The NFL says it will halt the use of “race-norming” — which assumed Black players started out with lower cognitive functioning — in a $1 billion settlement of brain injury claims. The practice had made it harder for Black players to qualify.https://t.co/OQpzSD88xM
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 2, 2021
After all, ‘those people’ just don’t have as much to lose.
Imagine how bad things would be, she said piously, if racial bias was a pervasive condition in America…
… The practice made it harder for Black retirees to show a deficit and qualify for an award. The standards were created in the 1990s in hopes of offering more appropriate treatment to dementia patients, but critics faulted the way they were used to determine payouts in the NFL concussion case.
Wednesday’s announcement comes after a pair of Black players filed a civil rights lawsuit over the practice, medical experts raised concerns and a group of NFL families last month dropped 50,000 petitions at the federal courthouse in Philadelphia — where the lawsuit had been thrown out by the judge overseeing the settlement.
Senior U.S. District Judge Anita B. Brody later took the unusual step of asking for a report on the issue. Black retirees hope it will include a breakdown of the nearly $800 million in payouts so far by race. They fear the data will never come to light…
“The replacement norms will be applied prospectively and retrospectively for those players who otherwise would have qualified for an award but for the application of race-based norms,” the NFL said in a statement issued Wednesday by spokesman Brian McCarthy.
Earnest / condescending BBC explainer on ‘race norming’ here.
Fuck playing, make Kaep the Commish.
— Pfizedd (@Zeddary) June 2, 2021
Emma from Miami
Every time. I am shocked every time when I hear things like this. I should be used to the vicious bastards by now.
Victor Matheson
There is a fairly robust debate in the forensic economics community (the people who advise juries and lawyers about what people should receive in cases of wrongful death, personal injury, and medical malpractice) about the extent you should take race or gender into account when determining damages. It is not at all as clear cut as “never.”
In this case, regardless what you think about the ethics, the optics were so obviously going to turn out badly that it was a poor choice on the part of the NFL.
E.
“Seeger said he has seen no evidence of racial bias in the settlement program. Still, he said Monday, he is sorry it “opened a painful wound” for some.”
Yeah sure bro. Where is the racial bias in assuming Black people are dumb and therefore cannot be harmed in their brains?
This just has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend at all, and the linked article isn’t actually much help. Why did the judge throw this out? They don’t ever say.
How do they even find lawyers to argue this stuff? Civil war reenactments?
E.
@Victor Matheson:
Okay so why is it not “never”? To this layperson it sure seems like it ought to be never.
J R in WV
@Emma from Miami:
Yes, exactly, In a healthy environment this evil crap would be impossible to perform under any circumstances. Instead, we find that Black farmers were/are screwed by the very Federal program established to make up for the time all the farm aid went to white farmers, Black kids are/were screwed by the Foster placement agency and by ALL the departments of education everywhere.
And when black parents who got tired of their kids being mistreated by their Board of Education worked their butts off to get elected to the BoE, the winners and new members of the Board of Education were arrested for participating in the electoral process and WINNING an election.
But just ask Justice Roberts — there is no more racism in America, so we don’t need a Voting Rights Act to protect fair elections. Or a Police powers act to keep racist cops from torturing Black people to death on live video, because we know that never happens any more!!! Just ask the George Floyd family about police killing bBlack people, right Justice Roberts!?!??? RIGHT???
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
I think Johnny Manziel and Curt Schilling prove whites are intellectually superior.
Just One More Canuck
@Victor Matheson: I work in forensic accounting /economics up here in Canada – I work on a lot of personal injury cases. One of my former bosses repeatedly tried to make the argument that someone was better off because of the accident they were in.
J R in WV
@Victor Matheson:
Nope. From any ethical standpoint, race should be invisible in determining damages.
You need to do a whole shit-ton of explaining to convince me that race-blind conditions aren’t essential to any fair process designed to determine damages, unless the data proves that racial conditions currently never provide more monetary damages compensation to the white folk being compensated.
Which I cannot express my doubt regarding the current fairness of compensation determination across all racial backgrounds strongly enough!!!
craigie
Why, it’s almost as if racism is somehow built into the structure of society.
Naw, that can’t be it.
trollhattan
My brain isn’t easily boggled any more, but this malicious clusterfuck, and the judge’s declaration that an AR-15 is a Swiss army knife, inform me I’m deeply out of touch with reality.
WhatsMyNym
@craigie:
Any excuse to save a buck works for them.
