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ESPN's 'chink' headline is no laughing matter
New York Daily News ^ | Thursday, February 23, 2012 | Deanna Fei

Posted on 02/23/2012 11:02:56 AM PST by presidio9

In the days since an ESPN editor slapped a staggeringly offensive headline atop a story about Knicks sensation Jeremy Lin — “Chink in the Armor” — the outrage has mostly simmered down to a question: What the hell was he thinking?

The editor, who was fired, insists that he intended no pun on Lin’s ethnicity — in which case he was guilty only of being bad at his job, because absent the racist reference, the headline is so stale it’s nearly senseless.

Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) has slammed that explanation as preposterous, condemning any use of the word “chink.” Lin himself has said he believes the slur was unintentional and advocates forgiveness.

Meanwhile, plenty of armchair commentators seem dubious of just how offensive the word “chink” really is, while positing that the headline was merely a gaffe, the kind of thing that might happen to anyone at 2:30 in the morning.

But all of this speculation is beside the point. The editor might well have made an honest mistake.

That is precisely the problem.

Most Americans — particularly those who are fastidious about cultural sensitivity and horrified by any charge of racism — don’t think they have anything to learn when it comes to Asian-Americans. They are accustomed to seeing us as model minorities, accepting us as honorary whites (often with the unthinking condescension that term implies) or dismissing us as foreign, exotic or irrelevant. They are not accustomed to one of us becoming an overnight basketball phenom — or to hordes of us shouting our anger at an egregious offense, as is now happening.

Put another way: People don’t worry about making fun of Asians. Not even when it comes to a slur that is, indisputably, as ugly as “the N-word.”

There is no other explanation for how the ESPN editor, whatever his original intention, didn’t think twice before posting the headline. Or for how, in recent weeks, sportswriters and anchors have referenced Asian eyes and penis size — and received, for the most part, only chuckles and winks.

We all have our biases and blind spots, crude jokes we crack behind closed doors. But most Americans carry a collective sense of responsibility for the wrongs committed against African-Americans (as we should), and it has become second nature, in a public discussion, to conscientiously check for words that might carry a whiff of racism.

We know that, in certain contexts, our intention matters less than what others read and see and hear.

That’s why it’s virtually unimaginable that any story about, say, an African-American who is shattering stereotypes and records but then stumbles as Lin did would use the word “niggardly” in the title (even though that word, unlike “chink,” is linguistically unrelated to any slur).

If, by some weird happenstance, that usage did occur to the headline writer in question, you can be sure that he would censor it before his fingers hit the keyboard, or the second he saw his own words on the screen — no matter the time, no matter his deadline.

Asian-Americans don’t seem to merit similar treatment.

Any discussion of our achievements — whether we’re talking about SAT scores or Lin himself — must be contextualized in our history, which is still obscure to all too many.

While this isn’t the place for a lecture, let us at least recall a few milestones in Chinese-American history, from the first coolies purchased to solve a shortage of African slaves; to the railroad workers whose bodies, in the form of 10 tons of bones, were shipped back to China once their hard labor was done; to the Chinese Exclusion Act; to the scientists recruited to strengthen the American military during the Cold War, only to be suspected of spying; to the many American-born victims of bullying still rampant today, with the most heinous recent example being Pvt. Danny Chen, who was driven to suicide partly by taunts that, I’m sure, made liberal use of the word in that headline.

My point is not to catalogue the horrors or to compare the sufferings of one race to another. Neither is it to stifle anyone’s freedom of expression — not least, a sports editor’s prerogative to make a bad pun.

As a writer myself, I don’t agree with Rep. Chu that we need blanket censorship of any word. Perhaps there are occasions when one wants to describe, say, a crack of light beneath a door or the sound of one glass against another or, yes, a weak spot in a suit of armor, and if there is absolutely no chance that a racial slur might be construed by a reader, then “chink” might be just the right word. Probably not, but who can say for sure?

My point is simply that Asian-Americans deserve the same level of respect, particularly when our ethnicity is part of the story, as any other group that has experienced systemic bias. That’s all we need to put that terrible headline behind us and get back to watching the game.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
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1 posted on 02/23/2012 11:02:59 AM PST by presidio9
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To: presidio9

The phrase “a chink in the armor” goes all the way back to medeval times and never had anything to do with Chinese people or Asians in general is taking political correctness to an absurd level. The Democratic PC police are at it again and no conservative worth his/her salt should pander to this BS!


2 posted on 02/23/2012 11:08:04 AM PST by Tamar1973 ("Never care what the other guy has, it is not yours and someone always has more."--isthisnickcool)
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To: presidio9

So what does one now call the material used to fill the space between the logs of the walls of a cabin?


3 posted on 02/23/2012 11:08:10 AM PST by Wiser now (Socialism does not eliminate poverty, it guarantees it.)
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To: presidio9

Man, where’s the barf alert?


4 posted on 02/23/2012 11:12:20 AM PST by Heavyrunner (Socialize this.)
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To: presidio9
As I recall, there was a dustup in the late 90's over the technical terms master and slave as applied to IDE drives in a computer. I think that one municipality (probably in California) forbid the use of those for government computers.
5 posted on 02/23/2012 11:12:31 AM PST by re_nortex (DP...that's what I like about Texas.)
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To: Tamar1973
Put another way: People don’t worry about making fun of Asians. Not even when it comes to a slur that is, indisputably, as ugly as “the N-word.”

Not advocating the use of ANY hurtful racial epithets, but it sounds to me like Miss Fei skipped "Social Studies" in high school. Too bad we don't require kids to learn about US history any more.

6 posted on 02/23/2012 11:13:11 AM PST by presidio9 (catholicscomehome.org)
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To: Tamar1973

Exactly. Not that the liberal media would even had an editorial slant...


