Social NFL assumes black athletes started off dumber, and must show greater cognitive decline than whites

[panamaican]

This is such a panamaican post. "Do people who think it's racist for the NFL to think black people are dumber also think it's racist if other organizations think black people are dumber?" Hmm... I wonder what the answer is.

What other institutions are using cognitive race norms that indicate this is a systemic problem?

You must not have read the article? And it is very much my type of post. I read the article, then I looked up the information in the article to better understand what was actually happening. As opposed to firing off a hot take.

The NFL doesn't think black people are dumber. The NFL wants to use a set of norms, created in the 90s by someone who is not affiliated with the NFL, to reduce settlement payments. The norms themselves are widely used. .

As for where it's used that would suggest a systemic issue? The Halstead-Reitan Psychological Battery.

We discuss criticisms of Heaton, Grant and Matthews's (1991) Comprehensive Norms for use with the expanded Halstead Reitan Battery (HRB), specifically in the evaluation of patients of advanced age and/or limited education. Two clinical cases are presented to illus trate the potential risk of obtaining false negative resuits when relying solely on this normative system to assess cognitive functioning in such apopulation. In both cases, the patients were older men with very littie education, presenting with memory complaints and mild cerebral atrophy. When Heaton et al.s norms were used to interpret their HRB test scores, both patients were classified as unimpaired. How ever, when Reitan and Wolfson's (1993) norms were used, both patients were diagnosed as mildly-moderately im paired.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J151v02n01_05

The norms are used in a clinical battery that tests cognitive impairment. The norms raise the risk of false negatives wherever they are used. Heaton has since published other papers attempting to address some of this but you should probably speak to someone in the field for the details. I quoted one of those papers higher up.

So, if there's a problem in the norms of a testing battery, you have a systemic issue wherever the testing battery is being used.

 

[Confucamus]

I brought him up because I was referring to a time period where the NFL was not sympathetic to Kaep. This time period was when Trump was in office. Trump was know for being very anti Kaep.

So what? A lot of people were. Who cares?

So no one is allowed to mention Trump, even when the context demands it? You guys really need to cope better.

This projecting doesn't work. You crowbar Trump into a conversation where he's not relevant and tell other people they need to cope? Keep your TDS in the threads where it's relevant. It's not here.

 

[evergreenrider]

I actually talked to Nuk (DeAndre Hopkins) about this garbage this morning. Black athletes aren't fucking idiots and you're going to see a big push back coming forward. A lot of them are tired of the "woke" bullshit. They're not children. Nuk owns three other businesses and a construction company I have some capital in.

@HereticBD it's just shocking that billion dollar business owners move the needle.

Why'd you let your boy come to the NFC west?

 

[jrams]

You must not have read the article? And it is very much my type of post. I read the article, then I looked up the information in the article to better understand what was actually happening. As opposed to firing off a hot take.

The NFL doesn't think black people are dumber. The NFL wants to use a set of norms, created in the 90s by someone who is not affiliated with the NFL, to reduce settlement payments. The norms themselves are widely used. .

As for where it's used that would suggest a systemic issue? The Halstead-Reitan Psychological Battery.


https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J151v02n01_05

The norms are used in a clinical battery that tests cognitive impairment. The norms raise the risk of false negatives wherever they are used. Heaton has since published other papers attempting to address some of this but you should probably speak to someone in the field for the details. I quoted one of those papers higher up.

So, if there's a problem in the norms of a testing battery, you have a systemic issue wherever the testing battery is being used.

People have been critical of Heaton norms for a long time. You seem to be dodging where they are actually in use today. Instead, you felt it a real difficult question to see if people would denounce them used elsewhere. So again, where are they actually in use today? That's kind of a main component of the "systemic" part of "systemic racism".

It's just a typical panamaican post. Do minimal research and try to take some neutral "lawerly" stance on it while trying to lead to some other arbitrary point. And now going to continue to argue ad nauseam while ultimately arguing about nothing.

 

[MicroBrew]

So what? A lot of people were. Who cares?

But Trump was the president, so he wasn't just somebody

This projecting doesn't work. You crowbar Trump into a conversation where he's not relevant and tell other people they need to cope? Keep your TDS in the threads where it's relevant. It's not here.

He is relevant because we are talking about how the NFL viewed BLM while he was in office. You realize that people often refer to an era by invoking the name of the person who was president at the time.

I have hit a nerve with you , because just saying "Trump" has put you in a bad mood.

 

[I am your real dad]

The NFL is garbage.