ETA: if they can’t use race & gender, it will be “social class”.
John Revolta
I mean, even if this stupid shit was TRUE, how would that make a difference? In FACT, say you lose five points of IQ (or whatever dumb metric we’re using to make the point)- isn’t that even WORSE if you’re “starting out with less in the first place”??
I can’t fucking even.
debbie
How the word “norming” got involved in such a racist, cheapskate practice is absolutely beyond appalling.
Booger
Hasn’t the last decade shown up pretty conclusively that wipipo are pretty stupid?
scav
I wonder if anyone can play. I’m sure in some team, somewhere, there were more Black players than White, so isn’t that evidence that White people have less innate athletic ability and so should be compensated accordingly?
Martin
Visit #2 to son’s first apt halfway across state (that’s 450 miles in CA parlance). Bringing him more of his stuff. He and Ms Martin are now off purchasing as much of the Ikea as will fit in our SUV.
I just love driving here. I hate cars, as many people here should have guessed, but fuck if CA isn’t the best state in the union. It just has everything, and loads of smells. Cows, oil, crops, barbecue, passed a big lavender nursery so got some of that. Passed an almond orchard that I’d estimate between 1 and 4 million trees. It was about 6 miles along one side, and I couldn’t see the other dimension before it dipped over the horizon. Farm workers out there at 6AM harvesting crops, their buses all over the place taking them to different fields. Nearly half of all farmworkers in the US work in CA. We’re a VERY labor intensive ag state. Someone growing corn in quantity, never seen that outside of a little patch for the farm stand. Srawberries, grapes, lots of nut trees, some fruit trees, every leafy green. Pretty sure the folks near the road were harvesting broccoli – sure smelled like it in the car. Live chickens and sheep were headed north. You drive up through LA, which takes better part of an hour with no traffic, cross over a mountain range which is mostly barren, and descend into this 450 mile long valley that is the most productive farmland on earth, surrounded by mountains. People like to rag on the central valley – full of republicans with its fair share of meth and other problems, but its a goddamn miracle and as much damage as the white folks are doing to communities through there, the immigrant populations (latino, sikh, filipino, etc.) are holding the place together.
The oil patches are looking really rough. I’m pretty sure one had been completely ripped out and replaced by solar panels. There’s always clues left behind – some equipment abandoned from an oil patch, a farm, a mine, etc. Some of the vineyards were abandoned – no rain. The grazing cows didn’t seem to have much to graze on either, and the start of June is way too early to be this dry. Big shout out to the trucker on the 5 with big fucking pride flag on his rig. Gave him a honk and a big ol’ thumbs up and wave. Now up on the edge of the coastal redwoods on the edge of the coastal range so still get some ocean breeze pulling through them. Breeze smells nice. Got some proper tacos for lunch. You know it’s a proper place when half of the meat choices you’ve never eaten before and aren’t sure you’re brave enough to try. Would adding pork stomach to my repertoire improve my dining experience? Jury has been out on that one for years.
Boy really enjoys his new job. He’s a design engineer in the semiconductor supply chain. Talk about job security. Making big money, paying big rent, sure sounds happy. Dad is really damn happy for him.
MomSense
Wow. Just wow. This is just – evil isn’t strong enough.
mrmoshpotato
@Booger:
Decade? Hell, morons voted for W – twice! (And that’s just going 20 years back)
Martin
@scav: Owners are white. Workers are black. Says all you need to know.
Benw
So if the white students-of-the-game and field generals get MORE money if they hurt their big boy brains, then obviously the black players who coast on their natural athleticism get MORE money than whites if they injure their stronger, faster muscles, right?
Or does the NFL not like to mix the racism streams?
Martin
@MomSense: This is just baby evil, unfortunately. There’s much more evil out there waiting.
mrmoshpotato
I foresee a lot of allen wrench use in their near future.
Nominated.
WaterGirl
Reading this sentence makes my head explode:
This is fucking 2021 and they have still been making that assumption.
I want to say all the swear words that, growing up Catholic, I can’t bring myself to say, no matter how much I want to.
KrakenJack
@Victor Matheson: On a case by case economic analysis this makes sense, but it serves to perpetuate inequality. The simple fact that race and gender determine income independently of education or job is a good reason to ban it from consideration.
In a better world this would get some legislative attention.
MomSense
@Martin:
Oh god.
