No - I'm not turning into Mark Cuban and tracking NBA refs, but I am trying to determine the race of NBA refs as part of a sociology project this semester (write about what you know - right?). I was wondering if any of you with more NBA-watching experience than me (about 0 games per year) knew what race the following officials are:

Bennie Adams
Mark Ayotte
Gary Benson
Sean Corbin
Luis Grillo
Michael Henderson
Anthony Jordan
Courtney Kirkland
Ed Malloy
Monty McCutchen
Rodney Mott
Olandis Poole
Derek Richardson
Michael Smith
Scott Wall


Thanks, everyone!

Check your e-mail.

Drake

Hey Drake.
Glad yer well.
mick

Those are the ones I know for sure off the top of my head.

Michael Henderson is African American. He is #62 - the guys that other NBA refs backed when we was suspended last year for "making a bad call".

Bennie is not white. I think he may be black, but perhaps has another non-white influence. I saw him ref a game but not close enough to tell with extremely high degree of accuracy his skin colour.

What ever happened to the NBA refs website? They had picstures to match names.

Edit: I believe that Michael Smith if African American as well.

[Edited by JugglingReferee on Apr 18th, 2005 at 02:42 PM]

I found the website. It has bios, but I don't think it has any pictures.

http://www.thenbra.org

My mistake. I thought there were pictures. Sorry.

No pictures on NBRA. I basically did a Google image search for the refs and looked at pictures (thankfully there are a lot of jack***es in the NBA who argue with and get ejected by the refs :p)

I'm not quite sure I understand your question. Since the genome project, science has discarded the concept of "race" entirely. There is only commonality of genetic markers. For instance, I am a white male. I have more in common genetically with a black male than I do with a white female.

You might ask your question in the context of skin color, since that is just a genetic marker and since some people still put a non-proportional amount of importance to it. But scientifically, there really is no such thing as "race". There's not even a "human race", but a "human species".

This is going to come as quite a shock to all the racial supremascists, once someone gets them to go to school and take science.

As usual, Mark P. is correct (especially in regard to the 4th quarter not ending until one team is ahead by at least one point :p).

However, I am writing this paper for a sociology class, and I therefore used race in the sociological sense - referring to skin color. When I write my history paper on scientific attitudes toward race in the US circa 1800, I'll be sure to bring in all of the appropriate evolutionary biology.



Amen to that! Stephen Jay Gould, my favorite biologist (yes - I have one) likes to cite Charles Darwin when discussing using bad science to justify discrimination or slavery. "If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin."

Thanks to Padgett for keeping us honest.

Bennie Adams - Black
Mark Ayotte - White? (Rookie)
Gary Benson - White
Sean Corbin - Black
Luis Grillo - Black
Michael Henderson - Black
Anthony Jordan - Black
Courtney Kirkland - Black
Ed Malloy - White
Monty McCutchen - White
Rodney Mott - White
Olandis Poole - Black
Derek Richardson - Black
Michael Smith - Black
Scott Wall - White

Saying there is no "race" is as simplistic as saying that the races should stay separate. It just ain't that clear. Humans are one species and have more in common with each other than with other species, and the species are clearly demarcated genetically. Within the species there are sub groupings -- genetic and biological subgrouping-- but those sub groupings aren't always strongly delineated. Furthermore, as Dexter (not used in a derogatory sense!) points out, there are sociological and cultural factors that further add to the confusion. It's a knotty, complicated question, and to say "there is no such thing as race" is just too easy.

I'll get off my soap box now and let someone else climb on and rant for a while.

This is near the dumbest thread. We all knew what he meant.

I bet ya $5 it will get dumber before too much longer.

I dunno, Juulie - there are some coaches that make me question this assertion.