racist jeremy lin espn headline poll

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