-white race. I think the test is bullshit because, when I look at myself and see a man struggling to be color blind, I recognize that I still tend to favor my own culture, just like all but the most self-loathing humans do. In the end, I think there is a tendency for some people to want to find racism where it has not been previously found before, not because of the headlines or acclaim, but because they are over-zealous about our societal goal to completely eliminate all forms of race-consciousness. These people are so focused on eliminating the vestiges of slavery that they quickly apply race-based discrimination to actions that could very well be racially benign or even racially neutral.

Hence, when all you have is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail.

Can anyone give me a logical reason why in a league that is probably 90% black men in their 20s that the officials are 90% white and mostly 50 or older?

There is no logical reason. The makeup up of the officials should match the makeup of the league.....if you fired every white guy over 50 (Bernie Fryer, Bavetta, Joey Crawford, Bennett The Rat Salvatore, Bob Delaney, Jess Kersey, etc.) and replaced them with black refs in their 20s and 30s the quality of the officiating would likely improve immensely.

[QUOTE=conqueso]I've taken the implicit association test multiple times with various races (the one where they show you pictures of blacks and whites interspersed with value statements like "happy" and "lazy" and "evil" and shit), and I always come out as favoring the non-white race. I think the test is bullshit because, when I look at myself and see a man struggling to be color blind, I recognize that I still tend to favor my own culture, just like all but the most self-loathing humans do..[/QUOTE]

Dude, you just recognized yourself that most people subconsciously favor their own group...hence, if those in power tend to be a certain group, they are going to maintain the power/economic position of their own group, knowingly or not.

Then you go on and say the opposite. how do you conclude the opposite to your own, contrary, key point?

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Originally Posted by LakerLanny

The makeup up of the officials should match the makeup of the league.....if you fired every white guy over 50 (Bernie Fryer, Bavetta, Joey Crawford, Bennett The Rat Salvatore, Bob Delaney, Jess Kersey, etc.) and replaced them with black refs in their 20s and 30s the quality of the officiating would likely improve immensely.

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OK, I'll go ahead and ask. Why?

Younger people tend to be less ingrained in the past...the past was more racist...therefore...

logical falacy. Just because younger tends to be less x does not gurantee when hired the younger refs will in fact be less biased.

better than this would be giving a test to refs before they are hired to see how neutral they are in foul calling.

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Originally Posted by YoMamaIsCallin

Not that I've taken the time to read the report, but the actual variation seems quite small (like one foul call per five games, or less). It's hard for me to see how you can take box scores and statistically figure out that that tiny variation is exactly due to racism, vs. any other factor that doesn't show up in the box score.

It's like trying to measure player effectiveness based on statistics -- and we all know how controversial and unsettled that is.

It would be like someone saying they can demonstrate that player X scores one more basket per game than player Y exactly because they are one inch taller. There are so many other factores to consider that don't even show up in the box scores that that assertion would be laughed at. Yet we take this one seriously, because it's not about height, it's about race.

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But if there is a correlation shown that the height of a player does come into play on his scoring, you would expect the exact same person, if he was an inch taller, to score more. This would not work in the sense that people will always score more if taller, just that if all other variables remain the same, the taller player has an advantage.
This study is similar in that there was a multiple regression that was ran, and for all things people equal, a white referee will call more fouls on a black athlete, and vice versa.
That is to say, if say, Tracy McGrady was playing in Houston against the Spurs, he would expect to get 0.2 more fouls called on him if it was called by an all-white ref crew vs. an all-black ref crew.

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Originally Posted by SRJ

OK, I'll go ahead and ask. Why?

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No inherent biases from too many years on the job, being younger helps them run the floor and be in better position (watching guys like Joey Crawford struggle up and down the floor is ridiculous) and most will have played basketball at some level in the modern era and likely not reward soft white player tactics like flopping constantly.

Right now, it is more of a thing where how good of an actor you are gets you the call....particularly if you are a white darling of the league like Nowitzki or Nash.

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Originally Posted by spursfaninla

NOw, the answers to the "problems" with this study:
1) Peer review! 3 different professors from different places all agreed this study was well done methodoligcally. If you have done research, or if you have checked peer review articles before, that means this was very well done.

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Yeah, I saw that. I'm not challenging the veracity of the original researchers or anything like that, but in a field that accepts multiple-regression studies as scientifically-sound and has a tendency to want to uncover subconscious racism in all aspects of life, it's no surprise that three "independent" professors, consulted by the Times, believed the study was done well.