The sooner everyone stops watching the quicker we can put this embarrassment behind us.

I don't understand the fascination with millionaires in tights and helmets running around with a ball anyway.

 

[BIKES!]

On one hand the left will say that standardized tests of all shapes and forms are racist and that's why certain races perform poorly. On the other hand using that same logic to determine payouts related to cognitive ability is racist.

 

[panamaican]

Relevant I guess, but if the results still are used to discriminate by race (even if the route taken is a proxy) it doesn't change the fact it's racist.

I can't speak to other instances of course because I don't know of any specifically. But this one with the NFL...they are screwing former black players out of settlement $ that they deserve based on these results. If this Heaton formula says "Well it's not due to lack of intellect...but environmental factors" that very much sounds like a sketchy way of not paying while trying to avoid looking racist.

For the NFL, it's not about racism, it's about not paying out the settlement. The Heaton norms have been around for decades and are widely used it appears. If the test is dicriminatory, it can be used by non-racist people and still yield a discriminatory effect. It's a pretty textbook example of what systemic racism looks like. The tools themselves contain bias that can't be remedied so long as the tools remain in use.

Hence the doctor in this article using a different set of norms. He used one set of norms, the NFL asked for the commonly used norms. If this was any other story, this would be a normal issue when legal parties point to competing experts for their cases.

Frankly, it's a good thing that it's coming out because these norms are used in plenty of other areas that measure cognitive decline and it means that black people are being harmed by these norms everywhere that they are being used. And it's been going on for years. To me, fixating on the NFL for "ha ha" reasons really misses the larger issue here and how it's been affecting black Americans nationwide.

 

[Letssnuggle]

I agree, affirmative action is bad.

 

[Renard]

The crux of the issue is that black people do have lower cognitive abilities in general. You can argue that it's caused by hereditary factors, understood here in the context of not only genetics but the person's entire environment including socioeconomic status at birth. It's possible that there are players who fall outside the norm (either in greater or lower intelligence), and an easy way to solve this would be to give all new players a neuropsychological assessment to establish their individual baseline instead of applying a group norm established on a large sample size. This is much cheaper than dealing with these lawsuits. This means each player will receive a payout appropriate to their actual level of cognitive decline. Players who are dumber than the norm will not receive false claims they would have otherwise received under the current standard, and players more intelligent than the norm will receive the compensation they're due and all is well.

 

[mkess101]

For the NFL, it's not about racism, it's about not paying out the settlement. The Heaton norms have been around for decades and are widely used it appears. If the test is dicriminatory, it can be used by non-racist people and still yield a discriminatory effect. It's a pretty textbook example of what systemic racism looks like. The tools themselves contain bias that can't be remedied so long as the tools remain in use.

Hence the doctor in this article using a different set of norms. He used one set of norms, the NFL asked for the commonly used norms. If this was any other story, this would be a normal issue when legal parties point to competing experts for their cases.

Frankly, it's a good thing that it's coming out because these norms are used in plenty of other areas that measure cognitive decline and it means that black people are being harmed by these norms everywhere that they are being used. And it's been going on for years. To me, fixating on the NFL for "ha ha" reasons really misses the larger issue here and how it's been affecting black Americans nationwide.

Right, the intent may not be racism but the end result is. And yes, we're in agreement that this is what systemic racism is, it's actually an accurate representation of it happening in a specific instance. And I'm not trying to play "gotcha" with the NFL either, I'm not like others here that want to hate on them. Personally...I love their product. But this is a provable example of how systemic racism occurs, and their intentions of just finding ways not to pay as many people as possible still end up as racism.

As I said before, if other specific examples can be cited where black people are harmed by these norms, they should be at the forefront of discussions on systemic racism. I can only speak for myself, but concrete evidence like this sways me a hell of a lot more than emotional outbursts or broad blanket statements. Not true of everyone I realize.

 

[panamaican]

People have been critical of Heaton norms for a long time. You seem to be dodging where they are actually in use today. Instead, you felt it a real difficult question to see if people would denounce them used elsewhere. So again, where are they actually in use today? That's kind of a main component of the "systemic" part of "systemic racism".

It's just a typical panamaican post. Do minimal research and try to take some neutral "lawerly" stance on it while trying to lead to some other arbitrary point. And now going to continue to argue ad nauseam while ultimately arguing about nothing.

Nothing you wrote contradicts what I said.

Here's what the article says about your question:

They are widely used, but in recent years, scientists in the field have begun to recognize the limitations of the normative comparison groups they have used for years.

