Let’s Be Dignified About Linmania

Everyone is getting into Lin fever, but some are doing so in the wrong way, while licking their ego wounds.  On Sunday, after the Knicks win over the Dallas Mavericks, Rex Chapman made a racially charged joke on Twitter.  With the Knicks addition of J.R. Smith, who played in China when the NBA had its lockout, Chapman tweeted,

“I say JR is such a great pick-up 4 the #Lins only because he's been playing the past 6-mo's in China. So easy now 4 him to recognize his PG.”

Obnoxious? Ridiculously backwards? Yes. And if this were an aberration then we’d just shrug it off as one racist tweeting his opinion. However, with the addition of Lin on the team, the surprising amount of racially charged comments has been appalling.

Other Racially Charged Comments

ESPN just announced that it has fired a headline writer for using the phrase, “Chink in the Armor” and it has also suspended anchor Max Bretos who used the exact same phrase on live television.

The use of insensitive material about Lin has been so pervasive, that Saturday Night Live actually opened its show this past weekend with a sketch about sportscasters throwing racially charged and insensitive material about.

Going Back 50 Years

Are we back to the days of Jackie Robinson?  Are we really so petty and backwards that we find the need to demean Lin and his talents by drawing attention to his nationality?

Let’s get back to the game people and watch this amazingly talented young man show us what he’s all about. And it’s definitely got nothing to do with the color of his skin or the slant of his eyes.