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Originally Posted by spursfaninla

2)Psychology research backs the prevalence of racial bias. I have seen other studies saying essentially the same thing: subtle, unconscious workings effect us all, and we don't even notice it. But it is there. Did you see the study that got the Supreme Court to overturn Seperate but equal? Black kids said the black dolls were "bad", and they wanted to be like the white dolls. Look it up, the preponderance of psychological studies backs this up. A young girl last year replicated this as a high school project, and guess what? The video shows the little black kids doing the same thing.

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FWIW, Clark's own data showed that black kids picked the white doll and called it "better" far more often in the North than in the South. If the reason for disassociating with a doll symbolizing one's own race were based on segregation, don't you think the study would show that the segregated Southern blacks picked the white doll more often?

But more to your point, I agree that there is some subconscious racial bias in everyone. I don't agree that any racially disparate impact is explained by that subconscious racial bias however, and I don't really think that this bias can ever truly be eliminated, and I question whether or not it would even be a good idea to try to eliminate it. If it's not based in animus or hatred and instead is just a structural byproduct of the way the human mind works, what hope to we have of changing it, even if we are able to conclude that it is bad?

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Originally Posted by spursfaninla

most important, though:
3) Black ref's biased against white players, white refs biased against black players answers the chief "conservative concern"; it is not a conspiracy against blacks, no there is no "victim" here. But the refs need to be alerted to their own subtle biases so they can be self-aware. It will only help them to better their play calling.

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I agree that refs should be alerted to their own subtle biases, but...

Given that humans have subconscious racial biases, and given data that reflects that interracial foul-calling is not exactly equal, we still have a large gap to bridge between showing that the first given is a cause of the effect mentioned in the second given. The multiple regression tries to account for other factors which may be causes, but I can probably come up with multiple factors they did NOT consider, some because they didn't want to, some because they can't be quantified, and some because they are just too ephemeral to be "scientific."

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Originally Posted by spursfaninla

Dude, you just recognized yourself that most people subconsciously favor their own group...hence, if those in power tend to be a certain group, they are going to maintain the power/economic position of their own group, knowingly or not.

Then you go on and say the opposite. how do you conclude the opposite to your own, contrary, key point?

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Again, you have a problem associating that cause to that effect. I recognize there is a subconscious bias. That doesn't necessarily mean people act on it.

In other words, just because those in power tend to be a certain group, and just because the people in that group tend to be biased towards other members of that group, does NOT necessarily mean they are going to maintain the power/economic position of their own group.

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Originally Posted by ambchang

This study is similar in that there was a multiple regression that was ran, and for all things people equal, a white referee will call more fouls on a black athlete, and vice versa.

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I guess this is my biggest problem. People mistakenly think that because a multiple regression was run, "all things are equal." But that's just not true. It seems as if this study accounted for many important variables like All-Star status and length in the league, etc. But there are many DETERMINATIVE factors it probably did not and scientifically could not account for. The one example I gave was personal bias, i.e. when a ref loves/hates a player not because of their race but because of their personality. As colleagues and coworkers, it's pretty clear that some players and referees are closer than others. If I were trying to find a subconscious bias, I think it would exist THERE more prevalently than with race. But you can't account for Joey Crawford hating Tim Duncan in a study. And because Joey Crawford (like most refs) is white, and because Tim Duncan (like most NBA players) is black, the biased calls he made against Tim skew the data some. In other words, this study attributes to subconscious racism something that is presumptively (and probably) NOT subconscious racism. Therefore, this study is flawed.

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Originally Posted by LakerLanny

No inherent biases from too many years on the job,

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Well, yes and no. First of all, everyone has inherent biases, even those who haven't been reffing for thirty years. Second, consider that if an official has a problem with a particular player, it's not going to last if that bias becomes apparent (O'Donnell, Jake; Crawford, Joey).

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being younger helps them run the floor and be in better position

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I won't argue that except to say that most basketball games are played in halfcourt sets, thus negating the need to run the floor much. In fastbreak situations, the trailing official from the previous play is usually in good enough position to observe the play.

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and most will have played basketball at some level in the modern era and likely not reward soft white player tactics like flopping constantly.

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Yeah, only white players flop. :rolleyes

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Right now, it is more of a thing where how good of an actor you are gets you the call....particularly if you are a white darling of the league like Nowitzki or Nash.

