Linsanity

In case you do not follow what has been going on in the world of sports I will do my best to inform you briefly on the recent sports' culture phenomenon that is Jeremy Lin. Jeremy Lin is the first American-born National Basketball Association (NBA henceforth) player of Chinese or Taiwanese decent (he's Taiwanese) to play in the NBA. Jeremy has been catching headlines from coast to coast in the U.S. as well as, the world. Lin is a global phenomenon because of his Asian decent, drawing crowds from the Asian markets that were losing interest with a lack of presence in the NBA with the retirement of Yao Ming. Jeremy Lin is the point guard for the New York Knickerbockers (The Knicks, henceforth). The Knicks had acquired talented All-Star caliber players Amar'e Stoudemire, Carmelo Anthony, and Tyson Chandler in the last few NBA seasons. With such talent New York, a large market for all facets of the basketball industry, was looking to be relevant once again in the quest for a NBA Championship. The problem was they did not have a solid starting point guard to dictate each game in the way the Knicks operate offensively and defensively under Coach Mike D'Antoni. Jeremy Lin, who came out of Harvard University undrafted by any of the 30 NBA teams was given the chance to play in a game against the New Jersey Nets due to the large amount of injuries to the team in this shortened 66-game regular season (normally 81-game regular season). Jeremy took full advantage by coming off the bench to lead the Knicks to victory. The phenomenon aspect comes in the fact that he continued to lead and sometime be the reason the team achieved victory until after seven straight wins mostly without the recent All-Star free-agent acquisitions. Finally, Jeremy Lin could not guide the Knicks to victory over the New Orleans Hornets and Antony Federico shocked the online sports world with the headline on ESPN's website following the Knicks defeat, "Chink in the Armor."
As an Asian-American, I initially understood the uproar for Federico's head. His obvious and blatant disregard to be socially and politically correct. After listening to Federico's side of the story, and the history of his 20-plus-year editorial career where he has on 100-plus occasions used the same phrase in reference to sports phenomenons once they finally shown some form of weakness.
Using the phrase in its intended meaning, a vulnerable point in a suit of armor. Granted, I can still understand the other side of the argument in that he was being socially irresponsible by not identifying the racial slur. ESPN promptly issued a statement on their website apologizing for the incident, and stated that the editor has been fired and a ESPN commentator that had stated the same phrase has been suspended for two months. Another aspect of understanding Federico is that he is a practicing Christian and apologized to Lin for the misunderstanding and complimented him on being open about his own Christian faith and recent success in the NBA.
Lin's comments about the situation I found interesting in that, he instantly forgave Federico and was sorry that Federico lost his job over a seemly trivial misinterpretation of a choice of phrasing. After talking about newspaper in class and readings recently discussing the newspaper industry for women and minorities, the racism and sexism they continually face with white-male gatekeepers from the beginning of the industry. By the same token, it is both nice to see action taking place in defense of minorities such as Asian-Americans like Jeremy Lin, but it does seem extreme to fire someone who has been working for your company for over 20 years. Federico did not have prior inappropriate instances either which, does not seem fair. I find it very hard to not to judge ESPN's justification for maintaining political correctness, when maintaining the family image is most likely the company's top priority for their public relations. Opposed to actually caring about the Asian-American culture.