racist jeremy lin espn headline poll

itk the curly bracket does look a lot like the regular one

lock thread

it's very reassuring/cool http://i.imgur.com/zi7hd.gif
that people are legit freaked out and angry over this instead of letting it slide like Shaq's anti-Asian rant

sorry, re spacing.

its cool that people are vocal and upset, not that it happened

I think someone was trying to sneak one through.

However, there are some early mornings at work where I'll hope through the RSS feeds of the national headlines and some of the headlines will say something like "Loser Coach Gets Booted". I'll click on it to see if that's really the headline and of course it's something like "Houston Nutt To Resign At End of Season".

So it may have been temporary copy, but it's still pretty damn stupid both on a racist level and on a technical level.

kind of 3 and 5. thought they could sneak in some racist trolling.

whiney

tempted to tie it into the acceptable level of racism that permeates a lot of internet humor

Do we really need a whole month to come to the conclusion that "Passive-aggressive action from actual racist working in ESPN"?

Just a heads-up Dave, your screen name is the former screen name of an ILXor who has indicated that she doesn't want it used on the site anymore, I believe because it's involved in some ongoing or past legal wrangling. If you're as cool as you seem to have been much of the last month, I can't imagine why you wouldn't change it if she complains. If you were really really cool, you'd change it without needing a complaint first. To anticipate a "but she uses it as a digital watermark on her artwork," I'd just say that one is googleable and one isn't.

changed

Thank you, Dave.

http://i.imgur.com/zi7hd.gif

cool

http://images.wikia.com/mssam/images/0/01/Hal_9000.gif

"Thank you Dave"

i guess the writer was probably clueless in general, about how offensive that comes across and how the correct usage of that sports journalism meme is working in the letters "lin" in the title. the sort of clueless that is also found in university meme pages.

I refuse to believe espn would hire a writer that would be clueless about a thing like that.

I mean it's espn, but still

I think Sturgeon's Law can be extended to say that 90% of people are clueless, and I can see one of them winding up on the overnight desk at ESPN. voted #3

i voted for some asshole trying to be "clever", though passive-agressive racist action is probably not off the mark either

don't know what i think. those poll options aren't mutually exclusive. it could be the product of any number of things, but there's no way the writer didn't know A) what the word means as relates to race and B) that it's terribly offensive.

They must have known it was offensive but it's just about possible they didn't realise quite how offensive. Either way, i'm not sure any comparable 'joke' would have been made about many other minority groups.

i honestly have no idea

i'd probably go with something like "knew it was racist, but thought it was funny anyway tee hee bad word"

someone should start a sock called dave tool, dave cool's evil twin

miss frogsbs valuable "but me and my friends use that word all the time, it's just funny" perspective

better done than said

xp

i think i should retract part of what i wrote; i don't follow sports but... lousy puns are common practice by these writers, right, so maybe he wasn't high on the lin meme orgy. maybe he just sucks, idk.

p obv (to me at least): "Headline writer thought they could sneak in a "funny" double entendre and no one would notice"

thing is, though, that ILX finds racial humor to be pretty funny sometimes

LONG DUK DONG

all ilxors look alike to dayo, smh

good joke, very good

I can think of plenty of ppl who'd make a "chink in the armour" joke knowing its double meaning, and defend it with "what? Dont you have a sense of humour cmon its FUNNY geddit? chink! ha ha"

...which is a depressing thing about living in aus tbh

someone should start a sock called dave tool, dave cool's evil twin

any dave cool related sock i try to register gets never gets approved

this was obv idiotic but who knows, it's possible the double meaning didn't occur to whoever wrote the headline. it's whoever okayed this that is probably most culpable

also, we have a basketball board

I don't think this needs to be cabined tbh

racist jeremy lin

'chink in the armor' means a small vulnerability in an overwhelming opponent, which the knicks aren't exactly, so it makes zero sense to use it in another racially neutral context imo. considering how sometimes it seems every espn headline is some stupid puns (saints win a game on the road? 'the saints come marching in and beat the home team!' urlacher plays through an injury suffered in week 2? 'grin and bear it!' etc) this one is def someone trying to slip one by.

no does make sense - in this context it just means "maybe he's not invincible after all". not that it couldn't also be a bad pun, it probably was

i mean it does make sense to use it in a way, but espn's tradition of being punny makes me figure it was used here for that purpose and may have not been used otherwise. i wonder how many people something like that has to go through, though.

it certainly did make sense, and even if it was used unintentionally (i'm actually willing to believe this) it's still a fireable offense bcuz one of your jobs as a headline writer is to not write dumb things that unintentionally cause a major controversy and make your employer look terrible

as someone who as worked as a writer and editor of "website news" for four different magazines, I'm guessing the amount of people who saw the headline besides the author is probably somewhere between zero and one.

omar otm, if you really subscribe to the unintentional theory then you have to show how this headline was punny in a way that wasn't racist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CprsGABjLVk

http://frontrow.espn.go.com/2012/02/follow-up-statement-and-action/

the stupidest thing is that the pun doesn't even make sense! jeremy lin is... in the armor? that's a really terrible pun!

no, the racial slur is the pun

right, but it still doesn't make sense

is just outright calling jeremy lin a racial slur a pun? i'm pretty sure it's just straight up racist

