ESPN headline after Jeremy Lin loss: "Chink in the Armor"

Remember the opponents he faced on the court were probably mostly non-asian. It is widely reported he grew up hearing a lot of racist slurs when playing basketball.

 

Can you claim with absolutely 100% certainty that it was intentionally done knowing that they were using a racial epitaph? If not, you have to give them the benefit of the doubt. The headline writer writes hundreds off these a year, if not 1000's. Do you think someone would honestly intentionally use a racial epitaph and think that no one was going to notice? And I think "Chink" is far far worse than "Chinaman".

I'm prone to believe that this was an instance of a lack of awareness and education. They removed it quickly and immediately apologized. And fired the guy which is their right to do so. If they believed it was intentional, then certainly the guy deserves it. But I find it hard to believe that a professional writer would put his career on the line if he understood that what he was doing was genuinely hurtful and not funny. People make mistakes. Better to let the guy meet with Asian American groups and talk to them about why he did what he did and hear from them why this word is hurtful. That's going to do a lot more good than simply firing the guy.

 

Personally, no. I'm only 80% certain.

 

Lack of awareness of how much of a bad reaction the word Chink would garner? Yes. Not knowing what the word meant at all? No way.
At the very least, they knew it was something 'funny' and insulting to call an Asian person and the benefit of the doubt would be them not knowing how insulting it is. But there is no doubt in my mind they knew it was a double entendre.
ESPN never ever using that phrase except related to two incidents involving Asians. And you call that coincidence?

 

Not 100% certainty, but I can say I am certain "beyond reasonable doubt." Which in this country is enough for a criminal conviction.

What if it were a headline contained "N*gger," but the author claimed he meant to type "Bigger" since the letters "B" and "N" were right next to each other, it was an honest mistake. I'm dubious people would be equally forgiving. So why the double-standard?

Furthermore, if people don't realize that "Chink" is a derogatory for Chinese, then it's even more apparent the general public is tremendously ignorant about cultural awareness in the context of Asian Americans and Asian American issues.

 

Hard to judge intent in most cases. What was done was wrong regardless of intent. He was punished, and ESPN apologized. Case closed for me.

And being called a chink is worse than being called a Chinaman. People call me chink when they trying to start crap with me. You know who calls me Chinaman? Old dudes in their 60s and 70s who probably also refer to black people as negroes. Both terms are bad but the latter usually just comes from ignorance.

 

Personally, I'm 98.6% certain.

 

And quite honestly, if the guy wasn't smart enough to realize that putting that headline out there with a Chinese guy right above it wasn't gonna create any problems, then he probably shouldn't be doing anything related to the public. If it wasn't this, then it would have been something else. Regardless of intent, it is a fireable offense. You just have to know better.

 

It's pretty funny that people actually think it could've been coincidence that they put that headline up by accident. What are the chances they'd use that headline with anyone, let alone the only asian athlete making headlines right now. Give me a break. It was intentional.

 

Actually I meant - as far as NBA experience goes. Lin said the college days were bad but surprisingly the NBA feels like a 'family' as literally no player would disrespect him due to his being Asian.

On the other hand, that is because Yao had absorbed all that ten years ago and changed peoples' minds in the league. You won't find Ben Wallace wanting to dunk on the China guy and Amare feeling personal against the Alien from the East. Everybody in the league accepted these foreign looking faces being able to play and as respectable humans. I would say Yao paved the way for Lin to enjoy a smooth ride in the pro.

Now Lin had paved the way for the US college kids, and probably for all other underdogs or minorities in many other fields.

btw Frisco is my hood... but there are racists everywhere. It's a complicated subject...

 

Your "100% certainty" arguement is so lame that it actually make me laugh.

So who can have "100% certainty" of anything? Remember the Tiger Woods fried chicken dinner joke some years ago? Were you one of the people who condemned Zoeller back then? Now, please explain to us how you could have "100% certainty" that it was intentionally done as a racist joke? Do you have "100% certainty" that Zoeller was not just being ignorant?

I honestly think you are just arguing for the sake of arguing. Too bad I don't have "100% certainty" about it.

 

dont know if you realize this but by replying to the post that made you so mad, you basically reposted that screen shot .. are you now mad at yourself for doing that?

 

This is the year 2012 and you would have thought people would have learned by now that kind of stuff has no room in todays supposedly more educated society. The term "chink" is not cool at all.

 

he probably thought no one would care and everyone would just have a chuckle at the chinaman's expense. this is why we need interest groups to complain when something like this happens.

 

Lin's ride was anything but smooth. He never got a single scholarship offer even though he was California high school basketball player of the year and has been in and out of the D-League. How is that smooth?

 

He said the ride was smooth in the pro.

 

How was it smooth in the pro? He got non-guaranteed contract. Played from the end of the bench. Got cut from his hometown team. Got cut again by us around Christmas. Got stuck at the end of the bench on the Knicks. Got sent to the D-League by the Knicks. And lucked into even playing because 3 other PGs were hurt.

 

Didn't see this posted. From Jay Caspian Kang's Article on Grantland:

Of all the news that has come out about Lin's former life — and there hasn't been much — none excited me as much as a screenshot from his Xanga. In a series of captioned photos, a 15-year-old Lin wears a headband in the style of different NBA stars. It's a funny, endearing look into Lin's childhood and hints at a sense of humor that has mostly been absent from his media obligations. But none of the photos or the captions is as telling as the Xanga account's name: ChiNkBaLLa88.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7601157/the-headline-tweet-unfair-significance-jeremy-lin

He doesn't say where he get's Lin's account name from and I'm not internet savvy enough to find it but interesting if true. It still does't make ESPN right in this. More like a "that's our word and only we can use it" situation.

 

I don't think you need to be intentionally racist to get punished. ESPN is in the media business and its employees need to be careful not to put out contents with offensive connotations even if by mistake.

Obviously an intentionally racist remark or even an immature joke with racist implications deserves punishment, but ESPN is also entitled to discipline it's employees for negligent mistakes.

The TV guys's mistake is less serious, thus only the suspension and not firing. The web guy actually had time to think about it and review what he wrote.