Eli Kaplan wonders why it’s okay for some minorities to be picked on more than others.
First, FoxSports writer Jason Whitlock insinuated Jeremy Lin has a small penis.
Then, Albert Einstein’s long lost cousin, boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. chimed in with his gem about Jeremy Lin receiving unfair amounts of adulation, because apparently black basketball players do what Lin does on a nightly basis, and don’t receive the same credit.
Never mind that few NBA players (black, white, yellow, brown, green, red, or purple) had ever performed as well as Lin did in his first 6 career starts.
And never mind that Mayweather has already proven himself, in the past, to be an ignorant bigot.
But never mind ALL OF THAT!
These insensitive, ignorant, (and some would say discriminatory) comments and actions, are just the latest in a long line of disrespectful behaviors toward the Asian-American athlete. As far as the (sports) world is concerned, there is only really one true Asian-American athlete; his name was Bruce Lee. He was the first and (to the narrow and ignorant minds of many still today) hopefully last Asian-American athlete.
Then along came Jeremy Lin throwing a wrench into the script.
But Jeremy Lin’s success isn’t just about being Asian-American. It’s part of the story for sure. It’s also about being an underdog, about overcoming odds, about success through perseverance. These are story lines that anyone can appreciate, regardless of color, creed, or background. If we could stop ourselves from being addicts to sensationalism, perhaps we could focus on the grand and rewarding parts of Jeremy Lin’s feel-good story.
Unfortunately, we live in cynical and tabloid obsessed times, and the sports world is not immune to such twisted values.
When I was younger, ESPN (again, the so called “leader” of sports coverage) was a quality sports program (with a little bit of funny and entertainment mixed in). Now, they’re some national enquirer version of their old self. All glitz, little substance, entertainment based to the max, self-righteous and often insincere. They have fewer and fewer good reporters with knowledge and inegrity (like Michael Wilbon for example) and more and more ill-informed, fame-whores, posing as sports reporters and experts.
And while there has been some outcry and backlash to the recent bigoted behavior toward’s Lin’s accomplishments, I can’t help but feel reactions would be a whole lot different (and more severe), if someone used the n-word in a headline about a black athlete’s struggles.
Why? Why is it okay for some minorities to be picked on more than others? In my mind, it isn’t okay. Bigotry is bigotry, and it all needs to go. If there’s a chink in anyone’s armor, it’s in the warped values of Americans – black, brown or yellow… red, white, and blue.