The anchor getting suspended for a month seems harsh, he using a turn of phrase he would have used regardless of Lin's race which wasn't true of the headline imo

well yeah it's a racist pun

it make sense if the goal of the headline writer was to create a headline with the meaning that 'jeremy lin is actually fallible,' and so you chose the one expression out of dozens that would pun on a racial slur

yeah that was how I read it

what did the anchor say, i don't even know what that's referring to (to make things worse ESPN used "reference" as a verb, ugh)

he used the phrase 'chink in his armour' re turnovers I think, but it didn't seem to me pre planned, it was part of a discussion and I don't think he was trying to make a pun or a racial comment but i could be wrong.

cozen linked to it a few posts above

one possibility is that the anchor read the headline prior to making those comments - the phrase could have been kicking around in his head

don't feel like looking for timestamps though

i just watched it again and now I'm not sure tbh

They just fired the headline writer but didn't release his name, presumably to keep Dom from googling him

assuming the TV anchor was speaking extemporaneously then it's hard to see that offensive. the headline writer is far more culpable since writing at least allows a moments reflection on what you're saying.

i guess a relevant question is, does this particular saying have any history of being racially coded in this way? (it will from now on, obviously.)

Racially coded? Naw. ESPN's getting railroaded here, like white on rice. Everyone seems to have a slanted opinion on this. Sure it's a little yellow of them to fire the writer but not the TV host, but hey. Doesn't mean everything has to be racially coded, amirite?

i see what you did there

*gong*

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/Linsanity-Postgame-Cold-Open/1386272

linsanity lohan

heiglinsanity lohan

i often wish for disciplinary action on cliched writing in a professional setting, and if it takes charges of racism to make it stick, so be it. For constant unambiguous racist pun headlines though, I turn to the Economist.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2012/02/jeremy-lin-slur-an-honest-mistake-says-fired-espn-editor/1?source=twitter#.T0KA-nJWqvQ

idk I'm willing to believe on some level he didn't 'get what he was doing' because someone who 'got what he was doing' would know that he was gonna lose his job

Bretos tweeted an apology Saturday, writing that: "My wife is Asian, would never intentionally say anything to disrespect her and that community."

sounds like "I get to make offensive comments because I'm married to one/some of my best friends are &c."

*Makes wop joke* - "But my wife is European!"

idk I think it's more like he prob genuinely did not understand that it's as offensive as it is. he prob thought it was like making a germanic pun w/ dirk when really it was like making a hitler pun. idk I think it's hard to believe he really was so intent on sneaking something offensive onto espn that he'd risk his job for it.

haha double idk

yeah that seems pretty plausible... ESPN still should've fired him tho

oh def, people that stupid shouldn't have jobs

His lack of malice seems totally believable, but:
'Federico told the Daily News he understood why he was axed, but added he had used the same phrase "at least 100 times" in past headlines.'

and:
'He said he was particularly remorseful because, like Lin, he considers himself an "outspoken Christian."'

There are subtler crimes going on.

basically you don't have to give him the benefit of the doubt 'maybe he's just stupid' - it is p clear that he is extremely stupid

Maybe it's institutionalized stupidity, though?

I read about this first in the NYT, so I had to guess what the headline said as it was only described in tapdancing fashion.

Bretos tweeted an apology Saturday, writing that: "My wife is Asian, would never intentionally say anything to disrespect her and that community."

sounds like "I get to make offensive comments because I'm married to one/some of my best friends are &c."

― https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0 (dayo), Monday, February 20, 2012 12:30 PM (50 minutes ago)

oh come on man

what?

dayo's right, that is what it sounds like

i am a cynic about this stuff, though

ya but that doesn't rule out that he is fundamentally clueless, also

yeah, but if you're contrite, you're contrite. no need to mention anything beyond that, really

exactly

he wasn't making a pun. it's a very commonly used sports cliche, and i don't see any reason to impugn his sincerity if he says it was unintentional. there's a pretty clear difference between headline writing, where you should obviously be aware of these double meanings (that's more or less your job), and saying something like that in a conversation

well he still probably does not understand the full context of 'the thing he did', remember he is a fundamentally stupid human being

we're talking about the anchor now, right? what has he said that would lead you to believe he's stupid?

I differ w/ kev in that I think it's pretty unlikely he didn't know there was a pun, he just didn't really understand what kinda pun it was.

we're talking about the dude who typed 'chink in the armor'

uh yeah if his wife is asian i'm gonna go ahead and guess he's familiar with that slur

xp no i'm talking about the anchor who said that and was suspended for 30 days

i am totally not defending the headline writer

oh i thought it was the headline writer who had mentioned his asian wife in his apology

...it still seems unnecessary to me

it was the anchor

he wasn't making a pun. it's a very commonly used sports cliche, and i don't see any reason to impugn his sincerity if he says it was unintentional. there's a pretty clear difference between headline writing, where you should obviously be aware of these double meanings (that's more or less your job), and saying something like that in a conversation

― ploppawheelie V (k3vin k.), Monday, February 20, 2012 1:29 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark

hey man, initially ,I wasn't too hard on the anchor either, I'm just pointing out that what he tweeted is a standard default position for ppl who make offensive comments to take, or at the very least smells like it, and is sometimes used to hide the ball.

agnostic on this. there's no way to know what either of these dudes was thinking. whether or not the slurs were intentional, both deserve the punishment they got.

i dunno -- i do feel these guys were 'thrown under the bus' (to use a cliche that i would be equally ok with them being punished for.) inadvertent racial slurs are an inevitable consequence in a culture of overused metaphors and "wacky" wordplay. one of these "linsanity" puns is gonna go over the line, just wait.

