NFL pledges to halt ‘race-norming,’ review Black claims

I read that earlier today, it is absolutely grotesque. Kudos to the wives that lead the fight. This should not have been happening in the first place. So many deeply embedded biases that have such a damaging impact.

@"Vikergirl" said: I read that earlier today, it is absolutely grotesque. Kudos to the wives that lead the fight. This should not have been happening in the first place. So many deeply embedded biases that have such a damaging impact.

Retired Black players say NFL brain-injury payouts show bias (apnews.com)

I had to reread the first paragraph to get it through my head that they were actually determining brain damage and payments by assuming black players were stupid to start with.  Apparently this story gave me dementia because I can't figure out what the hell to type now.

From the second article:

The NFL’s dementia testing evaluates a person’s function in two dozen skills that fall under five sections: complex attention/processing speed; executive functioning; language; learning and memory; and visual perception. A player must show a marked decline in at least two of them to get an award.
In an example shared with The Associated Press, one player’s raw score of 19 for “letter-number sequencing” in the processing section was adjusted using “race-norming” and became 42 for whites and 46 for Blacks.
The raw score of 15 for naming animals in the language section became a 35 for whites and 41 for Blacks. And the raw score of 51 for “block design” in the visual perception section became a 53 for whites but 60 for Blacks.
Taking the 24 scores together, either a white or Black player would have scored low enough to reach the settlement’s 1.5-level of early dementia in “processing speed.” However, in the language section, the scores would have qualified a white man for a 2.0-level, or moderate, dementia finding — but shown no impairment for Blacks.
Overall, the scores would result in a 1.5-level dementia award for whites — but nothing for Blacks. Those awards average more than $400,000 but can reach $1.5 million for men under 45, while 2.0-level dementia yields an average payout of more than $600,000 but can reach $3 million.
Breton Asken, a neuropsychology fellow at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center, helped administer several assessments around 2016, when he was a student at the University of Florida. The assessments he was involved in took 4 to 6 hours, and produced a score, which would then be adjusted based on the Heaton norms.
“So the male Black athletes that we saw would be compared essentially to a group of otherwise healthy Black individuals with a similar number of years of education and of the same age,” Asken said.
Even at the time, he said he and his colleagues worried the assessments and adjustments were not appropriate.
“I think we were always hesitant to be robotic about this,” Asken said. “We understood from a legal standpoint why there’s a push and a need for making something a little more algorithmic and robotic, that it can be standardized and so forth. But I think there’s also a lot of challenges when you take expert clinical decision-making out of things.”
They would report the person’s level of impairment by the “letter of the law” and would also provide comments conveying “anything else we thought was relevant to the patient’s brain health, physical health, mental health and so forth that we thought would be important for us to include in something like a standard neuropsychological report.”
The test battery also included questionnaires about mood and personality. But those scores were not included in the algorithm to determine compensation, he said.
“They’re getting full neurologic exams from these neurologists who are able to pick up on other aspects of the nervous system that might be having problems and so forth. Feels very odd for us to put this comprehensive neuropsychological report together and just ignore those pieces of data,” Asken recalled.
“Norming by race is not the stance that the NFL ought to take,” said Dr. Art Caplan, a New York University medical ethicist. “It continues to look as if it’s trying to exclude people rather than trying to do what’s right, which is to help people that, clinically, have obvious and severe disability.” He noted that the long history of racial bias in medicine includes the long-held myth that Black people feel less pain.
“There’s always been this race-norming in medicine,” he said, “that has been problematic because it’s tied in too closely to racism.”
Jenkins, the former Washington player, believes it all comes down to money.
“Race-norming may have had a benign origin, but it quickly morphed into a tool that can be used to help the folks in power save money,” he said.
Yet Caplan is not alone in thinking there may be even more at play here: the future of the NFL.
“These may be fights to escape the conclusion that football’s too dangerous. That’s always looming in the background,” Caplan said. “That opens the door to a lot of moms saying ‘I’m not sure that’s the right sport for my kid.’”
In March, the same month Brody dismissed the civil rights lawsuit, the league announced an 11-year deal with TV partners worth $113 billion.
___

@"RS Express" said: I had to reread the first paragraph to get it through my head that they were actually determining brain damage and payments by assuming black players were stupid to start with.  Apparently this story gave me dementia because I can't figure out what the hell to type now.

