Monday, February 13, 2012

Whit(less)lock

Normally I don't care about what goes on in Twitter land. But this story caught my attention.  The two subjects in the case are Jason Whitlock, a black writer for Foxsports among others and Jeremy Lin, an American born Chinese basketball player, currently playing for the New York Knicks.

Now Lin's rise to stardom is a great story.  I recommend you google and read about him, even if your not a sports fan.  Anyway, Lin scored 38 points against the L.A. Lakers last Friday night. Afterwards in a tweet, Whitlock says, "Some lucky lady in NYC is gonna feel a couple inches of pain tonight."  Now, of course this is referring to the stereotype that Asians have small members.  Okay whatever. Jokes are jokes.

My real problem is that Whitlock is always first in line to cry Racism when it involves any controversy regarding black athletes. I have read many of his columns and some are valid and some are not.  My point is you can't cry Racism on some topics and turn around and and tweet stereotype garbage.  You lose total creditability.

In our world of speak first, then think, and then apologize, Whitlock offered this apology:
"I get Linsanity. I've cried watching Tiger Woods win a major golf championship. Jeremy Lin, for now, is the Tiger Woods of the NBA. I suspect Lin makes Asian Americans feel the way I feel when I watch Tiger play golf.
I should've realized that Friday night when I watched Lin torch the Lakers. For Asian Americans and a lot of sports fans, his nationally televised 38-point outburst was the equivalent of Tiger's first victory in The Masters. I got caught up in the excitement. I tweeted about what a great story Lin is and how he could rival Tim Tebow.
I then gave in to another part of my personality — my immature, sophomoric, comedic nature. It's been with me since birth, a gift from my mother and honed as a child listening to my godmother's Richard Pryor albums. I still want to be a standup comedian.
The couple-inches-of-pain tweet overshadowed my sincere celebration of Lin’s performance and the irony that the stereotype applies to pot-bellied, overweight male sports writers, too. As the Asian American Journalist Association pointed out, I debased a feel-good sports moment. For that, I’m truly sorry."

If he wants to be a comedian, he should quit the dick jokes.

1 comment:

  1. I find it ironic that he tries to explain it away by saying that he has a sophomoric humor side, but would never give someone else the same benefit of the doubt.

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