Another Scott
@Martin: Very nice postcard.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
MomSense
@Booger:
Stupid is as stupid does. So the answer is yes.
scav
@Martin: Sure, but then again, if it would likely save them and their holy shareholders a buck (and if they’d likely get away with it), I’m sure the owners class allegience would overcome any racist loyalties.
Baud
OT
Another Scott
Totally unsurprising, as everyone says. And infuriating. Grrr…
In other news, ScienceMag:
The original papers are open access at Nature – ScientificReports and Nature – Communications Earth & Environment.
Fascinating stuff, and a reminder that, yes, the Earth is always changing. But natural changes like these take place over thousands or millions of years. We’re changing the Earth on time scales of decades…
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
Not being taught at the school and they don’t attend the school anyway. Absolute nutcases.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: If that can be made to work, it would be a big fucking deal.
Another Scott
@Baud: This is great news, if the G7 actually follows through.
Last night some MotU spokesman was being interviewed on some BBC radio news show. He was trying to push a story that corporate taxes take money out of wages, that countries are sovereign and free to set their tax rates and it was unfair to try to force them to collect more in taxes than they wanted to, etc., etc., and so it’s really best for everyone that corporations don’t pay more (or any) taxes. The interviewer wasn’t having it, and it was gratifying to hear. The MotU guy didn’t seem to be expecting so much pushback.
(Unfortunately, it seems nearly impossible for me to find previous BBC radio segments on the web.)
Cheers,
Scott.
JaneE
I have to wonder how these people manage to sleep at night. This is 2021.
If they really need to compensate for individualized deficits, then take a baseline test before they play at all.
Baud
@Kay:
What is he taking about? 12-year-old home schooled students are the worst oppressors of all. Everyone knows that.
Gin & Tonic
@Martin: How productive would the Central Valley be if you had to pay the actual costs of your water?
Gin & Tonic
@Kay: I’d pay actual cash money if Tucker Carlson could actually define critical race theory.
Dan B
The lies that are repeated about black people and all minorities are infuriating. Few well off white cis people give them any thought at all. Repeat talking point, rinse, repeat. But the truth is they are terrified that in twenty years they will be a minority. What if all the criminal black people get together with the disease spreading, job destroying immigrants, the perverted LGBTQ’s, the uppity humorless feminazi’s, and every other uncivilized (by their blindered standards) savage minority, plus eco commies and their ilk?
We’d probably force them to watch Amy Goodman with eyes taped open on the new Fox Left channel. They might even be herded into re-education camps!
I for one would be happy to repurpose abandoned malls into some schools for people who repeatedly threatened minorities. Who to put in charge?*
*Mrs. Betty Bowers, RuPaul, Colin Kaepernick, Maxine Waters, etc?
dnfree
@WaterGirl: try it! Just in the privacy of your own home, pick out one of the words you’ve wanted to say and shout it out. Or whisper it first and work your way up to shouting. It’s very satisfying. And you don’t have to confess it to anyone. Then string two or three of them together, or add some color. I still remember the first time one of my co-workers left a meeting, came back to our office, and erupted, “F*** him and the horse he rode in on!” Common enough, but I’d never heard it. Gave added emphasis.
One of the laws of computerdom says “Profanity is the language programmers know best”, so I think you’re overdue.
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic:
Very broad brush, the east side has a decent water supply while the west side, lacking Sierra Nevada runoff, relies on federal CVP water and relentless overdrafting of groundwater. It’s very murky how much CVP contractors pay per acre-foot versus the cost of delivery and Westlands Water District, the nation’s largest, and their buddies do their best to keep it that way. There be subsidies.
SWP water costs the contractors the actual price of delivery because of how the system was designed, so ag use is a much lower percentage than CVP. SWP allocation is 5% and I don’t remember what CPV’s is but probably similar.
Droughts don’t seem to slow the relentless planting of yet more almond orchards. Business plans, how they work?
Kay
@Gin & Tonic:
Later on in the article the bullied school board passed a “resolution” to ban the critical race theory they’re not teaching and the protesters yelled at them because the ban didn’t include punishments for the teaching of critical race theory that the superintendent had repeatedly told them wasn’t being taught.
It’s another “voter fraud”. It has no beginning or end. Wholly imaginary, so can never be banned enough, really.
This is why these people are so miserable. They can never solve their problems because they invented them.
