Daily Archives: February 22, 2012

Feb 22 2012

Perspective Dictates Opinion On Lin

There are times when a subject requires discussion and times when it is best left alone.

To this point, I purposely avoided the Jeremy Lin frenzy. My reason has more to do with the over-saturation of the topic than anything else. That and I’m not really an NBA fan. But I cover sports, the story is still big and I came across the tweet above which prompted this.

Yes, he’s a great story. Yes, he is of Asian descent. Yes, he plays in New York. Throw all those together in a bowl, turn on the ESPN mixing machine and you have a huge story. A late ingredient to the ESPN-mix, however, has been the “Chink In The Armor” controversy.

The resulting firing of one ESPN staffer as well as another being suspended has brought the topic of race to sports. Depending upon who you ask, the discipline ESPN meted out was either horribly wrong or perfectly justified.

As I read varying opinions on this, including the tweet above, it brings me back to a tweet from my friend below:

Know this. My friend “Sugalean” has seen much in his years. I absolutely respect his opinion. He has probably seen more in his lifetime when it comes to racial issues than I will ever know. As a Hispanic woman, I’ve had some experience but nothing to come close to what he has. But, his tweet prompted me to dig a little deeper.

Our conversation continued to a stalemate. No hard feelings, just an honest to goodness dialogue. We disagree about race being part of the story.

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As I stated above, the Jeremy Lin story involves multiple dynamics: New York, his story, and yes, race. Don’t believe me?

And if race wasn’t part of the story, why the uproar over the ESPN headline?

Why? Because race is part of the Jeremy Lin story. Not the whole package, mind you, but it contributes to the explosion of Lin coverage.

And why would the Asian American Journalists Association weigh in with this post?

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All that said brings me back to the tweet that prompted this post:

Agree or disagree? Was the ESPN controversy and subsequent discipline an overreaction? 

If there is one thing I’ve learned in life, it all depends on one’s perspective. 

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TWEET OF THE DAY

Today, the fired ESPN staffer issued a written apology via Twitter. Using an application called TwitLonger, it’s a pretty lengthy apology. As such, I am unable to post the tweet itself but here is the link or click the link in his tweet below:

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