The clear end result is that you'll have to take the tests before being allowed to be hired, so they'll have your personal baseline.  Probably lump it in with the Wonderlick during the draft.

“Race-norming may have had a benign origin, but it quickly morphed into a tool that can be used to help the folks in power save money,” he said."

This is the problem and exactly what happened. And what has happened forever with people in power and wealth the world over. 

Christopher Seeger said he had not seen any evidence of bias and then says 
"I am sorry for the pain this episode has caused Black former players and their families. Ultimately, this settlement only works if former players believe in it, and my goal is to regain their trust and ensure the NFL is fully held to account".

This episode?  First he lied then he gives this fake ass apology and wants to be trusted or regain trust. Seriously? It's gross all around. Hiding information about concussions is one thing, making absolutely disgusting assertions about a race of people is next level repulsive. Unfortunately this type of thing is still a thing in 2021 but people in power want to keep their power and money regardless of how they impact people's lives.

This is the kind of information that confirms my view that there is a systemic difference in how we treat each other.  It’s funny how money distribution always has some kind of role in it.

But for the NFL, "Football is Family."  

OMG, what a horrible story...  I'm speechless...

@"medaille" said: The clear end result is that you'll have to take the tests before being allowed to be hired, so they'll have your personal baseline.  Probably lump it in with the Wonderlick during the draft.

I would agree.  If they're basing payout on diminished mental capacity....they kind of need to know what your full mental capacity was.  I'm not saying that one race is this or that just that they have to come up with some sort of formula to figure that out.   

Anyone care to take a stab at how they'd figure out who was how smart after decades of head trauma?  I'm sure there are plenty of smart and not smart people of all races who played football in the last 7 decades. 

Take a guy like Robert Smith.  Dude still had tread on the tires but got out of the game.  You wonder if he'll still eventually suffer from the same head trauma as say a guy like Emmit Smith.  Same era of head protection but Robert took 3k less carries. 

@"RS Express" said: I had to reread the first paragraph to get it through my head that they were actually determining brain damage and payments by assuming black players were stupid to start with.  Apparently this story gave me dementia because I can't figure out what the hell to type now.

This is not a surprise to me. In my experience, some of the worst offenders of race based decision making are those the loudest about racial equality/equity. The NFL is just another one of the many organizations that say one thing, but do the opposite in actual action.

How many of the major corporations are currently taking public stances, while they are far from diverse themselves? It is about the money, not about right or wrong. It’s absolutely disgusting, but shockingly it continues to go on today with nary a word or consequences. Look how long this went without any ramifications. It’s simply unbelievable. 
This isn’t a political problem in society. It’s a power and especially privilege problem; where the offenders come from all backgrounds and maintain “righteous” indignation while holding deep seeded, often absurd assumptions. 

I have no words. 

@"Havoc1649" said: This is not a surprise to me. In my experience, some of the worst offenders of race based decision making are those the loudest about racial equality/equity. The NFL is just another one of the many organizations that say one thing, but do the opposite in actual action.

How many of the major corporations are currently taking public stances, while they are far from diverse themselves? It is about the money, not about right or wrong. It’s absolutely disgusting, but shockingly it continues to go on today with nary a word or consequences. Look how long this went without any ramifications. It’s simply unbelievable. 

This isn’t a political problem in society. It’s a power and especially privilege problem; where the offenders come from all backgrounds and maintain “righteous” indignation while holding deep seeded, often absurd assumptions. 

So, there were no differences in scores between blacks and whites prior to testing?  Im not fully comprehending the argument here.  We should absolutely declare racism right away without discussing anything else?

Im sure my reply automatically makes me racist.  

this is nonsense I am glad it is being done away with

@"PSBLAKE" said: this is nonsense I am glad it is being done away with

@"Waterboy" said: So, there were no differences in scores between blacks and whites prior to testing?  Im not fully comprehending the argument here.  We should absolutely declare racism right away without discussing anything else?

Im sure my reply automatically makes me racist.