Article pointing finger at Racist Referees

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by dsqrddgd909

"Year after year, children's dreams are deferred by questionable calls that appear to be biased" (Original article in question.)

The original author did not use the word racism. He did use the word biased, and he says in the rest of the article that the risk of bias increases without diversity. I wonder what the author would deem acceptable diversity in the following situations? If we have two mostly African-American schools? Two all whiite schools? Two schools with sizeable Native American populations? Asian? Gay? Transgender? Muslim? Hispanic?

Why do people want to compare these issues with groups that are not involved? Forgive me but I doubt in Indiana in the Midwest there are "gay" or Trans gender schools. That is not the issue and this is why people can never have these discussions seriously because someone wants to avoid the real issue.

Originally Posted by dsqrddgd909

I know there is racism. I know there are racist people in basketball. I think we should encourage all sorts of people to become refs. But who will decide what is a diverse crew?

Funny, I did not read the word "racism" in this article. He talked about diversity. It has been said in many circles that certain individuals do not know how to referee certain groups of people because they have been exposed to those groups of people. For example where I live there are officials in certain areas that are not exposed to some of the best players and teams because they never work those teams during the season. Then when the post season comes, the officials that were working their games never see those teams or never get an opportunity to work in the post season at all. Now is that because of "racism." Maybe institutionally, but not personally or consciously there is an attempt to avoid diversity. Even in officiating where the sport is very diverse, many African-American officials are getting the short end of the stick. That being said, I have been exposed to places where there is a conscious effort to find and look for officials that are of all colors or genders. IT is not perfect, but it is a lot better than it used to be.

Originally Posted by dsqrddgd909

On a more general point, are we ever going to come to the place that Dr. King talked about?

If you think Dr. King was talking about not ever mentioning issues of race, you did not know much about Dr. King.

Peace