Is football 'rationally racist'?

[Bruce Wayne]

Ok, some theory first of all.

I read about a psychology/economics study recently that split a group of people into two, employers and employees. The employees were then divided into purple and green groups.

First, the employees were asked to decide whether to spend a specified sum on an education, which would improve their chances on a test.

Then came the test, which, as it turns out, was a simple roll of the dice but a weighted roll which favored those who decided to spend on an education. Choosing not to invest in an education did not mean one would get a poor "score" but it did increase the chances while investing in an education improved one's chances of a good score.

Then came the hiring decision where each "employer" was presented two pieces of info on the employers: His test score and his colour. The employers were then faced with a choice: Hiring a worker who had an education got him extra dollars and hiring one without an education got him docked dollars.

These three steps were done 20 times. Each round, employees had to weigh the cost and benefits of investing in an education against the potential pay off

As the rounds went on information started to accumulate and patterns began to emerge as the web interface revealed average scores and hiring rates of the two colour groups. This was useful info because the employers were basically playing a game of odds and used the information they had to get the best possible odds of bonus cash. Likewise, employees had to weigh the cost and benefits of investing in an education against the potential pay off each round.

Results?

The first round was colour blind since green or purple had no meaning. But from the second round on, employers had more info on colour. As it turns out, more green students paid to get an education in the first round and this information started to emerge in the second round. Hiring rates were also available now by colour. Remember, higher scores don't mean the employee had an education and since it was whether they had an education that got them paid, the employers started using the data to look for hints to get that pay off. On the other side, employees started to see whether gamble of an education was paying off...literally. Greens kept investing more and more since they had good hiring prospects. Purples did not. Why bother? It wasn't paying off. A vicious cycle ensued all the way to round 20.

Another similar experiment was mentioned in the book Freakonomics. Researchers sent out thousands of cv's of varying quality (ie some good, some bad). At random they attached names to the cv's, with some white, or neutral sounding names, and some names that have a strong black association, such as Latoya or Tyrone. White names received 50% more call backs. Yes, better resumes got a lot more call backs, but only for whites. Blacks had a negligible difference.

The basic premise is that this is rational racism, ie that employers have an in built prejudice against blacks that makes them assume the worst, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

Ok, so what's the point of all this? There are currently only two black managers working in English football, and very few black coaches.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/03/12/sfnfro112.xml

Is football 'rationally racist'?

 

[everythingisgood]

I don't think anything can be rationally racist. Its appalling in every sense and I hope there will soon be a more even balance of managers and coaches

 

[Bruce Wayne]

The notion of 'rational racism' isn't suggesting it's a positive thing and it's not attempting to gloss over the abhorrent nature of racism, it's merely pointing out the rationality of making assumptions. Consider the first experiment. No skin colour was involved in the test, yet the recruiters still discriminated against the purple group due to their generalisation of that group.

Human beings make assumptions all the time. In a football context, foreign players are said to be technically better. Are they all? Every single one? Or do we make an assumption? In the Telegraph article they talk to Viv Anderson and Luther Blisset and they discuss how black players were assumed to be merely flair based players in the 80's. Clearly things have progressed a lot since then, but what has caused black players to be taken seriously whilst black coaches havn't? Is there still some underlying assumption that black people are great athletically but not the smartest tools in the box?

 

[everythingisgood]

I personally can't see how it can be rational to discriminate against someone because of their race. Our culture has decided there are differences between races but this is due to the history of how black people have been treated and not to any fact or actualy differences between two races.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Think I'll give up making serious posts.

 

[Dylan]

Bruce, an excellent post. First thing I thought of was 'demographs'

But rather than look at the picture of football, where there is only 2 black manager in the 92 clubs (which is 2.17%). Look at the demographs of the UK. A quick check on wikipedia shows there is 565,876 Black-Caribbean (1.0% overall population), 485,277 Black-African(0.8%) and 97,585 Black-Other (0.2%). So overall the black population makes up 2% of the UK's total population. So, in actuality, black managers are better represented in the English leagues, than say, Indians (1.8%) or Pakistanis (1.3%), or any of the other minorities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom#Demography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premier_league (20 teams)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_league (72 teams)

To sum up, I think to accurately break this down, we need to see the full demographics of the managers in the English game.