What am I dodging if the article says "They are widely used...". If you disagree with that, your beef would be with the Guardian article's author.

 

[Hadron90]

Colin Kaepernick is going to be livid over this when someone reads it to him.

 

[Hadron90]

You must not have read the article? And it is very much my type of post. I read the article, then I looked up the information in the article to better understand what was actually happening. As opposed to firing off a hot take.

The NFL doesn't think black people are dumber. The NFL wants to use a set of norms, created in the 90s by someone who is not affiliated with the NFL, to reduce settlement payments. The norms themselves are widely used. .

As for where it's used that would suggest a systemic issue? The Halstead-Reitan Psychological Battery.


https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J151v02n01_05

The norms are used in a clinical battery that tests cognitive impairment. The norms raise the risk of false negatives wherever they are used. Heaton has since published other papers attempting to address some of this but you should probably speak to someone in the field for the details. I quoted one of those papers higher up.

So, if there's a problem in the norms of a testing battery, you have a systemic issue wherever the testing battery is being used.

When the history books are written, I'll be in the column of people who condemned the systemic racism perpetuated by the NFL by using these clearly racist standards. Which column do you want to be in?

 

[LazaRRus]

Can anyone explain to me what it is the NFLPA actually does for the players?

Not a fucking thing

 

[SpartanKhmy]

What if you're half-black and Asian? Does it cancel out or something

 

[Hadron90]

For the NFL, it's not about racism, it's about not paying out the settlement. The Heaton norms have been around for decades and are widely used it appears. If the test is dicriminatory, it can be used by non-racist people and still yield a discriminatory effect. It's a pretty textbook example of what systemic racism looks like. The tools themselves contain bias that can't be remedied so long as the tools remain in use.

Hence the doctor in this article using a different set of norms. He used one set of norms, the NFL asked for the commonly used norms. If this was any other story, this would be a normal issue when legal parties point to competing experts for their cases.

Frankly, it's a good thing that it's coming out because these norms are used in plenty of other areas that measure cognitive decline and it means that black people are being harmed by these norms everywhere that they are being used. And it's been going on for years. To me, fixating on the NFL for "ha ha" reasons really misses the larger issue here and how it's been affecting black Americans nationwide.

It seems you aren't interested in holding racists accountable. This argument is essentially "so what if X was a slave owner? Slavery was legal and accepted then."

 

[panamaican]

Right, the intent may not be racism but the end result is. And yes, we're in agreement that this is what systemic racism is, it's actually an accurate representation of it happening in a specific instance. And I'm not trying to play "gotcha" with the NFL either, I'm not like others here that want to hate on them. Personally...I love their product. But this is a provable example of how systemic racism occurs, and their intentions of just finding ways not to pay as many people as possible still end up as racism.

As I said before, if other specific examples can be cited where black people are harmed by these norms, they should be at the forefront of discussions on systemic racism. I can only speak for myself, but concrete evidence like this sways me a hell of a lot more than emotional outbursts or broad blanket statements. Not true of everyone I realize.

I found places where batteries using Heaton's norms are still sold. It's not my field so I don't know more than the article says about the breadth of use. I know you're not playing the gotcha game with the NFL. I agree that the outcome is racist, the thing I was trying to highlight was that the outcome can be racist without the NFL itself being racist. The NFL's lawyers can just trying to use a commonly used system to reduce their civil liability. Which every lawyer under the sun is supposed to do. And if people are genuinely upset about the racist outcome, they would direct their ire to the underlying norms because that's where the issue originates.

What would be unfortunate is for people to say "Look NFL is racist," but ignore that these norms are in use other places, extending their potential unfair impact.

 

[panamaican]

It seems you aren't interested in holding racists accountable. This argument is essentially "so what if X was a slave owner? Slavery was legal and accepted then."

Where did I say not to hold anyone accountable. The broadest accountability would occur at the norms - which is where I'm directing people's attention.

My argument is "Yes, X is a slave owner. But if that bothers us, we should be looking at the laws that make slavery legal in the first place. We can tar and feather the slave owner but if we don't challenge the laws, we're going to keep seeing the same problem."

 

[panamaican]

When the history books are written, I'll be in the column of people who condemned the systemic racism perpetuated by the NFL by using these clearly racist standards. Which column do you want to be in?

I want to be in the column of people who condemned the standards, not just the NFL. Condemning the standards would benefit everyone, not just former NFL athletes. I would think everyone would want to be in that column.