I'm glad the writer was fired. Deserved imo.

I genuinely feel bad for Max Bretos. I think the suspension is only the network trying to save face and I believe what he is quoted as saying above. He has worked MLS for years and has always come across as a very enthusiastic sports fan who got his dream gig and ran with it.

I was actually glad he stopped doing play-by-play because he was terrible at it, which is also why I surmise he was reading copy when he said it and probably didn't realize exactly what he said until after the fact when it blew up. When he did play-by-play he was constantly stumbling for words and his goal call was just god-awful.

inadvertent racial slurs are an inevitable consequence in a culture of overused metaphors and "wacky" wordplay.

o rly

it says a lot about ESPN in 2012 that the best you can hope for is that they are *just* incredibly stupid

i've said my piece, still think the anchor caught a raw deal

Dave Zirin's take.

No one at ESPN would talk or write about a lesbian athlete and unconsciously put forth that the woman in question would have a “finger in the dike.” If an African-American player was thought of as stingy, it’s doubtful that anyone at the World Wide Leader would describe that person as “niggardly.” They would never brand a member of a football team as a “Redskin” (wait, scratch that last one.)

i like zirin, but implying that these phrases are used equally as frequently in sports journalism is absurd.

again, apologizing for only the anchor here

what's your point?

think kev's point is that it seems plausible enough that the anchor could use a commonly employed sports trope ad lib without any intention to offend, or to even reference nationality/ethnicity.

Headline writer, not so much

my point is that suspending an anchor for using "chink in the armor" off-the-cuff, given the fact that afaik it has no malicious etymology or connotations to speak of, is ridiculous. saying what he did is not racism; it's not even casual racism. and i think it's bullshit that he's becoming a scapegoat for it. the sanctimony all over the internet is unbearable: good guys win, racists lose, rah-rah, meanwhile this guy who did nothing wrong gets suspended

i'm not trying to minimize how this whole ordeal might affect asian-americans. my point is that i don't think bretos had to take the fall for the point to be made

i'm not trying to minimize how this whole ordeal might affect asian-americans.

and yet that is precisely what you are doing

good guys win, racists lose, rah-rah

I don't think the anchor is racist. I think it's insensitive, stupid and worthy of suspension, but the phrase is racist, not the anchor.

Okay, so no TV announcer would ever say "niggardly", even about some white hockey player, just because it's too close to something else. But innocent phrases like "chink in the armor" or "finger in the dike" do become horrible double-entrendres when used with certain contexts. Dude should've been taught that in Broadcasting 101.

plus he wasn't canned. just got a 1-month suspension, right? i mean, i'm sure he needs the money, but he got off way easier than the editor.

yeah he'll survive

Okay, so no TV announcer would ever say "niggardly", even about some white hockey player, just because it's too close to something else. But innocent phrases like "chink in the armor" or "finger in the dike" do become horrible double-entrendres when used with certain contexts. Dude should've been taught that in Broadcasting 101.

― pplains, Monday, February 20, 2012 6:21 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'd love to be a fly on the wall of this completely hypothetical class

"Circle the phrase that best resembles a racist double-entrendre."

a) stevedore
b) mendacious
3) niggardly
4) blue-footed booby

http://i.imgur.com/X5q5m.jpg

http://deadspin.com/5886232/what-about-his-eyes-other-moments-in-media-stereotyping-or-racism-about-jeremy-lin

http://www.iamyellowperil.com/2012/02/20/linsanity/

*forehead*

O_o

"Akbar, a trendy gay dive in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles."

http://twitlonger.com/show/g2gn26

could do w/o the third paragraph but not bad really

Terrible journalism, should be "chink lin the armor"

...

necessary AND timely

sorry, was pretending i didn't get it

sports editors get fired for less

jay caspian kang weighs in

^word

man, that is a great fucking piece.

Try to understand, everything said about Jeremy Lin, whether glowing, dismissive, or bigoted, doubles as a referendum on where we, as a people, stand. This, by definition, is absurd. But when there's almost no other public representation of your people in the mainstream media, Hollywood, or in politics, you hawk, fervently, over whatever comes your way.

...What I can say is this: "Chink in the Armor" was completely unacceptable and made me seriously reconsider my continued employment with the company. I spent most of Saturday fielding calls, e-mails, and messages about "Chink in the Armor," and I share in the collective anger and exasperation. The response and the apologies seem largely beside the point — the damage was done at the point when we realized that Jeremy Lin had not single-handedly solved racism in America. But I've never seen the Asian American community speak out with such unified force and coherence. Perhaps it's a bit damning that four words about a basketball player sparked such outrage while a tragedy like the death of Private Danny Chen went largely unnoticed, but the fucked-up truth is that the story of Danny Chen might have received its proper respect had it come post-Linsanity.

bombs away

so, my final word on max bretos & k3v k's defense upthread:

when you're speaking through a megaphone like espn.com or on espn TV or radio, intent doesn't matter. what's said matters.

the fact that both max bretos and another espn radio host used the phrase, AND the espn headline used it, all in one night - lightning strikes three times in the same spot? the most likely story seems to me that the headline copy was written, circulated to espn anchors, who then incorporated it into their commentary. in which case...