The Thin Black Duke
You know what’s fucked up as well? I used to love the NFL. Football was my favorite sport to watch. Thing is, the other sport franchises out there have strong unions that make the attempt to address the needs of the athletes. Unfortunately, the union in football is weak, and the owners in the NFL don’t give a fuck. It got to the point where watching the sport was starting to make me feel like an accessory to an ugly crime and I didn’t like it.
Kay
@Baud:
I personally knew they intend to ban all teaching of “America’s history with race” but I’m not sure the homeschooler was supposed to just blurt it out. I appreciate the clarity though. Now we can have the debate.
Kent
@mrmoshpotato: Allen wrench? You need a cordless drill driver with a 3 mm and 5 mm bits to properly assemble Ikea. I can’t imagine doing it all by hand. The first thing I always do with some new Ikea is throw out the included Allen wrenches.
Kent
@Kay: It’s not just in the south. The same nutcases are invading our school board meetings here in the Pacific Northwest. Their brains are completely fried with a toxic blend of anti-vax and anti-CRT propaganda. But they are like a plague of locusts. For example, this is the school board in Washougal WA the town next door to me. https://lacamasmagazine.com/2021/05/protesters-challenge-washougal-school-district-hold-rally-at-admin-building.html
and: https://www.opb.org/article/2021/05/19/southwest-washington-covid-19-curriculum-teachers-parents-threats/
sab
@The Thin Black Duke: Watching the gladiators fight to the death and lions eat prisoners was good enough for the Romans. What makes you so special.
That’s how I feel about football. So I am squeamish. Deal with it!
WaterGirl
@dnfree: Oh, I have no problem swearing, but when something is really awful, I wish I could say the words that have the initials JFC.
And that doesn’t stand for John Fucking Cole. :-)
I just can’t do it. That, and trying to treat people right, are the things that stuck with me from Catholicism.
The Thin Black Duke
@sab: Uh, bad as it is, the NFL ain’t The Hunger Games.
sab
@The Thin Black Duke: My husband has loved football passionately his whole life. He quit watching two years ago because he thought it was immoral, what with the head injuries. Last year he watched (they’re all gonna die of covid anyway.) I am curious about what his justifying excuse will be this year.
I don’t like football because damaging violence. Early in our relationship I tried to watch and like it, but a Penn State student had his neck broken in the first game we watched together. How can that be justified for entertainment?
ETA: I know. A fluke. Not typical. Charles Krauthamer broke his neck in competitive college diving. Timing was bad for me, so I won’t come back. You won’t say anything my husband hasn’t.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Kent:
I use a Black and Decker rechargeable screwdriver, has multiple settings, from 0 degrees to 90 degrees. Get’s in small areas. Indestructible and cheap. 10 to 18 dollars (link)
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: I think you’re in the clear.
LearnReligions:
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: I think that would be getting off on a technicality!
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
as a brit, andy sullivan has never had much time for north american gridiron football, but after seeing the shield cancelled by the radical left over race science, he has no choice but to become a redskins fan. (no washington football team in his house!)
sab
@Another Scott: My Jewish ex used to call Jesus ” Joshua Josephson” so Christmas was “Joshua Josephson’s birthday.” I got my tree and he got his feasty dinner. In retrospect this seems wrong on many levels.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: jeff komlo erasure.
ian
@Kay: Sounds like these guys watch way too much fox news. Punishments for educators for teaching it? I remember a time when these same quacks pushed intelligent design in every school, arguing that if it was controversial then it should be taught to teach the controversy. Wonder how that idea would go over with these guys and critical race theory.
The Pale Scot
@E.:
Ya, I got an itch to stomp on fuckers like that
debbie
@sab:
That’s nothing. My family celebrated both Christmas and Hannukah. But the fun didn’t start for my father until an Orthodox rabbi moved next door. The rabbi made some remark to my father while he was dragging the tree inside, and my father insisted on breaking tradition and put the tree beside the menorah in the window that looked into the rabbi’s kitchen window. That family closed their curtains and I don’t remember them opening back up until they moved out years later.
sab
@debbie: My best friend in High School was Jewish. Her father managed a retail department store, and her mother had been a window decorator. Her mother absolutely loved Christmas because of the decoration opportunities. Their tree was on casters so that they could roll it out of sight if the rabbi made his inevitable December appearance.
The Thin Black Duke
@sab: To be honest, it was what happened to Kaepernick that finally pushed me away for good.
Dan B
@ian: You expect logical coherence? It could earn you the epithet : Super Optimist, or Super Deluded Optimist.