 

[SuitsBlue]

Its a bit simplistic isnt it.

In relation to black former players who, lets say, specific to the 70's and 80's played the game for their clubs whilst being abused by opposition fans, i suspect opposition players, and included individuals with the outlook of ron atkinson at then managerial levels, could such treatment have soured the game or potentially put off certain former players from pursuing a career in football after their playing career had finished.

the stats on how many managers are currently employed that were not former players would be a start.

football has been a financially nice career for many players, but only since the dawn of sky has it made so many millionaires, it is possible to discount players (all) from the sky tv era, as being a multi millionaire can sap the thirst for work.

football has changed a lot anyway, players are picked up and developed as young as aged ten, in a lot of cases these players are pushed not only with regards the sport but also towards academic development.
It hasnt always been this way, how many former players actually achieved anything at school, in how many cases was it for players a simple choice of 'football or bust' for their lives?
Imagine how many also rans have fallen by the wayside because a playing career didnt materialise and they had no other skills or education to fall back on.

Where does this leave us with respect to black managers? notable black former players include the likes of ian wright (tv money now), garth crooks (tv money now), chris kamara (tv money now), john barnes (tv money now).

why pick on football? how many black prime ministers do we or have we had?

just found this...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/6376121.stm

Garth Crooks, the BBC broadcaster, former Tottenham striker and football adviser to the Commission for Racial Equality, describes the situation as "appalling".
"Football should be ashamed of itself," he told BBC Sport.
"Bearing in mind the self-confessed tolerance of English football today, it's shocking that Paul Ince and Keith Curle are the only black managers in the league.
"We're certainly not in a position where we can afford to exclude a whole section of society from coaching and management."

so mr crooks finds the situation 'appalling', very nice, thats helpful.
'football should be ashamed of itself', turning up the heat there.
but this takes the biscuit, "We're certainly not in a position where we can afford to exclude a whole section of society from coaching and management."

If he can provide me with solid evidence that anyone, black, white, or anything else has been purposefully discriminated against and therefore excluded from coaching and management then i will get on board with such outlandish and sweeping statements.

How many women coaches are there in the league? how many pakistani or indian managers are there?

seems to me like picking a fight for the sake of it, to throw around accusations and cast aspersions over 'football' is unfair. i dont believe for one second that if any individual is trained enough and committed enough that they wouldnt be given a chance somewhere. might not be straight into the premierleague, how many appointments are made like that?

as for the term 'rationally racist' i dont particularly like it and dont have any faith in the idea behind it. last year there was an issue with the police and it was announced that the police service was 'institutionally racist'. what a crock of [Poor language removed]. how can anything be institutionally racist? the uniforms? the laws? the buildings that such employment is served in? absolutely not. people are racist, and hold racist opinions and ideas. responsibility. dirty word nowadays, and all this mollycoddling of individuals with racist beliefs/actions/attitudes with terms like 'rationally racist' 'institutionally racist' is only to make the problem worse by not tackling it head on.

(if above i have mistyped, or my grammar is off, or punctuation, or that i have misworded a sentence so that it reads in a manner not right and true to my point, then its unfortunate, please highlight it so i can remedy it.)

 

[Bruce Wayne]

The points in my initial post apply to society in general, not just football. I just read an article on black managers in football this morning so it seemed relevant.

As I said, the initial experiment didn't suggest black, blue or whatever, it merely introduced the concept of generalisation into our decision making and the feedback from that. In the experiment because the green group did better with employers, employers then favoured that group in the next round, which in turn discouraged the purple group from getting an education, and so the circle goes on. All of which is where the rationality comes into it, because if you're going to be looked down on in the job market regardless of your efforts it's rational to therefore not try.

Another factor mentioned in the study is the peer pressure. An academic in race issues did a widescale study in schools. He basically asked students to name their friends to get an idea of social circles. To rule against people overexagerating their popularity he judged the size of the circle based on the number of times a person was named. What was interesting is that white people that studied hard had a large circle, whereas black people that studied hard didn't. The hypothesis being that as the vicious circle continues the community rejects those it sees as looking for an escape from it. The same trend is apparently true in many minority groups regardless of race, nationality etc.

