Jeremy Lin - Superstar or Flash in the pan

[Logan]

So apparently last night, ESPN's mobile site had a headline of "Chink in the Armor". It was up for about a half hour before being taken down, and they apologized. What are your thoughts? I feel like it is so ridiculously racist, it almost had to be an accident.

[Suburban Rhythm]

Originally Posted by Logan

So apparently last night, ESPN's mobile site had a headline of "Chink in the Armor". It was up for about a half hour before being taken down, and they apologized. What are your thoughts? I feel like it is so ridiculously racist, it almost had to be an accident.

Didn't see it last night, but just caught this

ESPN sorry for offensive headline on Jeremy Lin story - NBA - SI.com

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by Logan

So apparently last night, ESPN's mobile site had a headline of "Chink in the Armor". It was up for about a half hour before being taken down, and they apologized. What are your thoughts? I feel like it is so ridiculously racist, it almost had to be an accident.

Hard to say. I've seen so many bad attempts at wordplay in CNN headlines, for example, that it may have been intentional. This is a common saying, but what was the article and did the title fit? If it was an article about his turnovers, I could see someone just not paying attention when they titled it, but if that was just a sidelight in the article then yeah someone did it intentionally.

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by Logan

So apparently last night, ESPN's mobile site had a headline of "Chink in the Armor". It was up for about a half hour before being taken down, and they apologized. What are your thoughts? I feel like it is so ridiculously racist, it almost had to be an accident.

I guess I'm just oblivious, but I saw the headline last night while it was up and didn't make the correlation. Only after seeing the news report did I realize what it said, shake my head, and say "wow".

It isn't as if I've never heard the term "chink" before, but it really didn't register for me at the time. With that in mind, I guess I can sort of accept that same thing happened for the person writing the title for the story, but it is a really unfortunate accident if that is indeed what happened. And just ridiculously stupid if it was deliberate.

[Young Drachma]

A copy editor trying to be too cute. A massive fail.

[Bigsmooth]

Great word play that a stand up comedian could get away with but not a newspaper.

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by Bigsmooth

Great "racist" word play that a stand up comedian could get away with but not a newspaper.

Fixed for you. Unless you think chink is a commonly acceptable word to use when developing clever terms.

[RainMaker]

Is ESPN really part of the news media though?

[stevew]

I wish that ESPN would stop Indian giving us all this racist shit to talk about

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

Only after seeing the news report did I realize what it said, shake my head, and say "wow". It isn't as if I've never heard the term "chink" before, but it really didn't register for me at the time. With that in mind, I guess I can sort of accept that same thing happened for the person writing the title for the story, but it is a really unfortunate accident if that is indeed what happened. And just ridiculously stupid if it was deliberate.

Pretty much this for me. That's so over the top that I can't imagine how it could have been intentional, so much so that I honestly had to read it at least twice to get what the hubbub was about.

[jaygr]

I feel like it was bad either way. If it was intentionally, obviously it is in horrible taste. If it was a case of an editor missing it, it was still pretty bad.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by jaygr

If it was a case of an editor missing it, it was still pretty bad.

I suspect that, even at ESPN levels, the amount of supervision that takes place during the 24-hour nature of news these days is virtually nil.

[stevew]

Saturday Night Live's Linsanity Cold Open Officially Exhausted The List Of Lin Puns

[molson]

Originally Posted by Bigsmooth

Great word play that a stand up comedian could get away with but not a newspaper.

Great word play?

Even if we lived in some alternative universe where that's not a deragatory racial slur that's always used to insult someone, he's not even chinese. So even if was an acceptable term, you still have the "all asians are the same" thing.

I feel like it's 1987 and doug williams is starting in the super bowl. People are just losing their minds over this. You'd think the world was ready for an asian nba superstar, but i guess in a lot of ways, it wasn't. It's still a big part of the story. We just need a commentator to ask, "how long have you been an asian basketball player?"

[JonInMiddleGA]

Maybe there's a 3rd option for the headline after all: "somebody else said it first"

ESPN statement on offensive Jeremy Lin comments - ESPN

snip We have since learned of a similar reference Friday on ESPN Radio New York. The incidents were separate and different. We have engaged in a thorough review of all three and have taken the following action:

• The ESPN employee responsible for our Mobile headline has been dismissed.

• The ESPNEWS anchor has been suspended for 30 days.