...if you're wife is asian, and you see that headline, shouldn't alarm bells start ringing in your head? or hell, if your wife is asian, shouldn't you have addressed this phrase much earlier in your career? shouldn't you be aware of slurs that could be and probably have been used against your wife?

and hey, he's only getting 30 days off. all things considered, pretty lucky.

also good reading on this:

http://gothamist.com/2012/02/21/jeff_yang_on_espns_terrible_headlin.php

Also, re: ESPN sportscaster's Max Bretos's suspension, is having an Asian wife (or spouse) really a good excuse for why he didn't mean any harm?

Uh, no. Max, Max, Max, I'm on your side, but "My wife is Asian" is the new "Some of my best friends are black." Just...don't. Love your wife, cherish her, and don't use her as a freaking human shield, kthxbai.

also

http://youngphillypolitics.com/buzz_bissingers_spouts_race_and_jeremy_lin_and_we_all_cringe

lol:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/17/ok-ok-so-jeremy-lin-of-the-new-york-knicks-is-on-fire.html

[Jeremy Lin] has not solved Michael Vick’s dog-killing problem that continues to make him the most hated athlete in America, although he could by opening a Vietnamese-style restaurant with him and carefully planning the menu together.

i saved 2 disk the original image of this thread because i think it might have an important place in the history of awful internet shit. keep the memories alive.

i'm not going to tell you how to feel, dayo - if you were offended by bretos and thought he should have been canned, then that's ok. i obviously can't pretend to be in your shoes. i do think it might be important to consider that it happened pre-headlinegate, because obviously no one would use that expression after what happened with the website. your point that the fact that his wife's asian means he should have already known not to use that phrase is maybe fair; i don't know what the history of using that phrase in a racist context is, tbh - i think it's equally as possible that he genuinely never thought about the phrase that way - i certainly didn't, before this.

i also think equating "my wife is asian and i would never dream of offending her or her community" with the tired "some of my best friends are black" claptrap is maybe not the most precise. but i can see how it might be interpreted similarly, and he probably would have done just as well not to mention that. he certainly doesn't have to apologize to his wife via twitter.

'some of my best wives are asian'

heh why is "some of my best friends are black" "tired claptrap"?

My take on him mentioning his wife was Asian was that he was using that as more evidence that he should have known better, not that he was trying to downplay or mitigate the offensiveness of that headline. (Basically, there's a non-negligible difference between "some of my best friends are [x] and it pains me to realize I may have hurt them" and "some of my best friends are [x] so of course what I did shouldn't be seen as offensive".)

You know, if anything, marrying an Australian has made me even more prejudiced against those bogans.

DJP, that's true in a strict textual sense, but the distinction is very easily collapsed, especially when put in the context of the apology. you might ask, so if your wife wasn't Asian, you wouldn't have been pained to realize that you hurt people in the Asian American community by your actions? and that's just not a good bomb to leave in your apology.

My take on him mentioning his wife was Asian was that he was using that as more evidence that he should have known better, not that he was trying to downplay or mitigate the offensiveness of that headline. (Basically, there's a non-negligible difference between "some of my best friends are [x] and it pains me to realize I may have hurt them" and "some of my best friends are [x] so of course what I did shouldn't be seen as offensive".)

― (thinks and smiles) (DJP), Thursday, February 23, 2012 11:05 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

good point

man I never thought k3v and DJP would agree on anything - jeremy lin brings everybody together

You think the phrase 'chink in his armour' used as a phrase not as a headline "hurts the asian american community"?

in the context of the jeremy lin phenomenon, yes

You know, if anything, marrying an Australian has made me even more prejudiced against those bogans.

Racist against Australasians

DJP, that's true in a strict textual sense, but the distinction is very easily collapsed, especially when put in the context of the apology. you might ask, so if your wife wasn't Asian, you wouldn't have been pained to realize that you hurt people in the Asian American community by your actions? and that's just not a good bomb to leave in your apology.

Well first off, the "pains me to realize" wording was mine, not his.

Secondly, since his entire apology revolves around "I didn't think of the implications of this phrase when I used it", I think what he is trying to say is exactly what he wrote. I don't think he is trying to downplay the offense (which is the "some of my best friends" gambit), I think he's trying to magnify his remorse.

I acknowledge this may be hairsplitting. I also think the suspension is wholly appropriate and dude is lucky he still has a job.

DJP, that's true in a strict textual sense, but the distinction is very easily collapsed, especially when put in the context of the apology. you might ask, so if your wife wasn't Asian, you wouldn't have been pained to realize that you hurt people in the Asian American community by your actions? and that's just not a good bomb to leave in your apology.

