{"id":62648,"date":"2014-05-15T09:00:54","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T14:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=62648"},"modified":"2017-09-17T16:44:17","modified_gmt":"2017-09-17T21:44:17","slug":"race-in-the-nfl-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/05\/15\/race-in-the-nfl-draft\/","title":{"rendered":"Race in the NFL Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>In case you were wondering, race is still important in the U.S., including in American sports.\u00a0Deadspin put out a\u00a0neat tool<\/a>\u00a0just in time for NFL draft weekend, allowing readers to see for themselves just how often different words are used to describe white and black athletes in draft scouting reports. \u00a0It turns out, for example, that a black prospect\u2019s report is more likely to mention his \u201cmotor,\u201d while the typical white player is more likely to be called a \u201cworker.\u201d \u201cFreakish\u201d shows up five times in black reports, and never in a white player\u2019s. Black players are also more likely to be called \u201ccoachable.\u201d<\/p>\n

I downloaded the\u00a0data<\/a>\u00a0to find out just what the \u201cblackest\u201d and \u201cwhitest\u2019 words were. I then drew\u00a0out the 50 words most likely associated with black and white athletes, respectively.\u00a0The words are all vaguely football-ish, but upon reflection distinctive patterns emerge.<\/p>\n

Some words leap out immediately. Reports on black athletes are far more likely to include the word \u201cmother.\u201d Conversely, white athletes\u2019 reports mention \u201cbrothers\u201d more often. \u00a0Black players\u2019 reports more often include \u201cdriving\u201d; reports on white athletes mention \u201cdrive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Dig a bit deeper, and some groupings appear. I created five rough categories for the most common \u201cblack\u201d words, and another four for the most common white words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Table 1: black word groups<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Physicality<\/td>\nupright, leaping, acceleration, pedal, driving, talented, runs, bounce, accelerates, chase, closes, tightness, track, radius, flexible, coordination, physicality<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Violence<\/td>\njam, violent, disruptive<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Positional<\/td>\nall-purpose, cutback, touches, safety, open-field, pass-rush, cornerback, return, returner, cuts, gaps, gap, wr<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Development<\/td>\nloose, currently, support, stop, drop, interception, terms, directions<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Other<\/td>\njones, auburn, vj, instead, wrap, disengage<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\u00a0Table 2: white word groups<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Quarterback<\/td>\ndelivery, accuracy, velocity, accurate, mobility, short-to-intermediate, throwing, placement, pocket, passer, release, throw, passing, arm, throws<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Other positional<\/td>\nleg, center, pressure, targets, touch, guard, under, offense, rushers, blocking, keeps, tackle<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Intelligence<\/td>\nintangibles, understands, intelligence, all-conference, smart,
\nexperienced, sound, leader<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Other<\/td>\nonto, brother, backup, drive, 50, ends, base, ten, four-year, keeping, punch, left, timing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

I was quite surprised just how pervasive the old tropes of the smart white leader athletes, and the talent and physical black athletes remain. The word \u201caccuracy\u201d is more than\u00a0twelve times\u00a0<\/em>more likely to be associated with a white player than his black counterpart. Likewise, the words \u201cunderstands,\u201d(3.9 times) \u201cintelligence\u201d (3.0 times), and the sneaky \u201cintangibles\u201d (3.9 times) are all far more likely to be associated with white athletes.<\/p>\n

Conversely, reports on black athletes are more likely to include \u201cleaping\u201d (6.3 times), \u201cupright\u201d (10.4 times), and \u201cviolent\u201d (5.1 times). They comparatively rarely include words associated with quarterbacking, intelligence, or leadership.<\/p>\n

What the numbers can\u2019t tell us is how much of the difference can be ascribed to the scouts themselves allowing biases to creep in, and how much reflects ways in which athletes have been shaped to this point (i.e., coached to be violent,\u00a0 encouraged to become leaders, etc). This is obviously an important question, but either way it is clear that race remains a hugely important filter affecting life chances, even in something as supposedly meritocratic as professional and near-professional sports.<\/p>\n

A longer version of this post, with more details on methods, can be found at Politics All the Way Down<\/a>. \u00a0Photo credit: Ron Almog, via\u00a0wikimedia commons<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Stewart Prest is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. \u00a0You can follow him at his blog, Politics All the Way Down<\/a>, and on Twitter<\/a>. \u00a0Cross-posted at Pacific Standard<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In case you were wondering, race is still important in the U.S., including in American sports.\u00a0Deadspin put out a\u00a0neat tool\u00a0just in time for NFL draft weekend, allowing readers to see for themselves just how often different words are used to describe white and black athletes in draft scouting reports. \u00a0It turns out, for example, that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":62649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[218,23645,23384,2104,283,285,1760,20063,1757,108,133,76],"class_list":["post-62648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bodies","tag-bodies-prejudicediscrimination","tag-social-construction-discourselanguage","tag-knowledgeintelligence","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-blacksafricans","tag-raceethnicity-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity-whiteseuropeans","tag-sports","tag-violence","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/05\/1-2-Copy3.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62648"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71657,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62648\/revisions\/71657"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}