The logic is weak with these folks. There’s a reason for conservative religion. They keep messing up life choices because logic is like Kryptonite for them. They need regular forgiveness for their sins because they keep losing the story.
sab
@The Thin Black Duke: That too. These guys are seriously injuring themselves, and they aren’t allowed to have enough agency to expess opinions about their own lives?
Victor Matheson
@E.: “Okay so why is it not “never”? To this layperson it sure seems like it ought to be never.”
The easiest (but also thorniest) one is gender and life expectancy. If someone needs $100,000 per year of nursing care for the rest of their life, should you give females more than males or everyone the same? You will overcompensate males and undercompensate females if you give them the same.
Same with race. A 50-year old white male has 29.8 years of life expectancy while a 50-year old black male as 26.7 years of life expectancy. Thus, any health care needs the white guy has will need to last 3 three years longer, but that means paying white guys more than black guys for the same injuries. So, let’s say we pay everyone the average of roughly 29.3 years. But now the white guy’s health care on average will run out half a year before he dies. So, let’s just make everyone a white guy here, but now the defendant says, “Wait, I have rights here too and how come you are making me pay more in damages than I have actually caused?”
Again, not obvious what the right answer is. And even when you have cases where you are suing for lost wages, we generally use past wages in order to estimate future losses, which strikes most people as fair, but that also means that women and minorities on average get lower payout for equal injuries even though race wasn’t considered at all in the case.
Again, not easy and obvious. Personally I always use race-neutral data for estimates (except that I always use personal income history when it is available and again personal income history likely incorporates some level of societal racism), but I do take gender into account. California has just legislated the use of gender neutral calculations in payouts, but the state provided no guidance on how this is supposed to work in cases like I have described here.
Victor Matheson
@KrakenJack: “On a case by case economic analysis this makes sense, but it serves to perpetuate inequality.”
Agreed. But what do you suggest instead? Everyone who loses the ability to work gets the same payout based on the average income in society? So, someone’s negligence destroys the hands of a gifted surgeon (and the surgeon can’t seamlessly move into a career as an Avenger) and the surgeon can only sue for the average income? Or the surgeon loses only half of their income but that is still above average, so they can’t sue at all?
I mean, as soon as you allow any data of any sort, include past work history, you have fundamentally included race into the mix.
Again, I generally don’t include race in my estimates but I do include gender. And I do include things like educational attainment and past work history/earnings both of which are significantly influenced by race. Not at all easy.
brantl
Football needs to be ended, any sport where people are commonly rattling their brains and causing permanent trauma needs to be banned, boxing, kickboxing, MMA, too.
Geminid
Cornerback Irv Cross came to the NFL from Hammond (Indiana) High School by way of Northwestern University, where he played under Ara Parseghian. A fearsome tackler, Cross suffered so many concussions his rookie year his teammates called him “Paperhead.” “They just gave me smelling salts,” Cross recounted, ” and I went back in. We didn’t know any better.” Told that another concussion could be fatal, Cross put extra padding in his helmet, learned to tackle with his head out of the way, and played nine NFL seasons in the 1960s and early 70s.
Cross was only diagnosed with dementia in 2018, but he attributed many years of neck pain to damage done during his playing years.
Irv Cross came out his football career well enough to become the first Black man to appear as a lead on network TV football programs. When Cross passed away this spring, the Washington Post’s obituary had a striking anecdote: Cross had already been doing local Philadelphia sports broadcasting when CBS recruited him for national TV work. He accepted the offer, and then found that producers wanted him to appear in a leisure suit, with a gold chain around his neck! Cross put his foot down, and throughout his broadcast career, including his years on The NFL Today with Phyllis George and Brent Musberger, Cross wore a coat and tie.
The Pale Scot
@WaterGirl:
Me being from Jersey (you got a problem with that?), I’d be very happy to help you overcome this horrible disability.
TomatoQueen
In my job I review medical records all the live long day, the better to make sure what’s in the case record belongs to the claimant. That’s page by page, sheet by sheet, and modern medical software for certain situations makes it, um, a bit repetitious, or in some cases I see the same damn thing every other minute. For example, race norming, on lab results, for kidney disease, done in the same way as CTE, with the assumption that African Americans will have a higher baseline start number. The result is that to reach the point in SSA disability determinations (End Stage Renal Disease, stage 4) where benefits will be awarded and therefore Medicare will kick in for a dialysis regimen, it takes African Americans longer, and they are sicker, than others. This norming appears on every page of any lab result report that covers the kidneys, in very small type, about halfway down. I asked my doc one day about it & she said it was nonsense but was there because it’s a medical tradition; I have seen some adverse decisions that cite that very result, always appealed but not always won.