― flagp∞st (dayo), Thursday, February 23, 2012 11:15 AM (14 minutes ago)

*exhale* you're right, obviously, in an academic sense. it just seemed genuine to me, and i guess i'm being unreasonably defensive of him when people try to attribute malice to what he did or equate his situation with the headline writer's

I mean, I'm pointing out that that part rang hollow to me, jeff yang & other asian americans are pointing out the same thing - and DJP's point is a valid one, but perhaps one that should be fleshed out in something longer than a 140 character tweet.

right, and i get that.

do you think he should have been suspended?

yep

buzzbissinger@buzzbissinger

Purposely put Vick item in to see what reactions I would get from the righteous PCers afraid of fucking everything. Spikey made my point.

political correctness is ruining america!!~~~~~~~~

I mean, I'm pointing out that that part rang hollow to me, jeff yang & other asian americans are pointing out the same thing - and DJP's point is a valid one, but perhaps one that should be fleshed out in something longer than a 140 character tweet.

The part in bold is unambiguously OTM. Twitter is the devil.

I am a righteous PCer and there are many things I am not afraid to fuck, but I am married and I take my vows seriously

it's speaks to buzz bissinger's privileged worldview that the people he's saying would be offended are righteous PCers.

btw dayo I hope it is clear that I am not approaching this from a standpoint that is attempting to excuse Bretos's original comment. I also think you are justified in finding his apology hollow; I'm mostly explaining why it didn't seem hollow to me (while obv doing a slight kneejerk "must share an opinion on this" because black people are being used as the gold standard stand-in example of racism)

oh yeah, not a problem - the distinction was there to make and I'm glad that you pointed it out!

ha, i'm always "must share an opinion on this" because I'm white and haven't ever said anything racist on national television.

yet

dayo, i feel like you're going easy on me because we're ilx bros. i want to apologize if i'm being insensitive

k3v, no harm no foul! I mean, tbh this is all kind of new to me too - this is the first time in my lifetime that the idea of asian american identity has been discussed on a national level - and a lot of bad stuff has bubbled up along with that, and a lot of good too, and I think it's good to get these things hashed out in the open rather than to wave them away.

yeah... one of the things I liked about the last article posted above was how the author admitted using lame, self-derogatory racial internet IDs in a sort of defensive way. I know some friends like this, and it was hard to exactly spell out why they would do this - I would just shake my head a lot of the time when I saw another handle that used "chinklovah" or "aznballa" type stuff. But I kinda got that when you're like the only Asian guy completely around it gets... weird? Or I wanted to blame it on being in the south? well, this is why I don't write political articles

Stories like this one are the reason fans devote so much time, money and emotional currency to sports. In many or even most facets of life, unlike Hollywood, the good guys don’t win and David doesn’t sling the rock that bops Goliath. Most people don’t even get the chance to play David or Goliath. Far more often that not, rather than an epic, Manichean struggle, one’s life is filled with half-measures, unsolvable or inscrutable problems, maddening inconsistencies and vast shades of grey.

So when a player like Jeremy Lin bursts on to the scene, each foray to the rim a whirling dervish of effort and improbability, and actually vanquishes seemingly far more powerful foes even though, as an extra added burden, he’s surrounded by the Knicks lesser (to say the least) offensive lights, well…one cannot help but feel as though his victory is truly ours, that he is we, finally acting with bravado where we had been timid, rising from obscurity and seizing center stage to become the city’s latest darling.

idk reference to whirling dervishes smacks more of orientalism than that

something about the words "whirling", "rim", and "smacks" in close proximity is making me feel queasy

the real crime tho is the really terrible prose styling

"whirling dervish of effort and improbability" wtf

second graf is one sentence with an ellipsis in it

and a parenthetical

only reason to write "he is we" instead of "he is us" is because you have some congenital fear that "he is us" is grammatically wrong somehow even though it sounds less stupid

"as an extra added burden"

pick one adjective plz

whose livejournal is this from anyway buzza

"Jeremy Lin is good at basketball therefore we are all Nietzschean übermenschen"

http://knickerblogger.net/some-additional-thoughts-about-jeremy-lin-yeah-i-know-hes-been-covered-seven-ways-from-sunday-but-inuldge-me/

no interest whatsoever in indulging this guy with further critiques of his shitty writing, going to bed now

I think someone was trying to sneak one through.

However, there are some early mornings at work where I'll hope through the RSS feeds of the national headlines and some of the headlines will say something like "Loser Coach Gets Booted". I'll click on it to see if that's really the headline and of course it's something like "Houston Nutt To Resign At End of Season".

So it may have been temporary copy, but it's still pretty damn stupid both on a racist level and on a technical level.

― pplains, Saturday, February 18, 2012 4:10 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Here's an example of what I was talking about. It's not racist, but still borderline wtf.

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/6158/screenshot20120224at851.png

That link with the logo on it goes to this story:

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/6158/screenshot20120224at851.png

Oh, and this is just one of the Top 10 high school recruits. (Signed with Maryland)

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/nghapLZI0ZmywbJdh0fIzw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTYzMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/sptuspreprally/Stefon-Diggs-Jeremy-Lin-Tweet-Twitter.jpg

EGG ROLL and DUMPLINGS!.

