College professors are now researching whether or not people are racist towards black quarterbacks.
University of Colorado-Boulder professor and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore Edson Tandoc wrote two scholarly articles about how people judge black quarterbacks.
The College Fix has a great run down of the study. They report in part:
In “The Spiral of Stereotyping: Social Identity Theory and NFL Quarterbacks” and “Race and the Deep Ball: Applying Stereotypes to NFL Quarterbacks,” Ferrucci and Tandoc argue the stereotypes used to describe black and white quarterbacks fall within a “brains-versus-brawn dichotomy.”
The articles, co-bylined by the scholars and published this year, claim that whereas white quarterbacks are described as having intelligence and leadership, black quarterbacks are often referred to as strong or naturally gifted. The professors state these characteristics can be seen as positive, but allege the discrepancy in how black and white quarterbacks are described contains a dangerous bias.
…
In their first study, white participants were more likely to “rate black players higher in physical strength and natural ability than white players.” This finding, the authors argued, showed that white individuals “stereotyped the ‘other.’” However, a second study from the professors found that black people also stereotype African-American quarterbacks based on natural ability “more strongly” than whites.
This is one of the most exhausting arguments I hear in sports, and it just gets so tiring. It’s not racist to call Cam Newton a dual-threat quarterback. Nobody calls him that because he’s black. They call Newton a dual-threat quarterback who can run because we’ve all watched him keep it on the option and tear down the field.
Houston Texans quarterback DeShaun Watson has a great arm, but he also has some serious wheels on him. You know who else was a great dual-threat quarterback? Johnny Manziel during his time at Texas A&M. Is it racist to call him dual-threat?
Sports are supposed to be an escape from all the garbage in the regular world. It doesn’t matter where you come, it doesn’t matter your skin color and your religion doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is whether or not you can win.
Can we stop with all the fake outrage and dumb accusations of racism? I’ll take a quarterback who is gay, Muslim and transgender if the dude can get me to the Super Bowl.
Some people would just really be better off if they didn’t talk about sports and stick to their actual fields of knowledge.