The CTE agreement process was ugly and clunky, and was in part smoothed out when the union agreed to permit SSA’s neurological rules to be used by the NFL when determining retirement on disability. That sounded fine, except that SSA’s rules are much tougher than the only other general standard, the VA, which apparently nobody knew at the time, or the union caved for the sake of “we’ll get the guys something, this way, and nothing at all, the other way.” Which management does all the time. So far, I’ve seen exactly one NFL case, and it was piteous, especially as the player was young and the father of very young children. I don’t know the outcome and wouldn’t be able to post it anyway because of confidentiality, HIPPPPPAAA, and PII rules. Somewhere there will be data about how many denials and at what level, especially after this.
During the summer of the Ice Bucket Challenge to raise funds for ALS, there were various stories in various corners about what is ALS or who really had it and what is CTE and who really had it, all of which were not followed up as much as I would like. Some of the symptoms are so similar. The last conclusion I saw was that patients with a history of concussion were likely to have one or the other but you couldn’t say without autopsy or close diagnostics which. So that Lou Gehrig, who had a long history of concussion well before the neuromuscular symptoms, very likely had CTE. Jack Kerouac died of erm what now, benzedrine, cardiomyopathy, or what? Well, again long history of concussion, after a number of years playing football in those leather helmets. And others. We know so much more than we used to, but it’s damn hard to get new thinking & new data to be accepted.
Iron Mike broke my heart and to know of broken bodies and broken brains makes it nearly impossible to watch, even Yale Harvard every November. Having transferred my sports patience to sawkerball, I think the players need at least Petr Cech’s headgear as standard–there’s a lot of concussing in soccer that isn’t secret but isn’t publicized unless it’s catastrophic. And would I permit a child of mine? Oh hell no.
James E Powell
Are the people who put the “race norming” system into effect fired?
White people who are in denial about systemic racism will not regard this as evidence that they are wrong
White people are the majority in 38 states. Over 75% in 25 states. We are just fucked.
Starfish
@Kay: All the home schoolers showed up to the school board meeting when some right winger was trying to start a charter here. They all said, “Oh, my child went to that other charter, but it was too far away, but we would for sure go to this school if it opened here.”
Starfish
Here is an earlier story from like six months ago about this. I don’t understand how it took six months to get to this point? Will their end to race norming put an end to that class action lawsuit mentioned in the article I linked? How big was that lawsuit?
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
I wasn’t raised catholic and I grew up in a machine shop and the navy, so my language skills include a fair number of swear words and combinations of same. One of the great things about my navy time was where we sailed to and the ports we stopped at, which allowed me to learn swear words in other languages besides my broken english. I have forgotten almost all of those words but have since picked up a few in Spanish so it’s all good.
Ruckus
@Martin:
Have a cousin who did that for decades and he’s done just fine, already retiring early (the bastard). Now he makes custom guitars, as he feels like it. Rather nice ones from what I’ve seen.
KrakenJack
@Victor Matheson: I assume that expert witnesses for the defense are not above choosing any factors that will reduce the damages – including race and gender. That is what they should do on behalf of their client unless it is illegal.
However, the law should be where there is a history of discrimination, then use the more favorable demographic.
For example, in the case of historically female or minority occupations take the median white male salary in that occupation and consider it reparations.
Longevity certainly favors women – white ones especially. There is strong reason to suspect women receive worse health care, so allow gender as a factor for life expectancy. But use white male and female life expectancy for the calculations since there is a clear negative impact on minorities.
E.
@Victor Matheson: Huh. I guess my solution is, fix it so it’s always in the advantage to the Black person/woman for the next 100 years or so, or until things even out. That way it’s fair.
Mary G
@Martin: We are exceptionally privileged. Hope we can find enough water to stay that way.
Peale
@Kay: Indians? Why we here in Cherokee county Georgia have always loved them. We even named our county after a tribe that doesn’t even live here, but is in far off Oklahoma. Because we thought they were so noble.
tyere isn’t going to be any debate. Unless it’s “white people: greatest people or best people”, they aren’t going to debate anything.