• The radio commentator is not an ESPN employee.

edit to add: When did the ESPNEWS anchor become part of the story? All I knew about was the online headline.

[Young Drachma]

The twittervers and blogosphere raked ESPN over the coals for this. So there was awareness of people who'd been doing these things for days and I think it was critical for folks to know it wasn't just some kind of rubber stamp deal where they say "we fixed it" when the opposite was true.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by stevew

Saturday Night Live's Linsanity Cold Open Officially Exhausted The List Of Lin Puns

lmao

[Wolfpack]

I suspect the headline thing, had it happened rather early on (say, if the Knicks lost the second game Lin played in), then it might not have gained the notice it did now. It was after several good games by Lin that people were starting to get a little twitchy about "Yellow Mamba" jokes and the like (strangely enough, wouldn't this have the effect of making Kobe's "Black Mamba moniker more racial in some way than it was before? I mean, I never considered it as a racial marker, just a sign of respect for Kobe's desire to beat anyone he played). Once the sensitivity started picking up, this sort of headline had no chance of getting by without protest.

[molson]

Originally Posted by Wolfpack

I suspect the headline thing, had it happened rather early on (say, if the Knicks lost the second game Lin played in), then it might not have gained the notice it did now. It was after several good games by Lin that people were starting to get a little twitchy about "Yellow Mamba" jokes and the like (strangely enough, wouldn't this have the effect of making Kobe's "Black Mamba moniker more racial in some way than it was before? I mean, I never considered it as a racial marker, just a sign of respect for Kobe's desire to beat anyone he played). Once the sensitivity started picking up, this sort of headline had no chance of getting by without protest.

Black mamba is actually a thing, yellow mamba is just a racial twist on it.

I'm surprised so many people are seeing this stuff as people being "a little twitchy" and "sensitivity" I'm not the most PC guy in the world but I think we've reached a place, really decades ago, that racial slurs and race-based characterizations are almost never utilized in regular media outside of comedy/gritty satire type stuff. Now, though, is it open question again? Have we taken a step back? Don Imus created a national news story when he called some black basketball players "nappy-headed hos", which was probably racist, but it was pretty indirect. "Chink", and the driving jokes, and the dick size jokes, and the eating dog jokes seems to be to be way, way, way beyond that.

[ColtCrazy]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Maybe there's a 3rd option for the headline after all: "somebody else said it first"

ESPN statement on offensive Jeremy Lin comments - ESPN

snip We have since learned of a similar reference Friday on ESPN Radio New York. The incidents were separate and different. We have engaged in a thorough review of all three and have taken the following action:

• The ESPN employee responsible for our Mobile headline has been dismissed.

• The ESPNEWS anchor has been suspended for 30 days.

• The radio commentator is not an ESPN employee.

edit to add: When did the ESPNEWS anchor become part of the story? All I knew about was the online headline.

Same here. What was the anchor incident? I can't find anything on it anywhere.

Wish I caught the game today. Other than highlights, I haven't seen him play. Would like to see a whole game just to see why he's doing so well.

As for the race issues, it's just a shame...ESPN points out that in the end, a lot of media types are fixated on race. I'd be nice is a good player was simply a good player, but alas...

[Glengoyne]

Originally Posted by molson

...

I'm surprised so many people are seeing this stuff as people being "a little twitchy" and "sensitivity" I'm not the most PC guy in the world but I think we've reached a place, really decades ago, that racial slurs and race-based characterizations are almost never utilized in regular media outside of comedy/gritty satire type stuff...

I don't have the context of the article. However given that "a chink in the armor" is an actual meaningful phrase, I can absolutely see this as unintentional. If the headline was applicable or even on point with the article, then that goes even further and shifts the response into the "over reactive" or "overly sensitive" range.
If the writer was actually intentionally trying to make a play on the phrase, then yeah, this is about as bad as it gets. "Chink" isn't in the debatable racial slur range. Not a gray area at all.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by ColtCrazy

Same here. What was the anchor incident? I can't find anything on it anywhere.

Wish I caught the game today. Other than highlights, I haven't seen him play. Would like to see a whole game just to see why he's doing so well.

As for the race issues, it's just a shame...ESPN points out that in the end, a lot of media types are fixated on race. I'd be nice is a good player was simply a good player, but alas...

The anchor was Max Bretos. He asked a question: "If there is a chink in the armor, where can Lin improve his game?"

a question that would have not even been noticed, let alone got him suspended for 30 days had it been for any other player but Lin.

