Retired Black players say NFL brain-injury payouts show bias

[Nevilledog]

https://apnews.com/article/health-nfl-race-and-ethnicity-sports-066d9fd6bd85f5b5023207467701fde4

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Thousands of retired Black professional football players, their families and supporters are demanding an end to the controversial use of “race-norming” to determine which players are eligible for payouts in the NFL’s $1 billion settlement of brain injury claims, a system experts say is discriminatory.

Former Washington running back Ken Jenkins, 60, and his wife Amy Lewis on Friday delivered 50,000 petitions demanding equal treatment for Black players to Senior U.S. District Judge Anita B. Brody in Philadelphia, who is overseeing the massive settlement. Former players who suffer dementia or other diagnoses can be eligible for a payout.

Under the settlement, however, the NFL has insisted on using a scoring algorithm on the dementia testing that assumes Black men start with lower cognitive skills. They must therefore score much lower than whites to show enough mental decline to win an award. The practice, which went unnoticed until 2018, has made it harder for Black former players to get awards.

“My reaction was, ‘Well, here we go again,’” said Jenkins, a former running back. “It’s the same old nonsense for Black folks, to have to deal with some insidious, convoluted deals that are being made.” Jenkins is now an insurance executive and is not experiencing any cognitive problems, but has plenty of NFL friends who are less fortunate.

*snip*

[madaboutharry]

1. This is some last century bullshit.

[hedda_foil]

2. Sickening.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. K&R

[Hugh_Lebowski]

4. WTF WOW!?! nt

[TreasonousBastard]

5. Wouldn't this be a good reason for Black players to strike?

[stopdiggin]

6. the teams do some cognitive testing

(I have no idea how extensive) upon entry to the league (or perhaps during the combines and draft process). I know this because there is occasionally scuttlebutt about this or that prospect kinda' 'tanked' on these tests. Doesn't mean they don't eventually get drafted.

However -- by and large athletes score above average on IQ tests -- and given that as established benchmark, I would think the NFL would have a hard time defending 'race norming' of cognition -- unless they had very compelling data regarding the specific pool that is NFL players. And, in any case -- what a complete and utter public relations nightmare. And totally self inflicted. Hard to imagine who would have been so brain dead .... To not only propose -- but then insist ....

("went unnoticed until 2018 .." Ummm -- where the hell is the players union?)

[Ms. Toad]

7. What decade are we in????

That sounds like a 50s era settlement, rather than one reached in 2013.