Not sure that has direct implications for football but I thought it was interesting anyway. Back to the point though, is it a chicken and egg situation? Do black players go into television because they can't get coaching work or the other way around?

Dylan mentions demographics but would the high proportion of black players form a micro-demographic in the football industry? For instance I used to swim and I can't remember a single top black swimmer (Eric the Eel excluded), so in that sense it would be unexpected to see a black coach. But with so many world class black footballers you would expect more black coaches wouldn't you?

Back to the issue of rationality, because that seems to be a sticking point. In the initial purple/green experiment where race obviously wasn't a factor the participants were angered by the discrimination against 'purples', yet their behaviour was perfectly rational. What is also interesting is that both purples and greens started on an even footing, which clearly hasn't been the case with blacks./

 

[everythingisgood]

.

As I said, the initial experiment didn't suggest black, blue or whatever, it merely introduced the concept of generalisation into our decision making and the feedback from that. In the experiment because the green group did better with employers, employers then favoured that group in the next round, which in turn discouraged the purple group from getting an education, and so the circle goes on. All of which is where the rationality comes into it, because if you're going to be looked down on in the job market regardless of your efforts it's rational to therefore not try.

./

I think I had misunderstood the inital experiment but it makes more sense now, thanks.

Now I understand it a bit more I can see how the term 'rational racism' comes in. Its not just in the job market that these things occur- if I look around my university there is a very low proportion of black students. I don't think that black students are actively discouraged from applying to universities/good jobs but I can imagine that they are given less encouragement.

In terms of football, I think that maybe in years to come we will see more of the black players coming through into management. I do wander if perhaps the racism from the stands that we hear about may discourage black players from taking a more central role in management. Maybe it is easier for them to ignore racist comments when they are directed at them as part of a team, but as a manager they are far more in the spotlight. I don't know.

Sorry Bruce for replying to your original post without really understanding! I think it's an interesting experiment

 

[monty]

Bruce, there is absolutely nothing wrong with your post mate, it picks on imbalances that exist in society. Whether they are institutionalised beliefs, an automatic reaction without constructive thought, or a deliberate act I'm not sure but the problem starts at board room level as at least 80% of fans I'm sure would not be bothered as to creed, race or colour, the same cannot be said within the upper echelons of the game.

The racial problem, which still exists despite all the work being done to remove it, is comparable to the place of women in football. Basically there is no reason why the higher levels of the sport cannot be officiated by women but the sexist reaction is always there. I find it quite startling that so few UK born players of Asian parentage participate in the sport, that is no doubt by choice for many but why when all other racial stereotypes embrace the sport.

When black lads started playing league football you would hear, at all grounds, mocking comments like 'what do they know about football in the jungle', 'what is that black [Poor language removed] doing playing a whiteman's game', I thank God above that we have come along way since then but lets no kid ourselves we still have a long way to go. Perversely racial matters cannot be helped when some teams have very few English players, a large majority of black players because it also feeds the bigots in society doing little to help the national cause. You will never please everyone no matter what colour, race or creed they are, that ambition is tilting at windmills. Constant teaching is the only way and fans must start acting accordingly by asking directors why X has not been considered as a manager especially if X is black

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I'm not sure quite what the answer is, but it's an interesting subject. I've long bemoaned the habit of the usual names being churned up whenever a managerial vacancy becomes available. I don't know quite why that is.

The Telegraph mentioned Viv Anderson and Luther Blissett specifically this morning. Viv Anderson for instance had a successful spell as assistant manager at Middlesborough yet has been unemployed since leaving. Luther Blissett has all his coaching badges and played at the highest level both here and abroad, yet hasn't coached for years. Even Paul Ince had to go down the leagues to get a chance at a time when his contemporaries such as Roy Keane, Mark Hughes, Gareth Southgate, Gary McAllister, Bryan Robson and Stuart Pearce had the chance to start from a higher position in the pyramid.

This is really the crux of my point. The studies I mentioned earlier often split racism into taste racism and rational racism. Taste racism is the general 'I don't like blacks' type attitude that we probably had in the 1980's and before, but rational racism seems to assume a generalised flaw somewhere that then perpetuates itself.

 

[monty]

I'm not sure quite what the answer is, but it's an interesting subject. I've long bemoaned the habit of the usual names being churned up whenever a managerial vacancy becomes available. I don't know quite why that is.

