Firing of Several Black Coaches Puts N.F.L. Hiring Under Scrutiny (NYT alert)

How unfair is it to demean a brilliant, say, black person by pointing out that he’s a member of a race that by some statistics is deemed less intelligent.

Life is unfair. Deal with it. Avoid people who won't deal with it.

When you need to make life-critical decisions in a short time frame, with no background information, then you go with the odds. That is "profiling" or "stereotyping", and it is a vital survival skill for all racial and ethnic groups. That is why it never goes away.

And there are observed reasons for those stereotypes. They aren't wrong. They may be incomplete. There are always a large number of exceptions.

Where things go wrong is in ignoring individual exceptions to those stereotypes. As a member of an allegedly superior race or ethnic group (superior for what, exactly?), the hardest thing to accept is that you can always find some individuals from "the other" groups who are smarter, faster, tougher, have better morals, or are better looking that you are. Maybe all of those characteristics.

When you have time for consideration, it can pay off big to discard the stereotypes and look carefully at individual behavior, rather than making snap decisions based on race or ethnic groups. Everybody should do this at least once in a while.

I’m a white person.

I don't care if you are a white person.

Re: Bill O’Brien

Thanks. I completely missed that.

I remember O’Brien coaching at Penn State.

But I have no recollection at all of him being the New England Patriot Offensive Coordinator for one year.

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