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February 18, 2012

Racist headline used by ESPN after Jeremy Lin and Knicks' 2/17 loss to Hornets Sigh. I knew it couldn't last. Not only did the Knicks finally lose one, but ESPN managed to end its love affair with Lin with a helluva Dear Jeremy kissoff. ESPN last night posted a game story on some mobile editions with the headline "Chink In The Armor" (really) at 2:30 am ET, which was changed after 3 am to "All Good Things..." ESPN posted an apology this morning, by Kevin Ota, Director of Communications, Digital Media ESPN Communications, who ironically is Asian American and having a crappy weekend:
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.
The network's Rob King also tweeted a response that linked to the apology:
There's no defense for the indefensible. All we can offer are our apologies, sincere though incalculably inadequate.
I don't think this is over yet. There's no way any producer -- even the most inexperienced, underpaid, ignorant, young overnight employee -- could not know about the racist meaning of the word "chink." The headline, placed beneath an image of Lin, was a deliberate use of a racial -- and racist -- epithet. I hope some serious actions are taken by the network to both punish the person who used the word in this context, and to prevent it from happening again. Unfortunately, this wasn't the first time the word "chink" was used on ESPN ... to describe Jeremy Lin. Here's an ESPN anchor (no, it's not Walt Frazier; ignore the title beneath him) saying "chink in the armor" in a reference to how Lin can improve his game: (ESPN posted this 11-second video apology today, three days after the incident and only after the use of the word in the headline provoked outrage across the Internet.)
February 16, 2012

I've been adding updates to the bottom of my previous post on Jeremy Lin, but there's simply too much still flying across the Internet radar, and that post is already too long. So I thought I'd comment separately about the issue of Asian American identity and our embrace of the Jeremy Lin phenomenon. As I write this, the New York Knicks...

February 9, 2012

UPDATES BELOW, INCLUDING OTHER REACTIONS, MORE LINSANITY, FUNNY STUFF, JIN RAPPING ON LIN, AND JASON WHITLOCK AND FLOYD MAYWEATHER'S TWEETS Asian Americans have slowly become visible in American professional sports -- player by player, sport by sport. Some sports were conquered early. Most people know stars from the ice skating world such as Kristi Yamaguchi, Apolo Ohno or Michelle Kwan --...

February 9, 2012

(NOTE: Updates posted at bottom, including more parodies as they're posted and more crazy stuff from Pete Hoekstra as he says them). This ad was shown during the Super Bowl, but only in Michigan, where former Republican Congressman Pete Hoekstra is running to unseat Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow. The 30-second spot shows a pretty young Asian woman in what looks like...

February 2, 2012

There are going to be lots of stories, videos and commemorations of last year's earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan in the coming weeks. The first anniversary of the disaster is March 11. I've seen photos compiled by the Consulate General's office and the recovery efforts have been remarkable, although there are still many thousands of people living like refugees...

January 24, 2012

Denver fans of cutting-edge Japanese manga and anime can immerse themselves this week in the alternate steampunk European world of "Fullmetal Alchemy," a popular series of comic and animated TV series and feature films that have captivated audiences on both sides of the Pacific since 2001, when the series launched in Japan as a serial comic. The latest output of...

January 24, 2012

Cool news this morning from the Asian American Justice Center, the DC-based AAPI civil rights and social justice organization, that it's named Mee Moua as its new president and executive director. Moua, a former Minnesota state senator who was the first Hmong American to ever be elected to public office in the U.S., is a terrific choice. She takes over...

January 20, 2012

The Japanese American National Museum today announced it's named a new Chief Executive Officer, G.W. "Greg" Kimura, to lead the Los Angeles-based institution. Kimura is a hapa (mixed race) fourth-generation Japanese American from Alaska, whose most recent position was as the head of the Alaska Humanities Forum, the state's humanities council. He seems to have done a terrific job there,...