At first I thought he was being tacky about Chinese food until I imagined what the two look like together.

then you realized he was being tacky about Chinese food and genitalia

fooditalia

Food and genitalia are separated in my brain on purpose, yes.

egg roll and DUMPLINGS! was made famous by jin

Asian American Journalists Association releases guidelines on Jeremy Lin media coverage

I seriously thought that would lead to The Onion

wtf society, we are doomed

also plz plz plz tell me no one has actually said "ME LOVE YOU LIN TIME", that is horrifying

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ny post had LIN-EPT today which was pretty good

DRIVING: This is part of the sport of basketball, but resist the temptation to refer to an "Asian who knows how to drive."

also wtf @ "YELLOW MAMBA"

really wtf that this had to be published

http://aajaonline.tumblr.com

i can imagine this being typed out accompanied every twenty second by a heavy sigh and a head shake.

I think there are a lot of ignorant people out there who don't realize assigning that color to East Asians is offensive. Any time some ol' rambler goes on about not caring if they're white, black, yellow or purple, etc.

And now this: I thought Taiwanese people considered themselves Chinese. They acknowledge that their land would be a part of China were it not for the communists. Cubans in Miami still consider themselves Cuban. Am I wrong?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/49/Aja_album_cover.jpg

(And cool coincidence btw.)

also wtf @ "YELLOW MAMBA"

espn showed someone holding a YELLOW MAMBA sign in, like, lin's third game

great article, but yeah

i can imagine this being typed out accompanied every twenty second by a heavy sigh and a head shake.

― omar little, Friday, February 24, 2012 4:38 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://celebrities.alltopics.com/nba-sensation-jeremy-%E2%80%98chinkballa%E2%80%99-lin-pokes-fun-nba-players-age-15.html

espn showed someone holding a YELLOW MAMBA sign in, like, lin's third game

I saw that on Google

I've been doing my usual "follow sport by reading standings charts/recaps after the fact" thing so I've missed a good chunk of the nonsense

age 15 racist jeremy lin

the funny thing about the YELLOW MAMBA thing is that it's a take off of kobe bryant calling himself BLACK MAMBA except whoever made the sign didn't realize that kobe was adopting the name of a real species and not calling himself "an african-american snake"

yes but people have since riffed on the "____ mamba" thing

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nD44Qz06pRE/Te8Or58tynI/AAAAAAAABD0/jArqCHPiPrA/s1600/the_white_mamba_brian_scalabrine_chicago_bulls_basketball-thumb-autox379-338752.jpg

fwiw i think i heard a piece on the radio where someone was in china interviewing ppl and his nickname there was 'yellow mamba' (but in whatever dialect they were speaking, obv, not english) and the reporter made a point of saying 'that is not considered an offensive term here'

of course it's bad/nagl here in the states but \(o_o)/

white mamba thing has been huge in chicago

Black people don't mind being called black, though there are alternate terms. White people aren't offended by their term unless they've got some real burr up their ass about something.

But yellow and red are not appropriate colors. I know it's confusing because some are okay and some aren't, but that's how it works.

Signed,

A White Person Who Feels He Has to Comment Incessantly About Race

And now this: I thought Taiwanese people considered themselves Chinese.

Some do, some don't. It's safer not to assume one way or the other. Officially Taiwan is the "Republic Of China" but not all Taiwanese people are comfortable being described as "Chinese".

great article, but yeah

i can imagine this being typed out accompanied every twenty second by a heavy sigh and a head shake.

― omar little, Friday, February 24, 2012 4:38 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― goole, Friday, February 24, 2012 5:43 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

that's how I read it, as I remembered seeing almost all of those in an actual headline or article over the past month

And now this: I thought Taiwanese people considered themselves Chinese. They acknowledge that their land would be a part of China were it not for the communists. Cubans in Miami still consider themselves Cuban. Am I wrong?

― pplains, Friday, February 24, 2012 5:40 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

it's a very, very complicated question!

I hate to be all "I had a roommate in college", but I had a roommate in college who was from Taiwan. He considered himself Chinese. It's not like they seceded.

and I know taiwanese-americans who consider themselves taiwanese. it's a very, very complicated question!

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/assets_c/2012/02/linsanitybenandjerrys1-thumb-520x681-64947.jpg

Ben & Jerry's launches 'Lin-Sanity' flavor, takes out fortune cookie ingredient

1) can't believe that's not simply a photoshop but a real thing
2) included fortune cookie ingredient 0_0 come on dudes

The hell is going on.

outside of the racism that seems like it would be pretty crappy ice cream

hmm honey vanilla and wafers. Now that's worth $3.95 for a quart.

Sounds like a health milkshake.

outside of the racism that seems like it would be pretty crappy ice cream

The racism really ties the flavor palette together though.

it's lychee honey vanilla

honey? crunchy things? omg what a disaster for ice cream.

why yogurt tho is my question

orientals love ice cream more than any race imo

haha they shoulda made it lactose free

haagen daaz is a thing in asia

or just fill the container w/ rice maybe

^ yes i was thinking that too! xp

xxp

i had rice pudding gelatto once and it was amazing

http://i.imgur.com/ThB3F.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/15Ac1.jpg

This guy is far from being the first Asian-American player in the NBA or in any sport. It's not like the country went wild with Godzilla references over Ichiro Suzuki. Why has Jeremy Lin (JEREMY!) somehow uncovered a festering national pile of Charlie Chan jokes?

http://i.imgur.com/54qEM.jpg

ice cream chocolate fondue?

http://i.imgur.com/QKA4s.jpg

ichiro is asian-american? xp

there really isn't an asian-american male who has ever had the spotlight in a way that lin has it today, I think the whole thing is prob more interesting *outside* of the sports context

tiger woods?

well he's not. Even more excuse for the crazy racism, if there's any excuse.

suzuki.

