By Leland Kim
The recent brouhaha over ESPN’s use of the term “chink in the armor” to reference Jeremy Lin’s turnover-prone loss against the New Orleans Hornets made me think about race relations in the U.S. Let me start off by saying that MOST people (black, white, Asian, Latino, etc.) for the most part have embraced the Jeremy Lin phenomenon, as a feel-good story about an underdog achieving surprising success. Very few have turned this moment into an opportunity to dust off 60-year-old racist taunts and direct them at Lin.
To ESPN’s credit, they acted swiftly and decisively to correct the error and to fire the writer who wrote that racist headline on ESPN.com. Anchor Max Bretos has apologized for his faux pas, and I do believe he did NOT have malicious intent when he said it. His wife is (according to Bretos) Asian after all. I think his 30-day suspension is a bit harsh, but ESPN seems to be sending a message that racist jabs at Jeremy Lin won’t be tolerated.
This is all well and good, but up until a couple of days ago, it seems that sports anchors, writers and retired athletes felt it was perfectly acceptable to take racist jabs at Jeremy Lin. Let’s think about this for a second. No one in the world of sports today would even THINK to make similarly racist jabs and quips against an African American athlete, so why has it been acceptable to target Jeremy Lin?
The sad thing is some of the perpetrators like FOX Sports columnist Jason Whitlock are African American. Surely he and others know how horribly Jackie Robinson was treated when he broke the color barrier in major league baseball. Surely he knows the overt and covert racism Tiger Woods endured in the PGA (and still do), especially during his early years.
Some say Lin is overhyped because he’s Asian. Well, as ESPN pointed out at today’s game, Lin stands shoulder to shoulder to some of the great point guards in the NBA. His 229 points and 86 assists in his first seven NBA starts are better than Magic Johnson’s, Isiah Thomas’, and John Stockton’s stats.
Granted MOST sports analysts and former NBA greats are now giving Lin his due. They were skeptical or cautiously optimistic but with a stellar performance against the Dallas Mavericks today, they’re becoming believers.
Magic Johnson, one of the best point guards in the history of the game, said today: “We don’t have many guards that can do all three. This guy (Lin) can score, pass and lead at the same time.”
I understand the need to be clever and use creative puns in the news. But it’s possible to be imaginative without resorting to juvenile racists double entendres.
Being the first at anything is a heavy burden to bear. Greats like Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson held that distinction with tremendous honor. Jeremy Lin is the first Asian American NBA player to have the potential to reach that level. Before him, guys like me had to resort to NBA Live or NBA 2K12′s “create-a-player” function to custom build an Asian American basketball player who could compete in the NBA.
Time will tell if Lin will become one of the great point guards in NBA history, but he’s shown his considerable character thus far. He quickly accepted responsibility for the loss against the Hornets (even though his teammates also weren’t having a good game), yet gave credit to his teammates and God for the victories he was a part of.
Jeremy Lin is a great AMERICAN story, reaffirming the notion that if you are talented and work hard enough, the sky’s the limit.
