POLL: RACIAL POLLS ARE DUMB

The new media flavor of the week is the “race based” poll or study. Just last week the traditional and non-traditional media were buzzing over alleged racial bias amongst NBA referees and now this:

• More than half of baseball fans are rooting against Barry Bonds as he tries to break Hank Aaron’s major league home run record of 755, according to an ESPN/ABC News poll.
• The survey found that 52 percent of fans hope Bonds doesn’t break the record, while 37 percent of fans want him to surpass Aaron’s mark, set in 1974.
• In addition, 73 percent of fans think Bonds used steroids, despite Bonds’ repeated denials. Bonds has never tested positive for steroids.
• However, race plays a unique role. Black fans in the survey are more than twice as likely to want Bonds to break Aaron’s record (74 percent to 28 percent), and 37 percent of black fans think Bonds used steroids, compared to 76 percent of white fans.

There are parts of the polls that I agree with and then some parts that I don’t understand. The first thing I want to know is why do these polls interview a couple of hundred people and then tell us “this is what Americans think”? Every black person I know thinks Bonds used some sort of performance enhancer. I definitely think he used something. One of my partnas is a huge SF Giants fan and he’s black, and he’ll tell you that Barry used something. As more and more news comes out about the steroid era, it looks like damn near everybody used a PED of some sort.

I could waste the next hour of your time going into what I view as hypocrisy and bias towards Barry Bonds, but I want to question the media’s motivation behind running these stories.. Is this 1907 or 2007? Is our country a melting pot or a race war waiting to happen?

Whenever I see one of these “black people think ___” polls I always ask my brothas “did any of you get to vote on this?” and the answer is always no. I don’t know one person that has ever been polled for these purposes.. Do you? And why are we always breaking things down along black and white lines? There’s no brown and yellow people with opinions? Does the future of our country hinge on what blacks and whites think about different subjects? All of this crap is stupid.

The only thing these polls prove is that our race relations in this country are in a bad state. It’s just like when it’s election time. You always hear “so and so is going after the black vote” or “candidate x needs to secure the Latino vote”. If we’re all Americans, shouldn’t it just be the democrat or republican vote?

These polls present more problems than they solve and the conducters of the surveys should be ashamed of themselves. I mean, take the Bonds poll for instance.. Blacks care whether black man A has the homerun record over black man B? If things are really racially based wouldn’t blacks be content either way? But, you can sell more newspapersget more hits on a website if you run out a racially divisive poll. I can’t wait until next week so I can find out how Native Americans feel about the NBA age limit.

American’s conflicted about Bonds’ home run chase. Courtesy of ESPN.com

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WHITE REFS DON’T CARE ABOUT BLACK PLAYERS

A study conducted by Justin Wolfers, an assistant professor of business and public policy at the Wharton School, and Joseph Price, a Cornell graduate student in economics reports that during the 13 seasons from 1991 through 2004, white referees called fouls at a greater rate against black players than against white players. The study also found that black refs called more fouls against white players.

The duo of Wolfers and Price did a lot of research for their study and even submitted the results to the NBA. David Stern had his own team of nerds do some research and they came up with some different results:

“We think our cut at the data is more powerful, more robust, and demonstrates that there is no bias.”

Of course you do Mr. Stern. Unfortunately for Stern the New York Times had 3 independent experts compare the Wolfers-Price paper to the NBA report, and all 3 concluded that the Wolfers and Price study was “far more sound”.

I decided to do my own study and here’s what I discovered:

• Violet Palmer calls fouls against males 100% of the time.
• 12 of the top 20 most foul prone players (min. of 40 games) are black, 5 are foreign born, 3 are white Americans, 2 are O’Neals, 2 are Warriors, 2 are Cavaliers, and 17 are big men (6’9″+).
• Joey Crawford hates Tim Duncan regardless of color.
• Dirk Nowitzki (12) and Chris Kaman (8) led non-blacks in technical fouls.
• Euros don’t foul flagrantly.
• Rasheed Wallace (21 techs) was ejected 1 time while Chucky Atkins (4 techs) was ejected twice.
• I have too much time on my hands.

While I’m poking fun at the study, it does have some interesting information. I can’t wait for the next report: BASEBALL UMPIRES CALL MORE STRIKES AGAINST LATINOS

Study of NBA Sees Racial Bias in Calling Fouls. Thank you The New York Times

NBA players foul statistics. Thank you NBA.com

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