But it's not like Yao Ming arrived in Houston and some Texan millionaire went "Know what we should do? How about tacos filled with egg rolls instead of shredded beef! Call it the Yao Ming!"

him being asian-american instead of asian has everything to do with it imo

right. there is a huge gap between yao ming / ich / jackie chan and people who speak english as a first language

i was trollng with that tiger post btw

and there are maybe like 3 famous asian american females

related to thred title: this is the guy

http://gothamist.com/attachments/byakas/22212espn.jpg

I feel like players who come from asian professional leagues have a 'stamp of approval' on them - they're supposed to be the best of the best already

tbf if dude had gone to kansas or carolina and been drafted i don't think (quite) the same sort of thing would be going on

as it is, i want him to call someone a round-eye motherfucker

that's the thing, though, is that kansa or unc would prob never have picked him up no matter how good he was in college

not unless he was like, 7'0

dunno -- i think you underestimate college coaches' self-interest

I think it's also kinda a slow news cycle

like he would be a story regardless, but there's not some national pressing story right now, election pretty boring, so this helps fill the void

I'm sure this was discussed upthread, but its also a huge deal that he happened to the knicks specifically

also holy shit for this guy to be out of nowhere the top story everywhere

i occasionally have fantasies about how well i would handle such a thing, but needless to say i've not been tested

ilx project imo

^^^my public relations rep tbh

dunno -- i think you underestimate college coaches' self-interest

― mookieproof, Friday, February 24, 2012 10:35 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

idk, 0.5% of ncaa basketball players are asian-americans - it's not a... received notion that asian american players can be good at bball

'thank you all for coming. I can confirm that my client did make those comments about jeremy lin, but can explain everything....'

dunno -- i think you underestimate college coaches' self-interest

UNC and Kansas had the chance to get him and ignored him. Everyone except Harvard and Brown ignored him.

yes, but if an asian-american high school player were considered awesome, i don't at all think college coaches would be like fuck that guy

the rating of high school players is more problematic, on any number of levels

UNC and Kansas had the chance to get him and ignored him. Everyone except Harvard and Brown ignored him.

do you think this was prejudice or shitty scouting?

High school career

In his senior year in 2005–2006, Lin captained Palo Alto High School to a 32–1 record and upset nationally ranked Mater Dei, 51–47, for the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Division II state title.[16][17] He was named first-team All-State and Northern California Division II Player of the Year, ending his senior year averaging 15.1 points, 7.1 assists, 6.2 rebounds and 5.0 steals.[16]

I know it's not like he played for one of the prep schools known for feeding D1 schools, but still, he sent his tapes to UCLA, stanford, other D1 schools.

mookie, this has been covered before but there are def stereotypes out there that asians in general are just bad at sports, are slower, smaller, weaker, etc. and it wouldn't surprise me at all to find out that scouts harbor those stereotypes either consciously or unconsciously.

ok. it wouldn't surprise me in the least to have scouts harbor stereotypes either.

i'm claiming (hoping?) that basketball coaches want to win more than they want to be discriminatory. let us hope that #17's emergence fosters a broader net for their trawling.

mookie I am sure they believe that too, but that doesn't mean their decision making doesn't incorporate received wisdom / stereotypes / etc.

like they don't 'want to be discriminatory' they are just bad at making race-neutral judgments

t's not like the country went wild with Godzilla references over Ichiro Suzuki

like they don't 'want to be discriminatory' they are just bad at making race-neutral judgments

― iatee, Friday, February 24, 2012 10:00 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

bingo

http://deadspin.com/5888295/

was posted in the 'is this racist'

I know that east asian romanization conventions are hard (nevermind that we've had at least 10 years of exposure to such via yao ming), and this guy's name is a potential minefield - both dong, and gook, in one name ! - but very conveniently his surname is totally ordinary and bypasses the other two words entirely!

insane that its ESPN AGAIN

Lee Dong-Gook stats for season

2007–2008 	Middlesbrough 	23 	(0)

lol lin went to palo alto

I just remember I have a friend who went to palo alto and is also taiwanese-american

remembered

I also have a friend who went to palo alto and is taiwanese-american (haha I already told dayo this tho)

Weird thing is that in the article, they do use Lee where a surname would be used.

isn't lee the surname?

Yeah, that's what I meant.

So they did it right in the story, but went the wrong way in the headline.

Racist headline writers are taking over America.

my wife made a comment the other day to the effect that 'Headline writer innocently didn't think/know of racist meaning to the word "chink"' was her take on this and i was all oh shit you did not just say that, trust me you're wrong

Yeah, you'd have to be living under a rock not to know. I learned the word at like age 9 or 10 from an episode of Sanford and Son.

even those in my circle that are the type that go out of their way to defend indefensible people kind of backed down on defending this guy...