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Nowitzki and Nash get calls because they are among the best players in the league. All of the other elite players get calls.

Like it has been said before in the thread, if the only tool you have is a hammer, you're a total tool.

Interesting conclusions the study draws up, and I'm sure it must have been well researched (Cornell), but how come I just don't buy it? Seems like another racial item to get people all roiled up again and keep them watching/reading the dailies.

I call bullshit.

Good point; there could be other causes that end up looking like racial bias. Lets look at personal bias.

First off, we could say that the "race" bias subsumes this; those that the ref "likes personally," if influenced by unconscious bias, will TEND to be those of the same race.

For instance, some character traits considered "personality" might be bundled together with cultural/racial tendencies...for instance, my fiancee commented on how the "asians" in her finance dept. work long and hard, and tend to be quiet. They manage more though getting the work done themselves than through relationship. They black guys in her office are a total of 2 guys (analysts), and one is loud and funny, and the other is a programmer who "acts like the white guys." These are stereotypes, but they play themselves out often enough to have currency with many people.

Second, I wonder how this could play out. Example; you are saying the white refs just happen to be friends more often with the white players, and more often personally dislike the black players. Of course, this tendency has nothing to do with their race; if it were not about race at all, then the fact that there are so many more black players would lead us to conclude they should in fact be friendly with a proportionally even number of them.

Unless my first point were correct, which I think is the case. "race" subsumes this "personal bias" claim; the same subconscious effects that we are calling here "racism" informs those that we "like"...

The whole study/article is basically junk. You can apply the same logic to any sport/activity and it will give you more or less the same bias. It only proves by statistical analysis that we, as humans, have a racial bias, even if minuscule.
The study is junk simply because there's nothing you can do to correct that inherent bias. Whoever was the brainiac in this thread that said they should hire more black refs, the sole act of hiring based on color *IS* racism, and illegal.

So, to sum it, the study proves we're human after all. Nothing we didn't know before.

Now, to the second point, arguing that the causality is questionable; my answer is, OF COURSE.

NO STUDY EVER PROVES causality. NONE. We are talking sociology here not biology or physics. How can we prove something that is going on in the mind like this?

The most we can do is show strong associations. Strong correlations. These are all we have to work with (in the social sciences, at least.) And these are more than enough to help us make policy decisions. Otherwise, I guess we should just throw out social science studies altogether.

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Originally Posted by SRJ

Well, yes and no. First of all, everyone has inherent biases, even those who haven't been reffing for thirty years. Second, consider that if an official has a problem with a particular player, it's not going to last if that bias becomes apparent (O'Donnell, Jake; Crawford, Joey).

I won't argue that except to say that most basketball games are played in halfcourt sets, thus negating the need to run the floor much. In fastbreak situations, the trailing official from the previous play is usually in good enough position to observe the play.

Yeah, only white players flop. :rolleyes

Nowitzki and Nash get calls because they are among the best players in the league. All of the other elite players get calls.

Like it has been said before in the thread, if the only tool you have is a hammer, you're a total tool.

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If you really think Joey Crawford's act is just now becoming apparent, you are even more clueless than your weak posts would indicate.

Officials don't have to run the floor? OK Jack, I guess that only players have to do that! Do you even think about what your write first, that is just a stupid statement.....next you are going to tell me fat little white guys in their 50s and 60s are as good as keeping up with the best athletes in the world as black guys in their 20s and 30s would be? OK, good take. :rolleyes

White players are the ones who brought the flop into the league and continue to be the biggest benefactors and proponents of that strategy. Your own Manu Ginobili is one of the biggest floppers in the league, he literally falls to the ground on every single contact and gets rewarded for it.

That is pussy basketball and a prime reason why much of the sporting public has completely turned off to the American professional version of the sport. It is very flawed, in part due to the fact that white guys who cannot defend their position have become thespians to try and trick refs with poor position, bias and track records into making bad calls in their favor. And guess what? It's working!

As far as Nash and Nowitzki being among the best players in the league, I would agree. But that doesn't excuse all the flopping they do, to really be considered the best it would be nice to see them stay on their feet and do their best to defend like guys like George Gervin, Magic Johnson and Oscar Robertson did in the past. But I guess that is too much to expect when you can just fall to the floor and look over at a fellow pale face and get the whistle.

Your last insult about the hammer is too stupid to even comment on.

Stick to football Tex, it might be more your speed.