ESPN “Accidentally” Calls Asian NBA Player a “Chink”

The New York Knicks spectacular point guard Jeremy Lin just made more headlines by leading his team to victory over the defending champion Dallas Mavericks, with 28 points and a career high 14 assists. But that’s not the only reason Lin is in the news. Outrage erupted when ESPN’s website posted a headline about the NBA’s first American player of Chinese origin that read, “Chink in the Armor.” Seriously. An ESPN anchor previously used the same phrase in an interview with Knicks Hall of Fame guard Walt Frazier and it had also been uttered on ESPN radio. But the web-page was captured and the frozen image went viral.

ESPN quickly posted a statement as bloodless as it was insufficient, which read: “Last night, ESPN.com’s mobile web site posted an offensive headline referencing Jeremy Lin at 2:30 am ET. The headline was removed at 3:05 am ET. We are conducting a complete review of our cross-platform editorial procedures and are determining appropriate disciplinary action to ensure this does not happen again. We regret and apologize for this mistake.” Then they told the media that this would be their only comment on the matter. After outrage ensued, this was followed by another statement that the headline writer has been fired and the anchor has been suspended for 30 days.

There are only two conclusions one can draw from all of this. Either ESPN has a group of stone racists sitting at the SportsCenter Desk, hosting their radio shows and writing headlines [doubtful], or they have no anti-racist mental apparatus for how to talk about an Asian American player. As a result we see again that people of Asian-descent are subject to a casual racism that other ethnic groups don’t have to suffer quite as starkly.

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