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/ben-jerry-replaces-fortune-cookies-lin-sanity-flavor-162728739.html

also, not racist but...kinda creates an image I don't think Yahoo! intended to:

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/6177/lolsqb.jpg

I still think the headline writer made an innocent (read: not malicious/intentional) mistake, but he should still get fired for the crime of being too fucking stupid to do his job correctly

The most OTM part of this is that dude's firing was justified regardless of intent.

yeah, actually, if you think dude should have kept his job for any reason, it's a pretty good litmus test for "You might be a racist if..."

i'm sort of been mesmerized by the idea of having fortune cookie pieces in my ice cream since this ben & jerry's thing

i'd gladly enjoy that flavor combo even if it meant tacitly supporting casual racism tbh

It should have been cherry froyo to represent Harvard IMO

xxxxpost except that I think that "chink in the armor" wouldn't have made sense in any other context. The dude had only completed his 9th start at the time (and only 10th game in where he appeared for more than 30 minutes). "Chink in the armor" in a sports context is used to describe some kind of powerhouse (player, team), that has previously seemed indestructible that now exhibits a visible flaw, like if Michael Jordan had ever lost in the Finals.

It's not a phrase that makes sense to use for a player who most of the world hadn't heard of a month earlier, that had a series of hot games (with noticeable flaws), and then just had an off night. That's why I think the author was intentionally making a pun, because had it been any other player, I don't think he would have chosen those words. My money is more on the idea that he didn't think "Chink" was offensive, or that he was being cute.

or that he THOUGHT he was being cute, that should say

no, it made sense, we've been over this. it was a stupid and offensive headline, which is why he was fired

have you guys ever had lychee flavored anything? it's awesome

in martinis and yes it is awesome

Yes lychee is great

Lychees are delicious, canned or fresh. (/food derail)

xp

xxxxpost It made sense in that people ostensibly knew what the copy writer meant. But it wasn't used properly. "Chink in the armor" is a term that makes more sense when applied to, like, the Boston Celtics losing back to back games in the 2007 NBA Playoffs, than to describe a turnover prone PG that just moved into the starting lineup having an off night.

Regardless, he deserved to be fired, but since this thread is about the author's "intent"....

I don't believe I've had lychee

I usually buy canned lychees because fresh lychees are so hit-or-miss. either fresh and unbelievably sweet and tasty, or they're unripe and sour or too ripe and off...

i'm sort of been mesmerized by the idea of having fortune cookie pieces in my ice cream since this ben & jerry's thing

The article said part of the reason they took them out is the cookie bits got too soggy. It would probably work if you added them on your own.

look for these in the candy section of ye international grocery:

http://cn1.kaboodle.com/hi/img/2/0/0/f5/6/AAAAAr6W4O8AAAAAAPVmgQ.jpg?v=1208747337000

xpost racisttoppings.jpg

"Chink in the armor" in a sports context is used to describe some kind of powerhouse (player, team), that has previously seemed indestructible that now exhibits a visible flaw, like if Michael Jordan had ever lost in the Finals.

Wasn't Lin being discussed as a powerhouse player though?

I have no idea what happened in this game where the writer used this headline tho

similarly, I am addicted to these:

http://i.imgur.com/FzCVR.jpg

it made sense... he had never really had anything close to a bad game before the one the headline was referencing

xxpost Yes, at the time he had just come off of a series of about 9 straight "o wau" games, including several where he won the game in closing moments. I just think "chink in the armor" being used for a player that had less than ten starts under his belt would be a bit premature.

Kind of wonder what kind of shitty pun the writer might have used if he wasn't Asian.

"Lincapable of Knicktory"

http://gaygamer.net/images/dogarmor.jpg

pug in the armor

i only post on racism, rap, and meta threads. My transition to becoming Dom Passantino is complete.

well they lifted your permaban, so don't go celebrating just yet

http://www.anybooze.com/ekmps/shops/anyboozecom/images/kwai-feh-lychee-liqueur-223-p.jpg

lychee schnapps <3

(though I admit the fake-Chinese name and design are a bit questionable for a drink made in the Netherlands, but, uh)

racist fonts really upset me more than racist headlines for some reason.

I once had some fresh lychees soaked in vodka. Super tasty + oh shit I'm drunk.

Easy way for Ben & Jerry's to have headed off that racial stereotyping dust-up: ask Jeremy Lin what kind of ice cream flavors he likes to eat, then play off those flavors to design a "Lin-sanity" flavor. <--- That will be a $50,000 retro-consulting fee, plz, and worth every penny I might add.

"Chink in the armor" would make sense if there were suddenly a specific, major flaw in Lin's play that lost them the game, like he suddenly couldn't pass. That wasn't even the case in the headline game, they just lost, and most of Lin's flaws were already known. Turns the ball over, can't go left, etc..

B&J: so what's your favorite...
JL: stinky tofu!
B&J: ...

http://i.imgur.com/8a1nH.jpg

^^ would work well as part of the overall insanity theme.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

jeremy who?

racist jeremy lin

barkley will be pretty matty ice but that's still pretty good

the vague sadness of polls that went on too long

Yep, Linsanity came, then went for about 5 games, now hopefully is coming back.

http://i.imgur.com/l1jQQ.jpg

I was at the ACC for Linsanity last night. Not very insane--six points, I think. It reminded me of driving to Detroit with my dad in '94 to see Griffey, and he didn't get the ball out of the infield.

yeah, that was hugely disappointing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvaM0pMj-8o

oh thought this was in ILH