ESPN fires writer of offensive headline about Jeremy Lin - CNN.com

[jaygr]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

The anchor was Max Bretos. He asked a question: "If there is a chink in the armor, where can Lin improve his game?"

a question that would have not even been noticed, let alone got him suspended for 30 days had it been for any other player but Lin.

ESPN fires writer of offensive headline about Jeremy Lin - CNN.com

An article I saw also said that Max Bretos tweeted that his wife is Asian, so it seems unlikely his was intentional.

[Klinglerware]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

edit to add: When did the ESPNEWS anchor become part of the story? All I knew about was the online headline.

When an ESPNEWS anchor says something when nobody is watching, does he make a sound?

[Wolfpack]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

The anchor was Max Bretos. He asked a question: "If there is a chink in the armor, where can Lin improve his game?"

a question that would have not even been noticed, let alone got him suspended for 30 days had it been for any other player but Lin.

ESPN fires writer of offensive headline about Jeremy Lin - CNN.com

Seriously? That's the context? He got suspended for that?? That's ridiculous. In the context of his job, that was a legitimate question. The headline writer I can understand to some extent because there is no context to the headline and it probably looked worse if it appeared underneath his face (even if my first instinct would never have been to make such an association). But that? That's going overboard. We are seriously going to have to start moving to newspeak at some point because too many words in common English are offending people even in proper context.

[Rizon]

I guess we learn something new every day! I always thought it was "kink in the armor".

[Rizon]

Originally Posted by Rizon

I guess we learn something new every day! I always thought it was "kink in the armor".

Well, I'll be damned!

[ISiddiqui]

Holy crap, that's as ridiculous as the D.C. officially who used the word "niggardly" properly. Heck, this is likely worse, because the "chink in the armor" phrase is used far more widely.

[miami_fan]

I can't wait for the next time someone says Carmelo is a black hole.

[Young Drachma]

'An Outdated And Ignorant Stereotype' - Ta-Nehisi Coates - Entertainment - The Atlantic

Heh. SNL goes there, while ESPN fires the anonymous employee who wrote the "Chink In The Armor" headline for Jeremy Lin. It also suspended Max Bretos for using the phrase in an interview with Walt Frazier. I actually am sympathetic to Bretos.

Making catchy puns is part of writing headlines. Headlines are also written--you actually have to take a moment to think about them. With that in mind, it's really hard to believe that the person who wrote "Chink In The Armor" to describe Lin didn't see the double-entrendre. If they didn't, they shouldn't be writing headlines anyway.

Bretos's case is a little different. The phrase a "chink in the armor" is often applied to the weaknesses of athletes presumed to be unstoppable--not as a pun off of their name or ethnicity, but as a way to strictly describe a weakness in their game. In text you probably want to avoid that sort of phrase--much as you'd want to avoid referring to a Tiger Woods triumph as a "a black day for Woods' opponents," though it would less egregious than a headline.

But I think on air is considerably harder. I can easily see how Bretos used that phrase with no ill-intent at all, and he certainly didn't seem like he was going for a pun. My sense is that ESPN is covering themselves. An on-air apology (in Bretos) case probably would have sufficed.

[larrymcg421]

My guess is that ESPN was confident the headline was racist, but were worried about legal action if they fired the headline writer but didn't take action against an anchor using the same phrase, so they had to give Bretos something.

[Butter]

I bet Bretos wishes he was back at Fox Soccer Channel now, where no one would've noticed if they had a half hour of Asian racism hidden inside a show called "Best 50 goals of all time!!!"

[Easy Mac]

Originally Posted by Butter_of_69

I bet Bretos wishes he was back at Fox Soccer Channel now, where no one would've noticed if they had a half hour of Asian racism hidden inside a show called "Best 50 goals of all time!!!"

I, for one, am glad Bretos landed somewhere where no one has to watch him.

[Easy Mac]

Originally Posted by jaygr

An article I saw also said that Max Bretos tweeted that his wife is Asian, so it seems unlikely his was intentional.

I heard he also has a Jewish cousin and a black friend.

[Dutch]

I've actually forgotten that "chink" was a slang word for a Chineese person. Until now, whew, I'd hate to have forgotten that piece of slander. Now I can re-add it to my subconscious and hope I am never fired for accidentally using it.