7 posted on 02/23/2012 11:16:26 AM PST by bigbob
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To: presidio9

The “victim” of this phrase — Jeremy Lin does not even think about it and is over it, and has in fact PUBLICLY STATED that he has forgiven the man.

Why the heck do these people keep bringing it up for?

It looks like “offended” people will not be happy until the writer gets marked with a scarlet letter and then guillotined.


8 posted on 02/23/2012 11:16:26 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: Tamar1973
The phrase “a chink in the armor” goes all the way back to medeval times...

True, so that makes it a racial pun. In a post-racial world, that's all it would be... a pun. It should be laughed off.

9 posted on 02/23/2012 11:16:37 AM PST by Pearls Before Swine
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To: Tamar1973
The phrase “a chink in the armor” goes all the way back to medeval times and never had anything to do with Chinese people or Asians in general is taking political correctness to an absurd level. The Democratic PC police are at it again and no conservative worth his/her salt should pander to this BS!

Of course the phrase has been around a long time. So has the word "chink" as what has come to be an unacceptable reference to someone of Asian-American origins. Let's not pretend that a headline that says, "Obama Criticized for Niggardly Approach to Funding" would not cause riots in the streets.

There can be no question that the headline intentionally contained a racial epithet towards Lin. Apparently Asians are like Caucasian Christians - in a an era of political correctness, one of the last accepted targets of overt racism.

10 posted on 02/23/2012 11:16:52 AM PST by Palmetto
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To: presidio9
Rush Limbaugh's career as the talk show host that he is today got started in Sacramento because a talk show host on KFBK said "Chinaman" so he had to be fired. You see.

As we whites become less and less the evil majority (well at least, no longer the majority) can we pretty please get others to stop calling us hillbillies, clod hoppers, red necks, trailer trash, honkies, yokels, bumpkins, mics, wops, . . . ?

Wot? No? Well, OK.

11 posted on 02/23/2012 11:17:06 AM PST by WilliamofCarmichael (If modern America's Man on Horseback is out there, Get on the damn horse already!)
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To: bigbob

The liberal media are more slanted than ever. But such a discussion might lead us down a slippery slope...


12 posted on 02/23/2012 11:19:17 AM PST by andy58-in-nh (America does not need to be organized: it needs to be liberated.)
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To: WilliamofCarmichael

Somehow, being called a “cracker” or a “honky” just doesn’t have much “sting”...

Probably the same with the Asians.

“Oh, you make fun of me by associating me with some of the hardest working, successful people in the world? Oh, I greatly offended!”


13 posted on 02/23/2012 11:20:46 AM PST by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter knows whom he's working for)
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To: presidio9

Does my first thought when reading that line mean that I am NOT a racist, or that I am because I didn’t take it that way?

“A chink in one’s armor refers to a weakness, like a crack or gap in a suit of armor, that would make it simpler for an enemy to harm an opponent.”


14 posted on 02/23/2012 11:21:48 AM PST by TheBattman (Isn't the lesser evil... still evil?)
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To: SeekAndFind
The “victim” of this phrase — Jeremy Lin does not even think about it and is over it, and has in fact PUBLICLY STATED that he has forgiven the man.

Notice that none of the 'rightously indignant' hand-wringers ever mention what Jeremy Lin named his own blog - CHINKBALLER

15 posted on 02/23/2012 11:21:48 AM PST by commish (Freedom tastes sweetest to those who have fought to preserve it.)
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To: re_nortex; All; John Robinson
Well...my memory was correct about the technical terms of master and slave causing the PC police to banish them: 'Master' and 'slave' computer labels unacceptable, officials say. And it was indeed in California, Los Angeles to be specific.
16 posted on 02/23/2012 11:22:23 AM PST by re_nortex (DP...that's what I like about Texas.)
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To: presidio9
I am so over ethnic grief. As a Floridian whose family has been in Florida since before it was a state: I have been called Whitey, Honkey, Cracker, White Trash, etc. So what, I am a white cracker from a white trash family.

These people need to get over themselves. I will not submit to white guilt. I nor my father, grandfather, great- grandfather, great-great-grandfather had anything to do with slavery, importing coolies or mexicans.

Grow up people.

17 posted on 02/23/2012 11:22:50 AM PST by yuleeyahoo (Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty. - Calvin Coolidge)
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To: presidio9

Anyone so insecure and thin-skinned about their own ethnicity should leave this melting pot of a country and return to the hellhole they came from. We’d all be better off for it. A sure sign of maturity is people that can laugh at themselves.


18 posted on 02/23/2012 11:26:02 AM PST by TexasRepublic (Socialism is the gospel of envy and the religion of thieves)
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To: presidio9
Too bad we don't require kids to learn about US history any more.

Oh - the DO "learn" about "History" - its just a much different, PC, revised version of history that has little similarity to actual events. In fact, I'm surprised that History textbooks and class registration materials don't include similar language to what TV programs have to scroll across the screen "not based on actual people or events. Any similarity to facts is purely coincidental".

19 posted on 02/23/2012 11:26:15 AM PST by TheBattman (Isn't the lesser evil... still evil?)
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To: presidio9

I suspect it was an attempt to be clever by the editor.

The punishment far outweighed the crime. But, it is ESPN - Extra Sensitive Progressive Network.

It was inappropriate, but come on people, lighten up! Every ethnic group has some names meant to be slanderous, but those things have absolutely no power, unless you give it to them.

- signed:

Part kraut, part cheese eating surrender monkey, and all yankee, brownsfan.


20 posted on 02/23/2012 11:26:15 AM PST by brownsfan (Aldous Huxley and Mike Judge were right.)
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