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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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the relevant category he belongs to is “black wide receivers in NFL” — before I look it up, would you kindly tell me if you think this category commits more crimes or fewer crimes than the average American?

Well, did you look it up? I'm not going to go through the criminal history of every black NFL wide receiver, but back in 2010 SI did a roundup of wide receivers with legal problems, and identified 6 (plus Chad Johnson, who didn't have any legal issues at the time other than being a diva, and Plaxico Burress, who wasn't in the league, and Marvin Harrison, who was investigated but never charged). Antonio Bryant wasn't on the list but I know he had legal problems while at Pitt so I'll include him, too. There were 178 receivers in the NFL in 2009. I didn't tease out the white receivers but there were so few of them that they didn't make a statistical difference. That gets us to a ballpark estimate of 4% of NFL receivers who have been arrested, at least in 2009. Considering the estimates of all Americans with a criminal record range from 30%–40%, I'd say that NFL receivers commit significantly fewer crimes than the average American. I'm sure there were receivers in 2009 with criminal records I didn't know about, but I doubt it's 10 times more. If you actually have statistics on this, I'm all ears.