The Telegraph mentioned Viv Anderson and Luther Blissett specifically this morning. Viv Anderson for instance had a successful spell as assistant manager at Middlesborough yet has been unemployed since leaving. Luther Blissett has all his coaching badges and played at the highest level both here and abroad, yet hasn't coached for years. Even Paul Ince had to go down the leagues to get a chance at a time when his contemporaries such as Roy Keane, Mark Hughes, Gareth Southgate, Gary McAllister, Bryan Robson and Stuart Pearce had the chance to start from a higher position in the pyramid.

This is really the crux of my point. The studies I mentioned earlier often split racism into taste racism and rational racism. Taste racism is the general 'I don't like blacks' type attitude that we probably had in the 1980's and before, but rational racism seems to assume a generalised flaw somewhere that then perpetuates itself.

I think the taste element is best describe as institutionalised and can only be broken from grass roots. It is particular surprising when boardrooms across the country claim to support 'kick racism out of sport' yet when it comes to their own level of influence in the game that same racism is ignored to the extent that they act in a manner of 'it doesn't exist' when it clearly does

 

[CanadaToffee]

I recall a similar study in Toronto around 2 - 3 years ago - bearing in mind we're one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world, and allegedly one of the most tolerant. A batch of resumes was sent to 2 separate groups of employers, the only difference beingt the names: batch 1 had standard Anglophile names, batch 2 had names ususally associated with immigrants of Asian and Caribbean origin. Sadly, in this study, the difference in call-backs to the respective batches was enormous (I seem to remember something like 3 times as many) - you can guess which way that went.

Now I have to say that Toronto is, in my experience, one of the most tolerant places I've seen. Yet there still seems to be this inbuilt, almost subconscious prejudice in the corporate world, and by logical extension in our society at large.

 

[chicoazul]

You're so PC Bruce, so PC.

BAN HIM D/D.

 

[Royal Blue Jersey]

Ok, some theory first of all.

I read about a psychology/economics study recently that split a group of people into two, employers and employees. The employees were then divided into purple and green groups.

First, the employees were asked to decide whether to spend a specified sum on an education, which would improve their chances on a test.

Then came the test, which, as it turns out, was a simple roll of the dice but a weighted roll which favored those who decided to spend on an education. Choosing not to invest in an education did not mean one would get a poor "score" but it did increase the chances while investing in an education improved one's chances of a good score.

Then came the hiring decision where each "employer" was presented two pieces of info on the employers: His test score and his colour. The employers were then faced with a choice: Hiring a worker who had an education got him extra dollars and hiring one without an education got him docked dollars.

These three steps were done 20 times. Each round, employees had to weigh the cost and benefits of investing in an education against the potential pay off

As the rounds went on information started to accumulate and patterns began to emerge as the web interface revealed average scores and hiring rates of the two colour groups. This was useful info because the employers were basically playing a game of odds and used the information they had to get the best possible odds of bonus cash. Likewise, employees had to weigh the cost and benefits of investing in an education against the potential pay off each round.

Results?

The first round was colour blind since green or purple had no meaning. But from the second round on, employers had more info on colour. As it turns out, more green students paid to get an education in the first round and this information started to emerge in the second round. Hiring rates were also available now by colour. Remember, higher scores don't mean the employee had an education and since it was whether they had an education that got them paid, the employers started using the data to look for hints to get that pay off. On the other side, employees started to see whether gamble of an education was paying off...literally. Greens kept investing more and more since they had good hiring prospects. Purples did not. Why bother? It wasn't paying off. A vicious cycle ensued all the way to round 20.

Another similar experiment was mentioned in the book Freakonomics. Researchers sent out thousands of cv's of varying quality (ie some good, some bad). At random they attached names to the cv's, with some white, or neutral sounding names, and some names that have a strong black association, such as Latoya or Tyrone. White names received 50% more call backs. Yes, better resumes got a lot more call backs, but only for whites. Blacks had a negligible difference.

The basic premise is that this is rational racism, ie that employers have an in built prejudice against blacks that makes them assume the worst, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

Ok, so what's the point of all this? There are currently only two black managers working in English football, and very few black coaches.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/03/12/sfnfro112.xml

Is football 'rationally racist'?

It's irrelevant.