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WTF: ESPN Offers Linsanely Racist Headline, "Chink In The Armor"
By
Ben Yakas
Published Feb 18, 2012
Modified Feb 20, 2012
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Feb 18, 2012
Modified Feb 20, 2012
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The Knicks saw their seven-game winning streak come to an end last night as they turned the ball over 21 times at the Garden against the New Orleans Hornets. Jeremy Lin, who had 26 points, accounted for nine of those turnovers—so we guess ESPN decided that if Lin can mess up so much, it's okay for them to as well! To that end, ESPN put up the linsanely racist headline "Chink In The Armor" just after the game ended. Next time they should just go straight for, "Gook's A Fluke: Knicks Lose."
We assume the headline was an unintentional slip into using racial epithet—but shouldn't ESPN be extra wary about using any such problematic language that could be construed as racist? Even if the phrase "chink in the armor" is one sportswriters like to throw about, most would be intelligent enough not to couple a derogatory term for Asian people with a giant picture of Jeremy Lin, the first Asian-American basketball star. As SB Nation wrote, "dang, don't plaster the word "chink" underneath Lin's name on a huge national website without understanding exactly what the backlash will be. It's not edgy or funny; it's a ridiculously terrible mistake."
This isn't even the first time ESPN has made this mistake with Lin and the word "chink"—earlier in the week, an on-air ESPN anchor asked, "If there is a chink in the armor where can Lin improve his game?"
And as OutSports points out, even that wasn't the first time ESPN has gotten into trouble for using the term: "We want to give ESPN the benefit of the doubt here, but it’s impossible to believe the person who wrote that headline didn’t know exactly what they were writing. Especially since ESPN previously came under fire for using the same headline…to describe a USA basketball game in China."
ESPN has now released the following statement about the headline:
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.
So sure, the headline was only up for 35 minutes—except for the fact that it'll now live on the internet forever. And there's no mention of the on-air broadcast of the term. At least we now have a clear winner for the worst punny Lin headline of all time.
Update: ESPN fired the editor, who says it was an "honest mistake."
Tagged
basketball
espn
headlines
jeremy lin
knicks
linsane
linsanity
racism
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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