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by jaygr

An article I saw also said that Max Bretos tweeted that his wife is Asian, so it seems unlikely his was intentional.

the old "my best friend is black" defense...

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by Easy Mac

I heard he also has a Jewish cousin and a black friend.

My best friend is black, btw you know black people are [insert racist comment here]

[stevew]

I don't know if anyone would want Amare, but he needs to go. He was -18 in Sundays 7 point win vs the Mavs.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Desnudo

the old "my best friend is black" defense...

Marrying someone of that ethnicity is a far cry from "best friend". One, you can exaggerate how close of a friend the ethnic person is - you can't really exaggerate how married you are. Secondly, being married requires a bit more trust than being a best friend.

[Lathum]

I think we have seen the bubble burst with this whole thing. The funny thing is I don't think it will be Lins fault. They have a very rough stretch over the next ten games, Melo is coming back and they will have to learn to play together, plus I think the biggest thing is other teams star players are tired of hearing about Lin and are going to elevate their games when they play him. IMO it is no coincidence Williams went off last night.

I see the Knicks going something like 3-7 over their next ten.

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by Lathum

I think we have seen the bubble burst with this whole thing. The funny thing is I don't think it will be Lins fault. They have a very rough stretch over the next ten games, Melo is coming back and they will have to learn to play together, plus I think the biggest thing is other teams star players are tired of hearing about Lin and are going to elevate their games when they play him. IMO it is no coincidence Williams went off last night.

I see the Knicks going something like 3-7 over their next ten.

He still had 21-7-9 with 4 steals and 3 turnovers (which, considering his issues there, must have seemed like 0 for him), while Deron shot 8-14 from behind the arc.

I don't know that the bubble has burst just yet... I don't see him averaging 20+ppg over the duration of the season, but if he can score, rebound, and pass the ball, I don't see why he can't finish around 15-4-7 for the year, which is impressive.

[Young Drachma]

Yeah, no bubble burst at all. Deron was chucking and he was due for a good game after what Lin did to them the last time the two teams met. Melo was having a hard time adjusting, J.R. Smith is brand new and there's too much change on that team with Amare still acclimating to the team for them to have played well. Plus, they were on a back to back after grinding out a win against Dallas.

I'd hesitate to call the whole thing off and I don't buy them going completely flat. But if it does happens, it'll be a jolt. I doubt Lin is making teams want to "burst' the bubble, because I mean...the idea so many presuppose is that he's all hype, that he's not that good and that eventually he'll come crashing down. But he's proven that he's better than that and I think it's no different than hearing "too much" about Kobe or some other star who plays.

Is Lin on their level? No. But I think dismissing him as a fad at this point is completely ignoring what's happening in the games he's playing and I've watched every one of his starts and it's not a fluke. The kid can ball.

[Lathum]

Political correctness spun completely out of control

New York Knicks' Jeremy Lin -- Ben & Jerry's apologizes for 'Lin-Sanity' flavor - ESPN New York

[Solecismic]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Political correctness spun completely out of control

New York Knicks' Jeremy Lin -- Ben & Jerry's apologizes for 'Lin-Sanity' flavor - ESPN New York

I don't know. I'm not much for political correctness, but this strikes me as Linsensitive. Not to mention Linappropriately opportunistic. Ben and Jerry will get a free pass because of their well-known political views, but this is the first time in this whole Linfantile debate that I've felt uncomfortable. Notice the non-apology apology from Ben and Jerry. They're just happy to get back into the headlines.

[Matthean]

I'm mad because I now want fortune cookies in ice cream.

[miami_fan]

Are those that say he is a smart kid being insensitive? I mean talk about just going to the old stereotype.

[Easy Mac]

No, they're being fucking elitists.

[Klinglerware]

Originally Posted by Easy Mac

No, they're being fucking elitists.

Or is it more elitist to say that Lin isn't that smart because a 3.1 Harvard GPA is actually pretty mediocre?

[M GO BLUE!!!]

Lin needs to come out & say "put the fortune cookies back in the ice cream. there's nothing wrong with a little fun, as long as it doesn't get to the point of stupidity, Confucius say."

[fpres]

As a minority person with multiple ethnicities represented in my family tree, I can honestly say that I'm as offended by fortune cookie flavored ice cream as I would be if Ben and Jerry's introduced a nacho variation or a fried chicken variation. Read into that what you will.