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I'll veer very close to a 'no way' on that. Sports web site headline writing is all about puns, onomatopoeia, and all that. Very unlikely this was a random accident.
We do normally make an extremely half-assed effort to pretend that non-baseball discussions are related to baseball. I won't b---- about that issue at this point, since it seems like Jim is trying to come up with solutions that will make things more logical and manageable.
No, but I'm with #3. Given that sports headline writing is all about puns it's hard to believe nobody at ESPN even considered that it would be read that way. I'm not saying it's impossible that this was an honest mistake, or that someone needs to be fired over this. ESPN can investigate and make their own decision.
I'm more understanding of the anchor who used the comment on the air--it is a common phrase, he clearly wasn't looking for a chuckle in that context, and really, is anyone going to make a racist comment to Walt Clyde Frazier? Also, in that context, he was asking about a "chink" in Lin's armor, whereas the headline can be read to imply that Lin is a "chink" in the Knicks' armor.
Young people are blissfully unaware of lots of slurs these days. I'll wait for more details.
Ferntastic!
O-mazing!
FernandOH!
You get the idea.
Oh, and at contract time? FernanDOUGH!
Speaking of which, here's something ENTIRELY accidental.
No, no. It was a government fellow that (IIRC) lost his job after using the word in conversation with a black colleague.
I see a similarity because in each case, the word/phrase itself has absolutely no racist content ... but you'd probably still be smart not to use it in certain situations.
edit > replaced the word "equivalence" with "similarity" because I'm not trying to start some sort of flamewar here, and while it seemed clear that the "niggardly" user was totally innocent, ESPN may not be.
They'll learn; just give them time.
What the intent of whomever wrote the headline was I don't know. Probably was not an accident, but who knows.
As others have pointed out, the Lin headline was an obvious pun using both an acceptable phrase (chink in the armor) and a racial slur (chink). I'll give the bureaucrat who used "niggardly" in a conversation the benefit of the doubt that he wasn't using the word as a racial double entendre, although he did show a remarkable lack of common sense. I'm also more inclined to cut someone a break who uses a potentially offensive word in conversation rather than print, which gives you time to reconsider the usage.
This was an interesting situation where the bureaucrat himself agrees with you, but the NAACP disagrees:
From Wikipedia:
No, I agree the headline is offensive, but I thought #10 was implying "chink in the armor" was supposed to be the slur, rather than just "chink." I was wondering if perhaps there was some slur I wasn't aware of.
SNL just missed a major opportunity to have him on the show...
(Man, why am I home watching this? I'm gettin' old...)
I used to work alongside a young Ivy League graduate who had a Jamaican father and an Irish mother. This was 7-8 years ago, she might be 30 now. She seemed to have little to no grasp of how controversial "interracial" marriages were, not so long before she could remember.
I was surprised. And kind of pleased, actually.
If you're 50, when you were born the South still had "white" and "colored" drinking fountains in the public square, and no service for African-Americans at many hotels and restaurants (and not just in the south) and no 'white college' options in some states, either.
If you're 25, that era was 100 years ago. Just ask them.
Although I do remember how pissed off I was as a 8 year old kid being called a chink while two older boys were throwing rocks at me.
Sorry to hear that.
Geesh, a lot of kids are still ########.
I have never heard of the expression "chink in the armor".
The phrase and the epithet are actually related to each other. Chink's original meaning was a narrow opening. The racial epithet is a reference to Asian peoples' eyes, while the idiom refers to a small gap in the armor.
Not really a niggardly situation, in that the words are the same. An obvious intentional "pun" though. Some one probably put it on a mock-up list as a joke with three possible headlines and somehow it got picked.
How is that possible? I must have heard or read it 500 times in my life, at least. It's a very common expression.
Remember when Howard Cosell caught all kinds of flak for referring to a black football player as a "tough little monkey"? That was a common expression in Cosell's generation and had nothing to do with race, but he was pilloried.
http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2012/2/19/2809841/espn-apology-jeremy-lin-puns
Never seen that etymology before - I've only seen "chink" represented as a just a slangy, defamatory truncation of "Chinese".
you're thinking of slant
I became aware of an incident at work not long ago where an Asian American colleague took offense at the use of "chink in the armor" in an otherwise innocuous context -- that is, the phrase was used simply (and correctly) to describe a weakness in a particular program, having nothing to do with Asian people. I thought this person's umbrage was bizarre.
Not just on websites (now one word, according to AP). Back in the '90s, the executive editor of the Little Rock daily directed the sports guys to stop running headlines involving plays on players' or coaches' names. I don't think they stopped doing so for a single day, though.
Of course, knowing that sports staff, & especially their toadlike idiot of an editor, there's every good chance they weren't able to comprehend what he was talking about.
I imagine if you've been called that word a few times in your life, just hearing it in any context is going to sting at least a little bit. Without know how your colleague reacted, I don't think it's unreasonable for him to respectfully request that the word not be used at all.
The racial epithet is a reference to Asian peoples' eyes, while the idiom refers to a small gap in the armor.
Perhaps. I was looking at this online yesterday and there is not widespread agreement as to the etymology of the slur, or when it was first used.
However, because there appears to be a racial element in Lin's career and in the analysis of his belated rise to stardom - it really should not have been used - at best insensitive - at worst truly racist.
And just to make it clear about the effect of these terms for the younger people here and for those who have never experienced it. No matter how comfortable and accepted one feels in today's world, when you hear those things said, you get that old feeling in the pit of your stomach, a rise in the blood pressure, that flash of anger and sadness as you are for a moment transported back to that childhood playground. That never really leaves you and it doesn't help that those stereotypes and prejudices still exist, though we are more polite and joke about them.
Not complaining - just explaining..
This is a fair point. Slurs are weird, etymologically speaking.
CYA corporate policy. They had to fire the idiot who put up the mobile headline. This gives them cover for that firing. Most likely there would be no suspension without the mobile headline.
And really, isn't the takeaway from this that making lame puns off Lin's ethnic heritage is dumb and bad?
I'd say F'em. Well, I'd put it more politely than that but that is what I would be thinking.
This, I really don't agree with. There's a difference between using what is essentially an innocuous phrase in the context of a brief extemporaneous statement, and using it in a different context, a headline, where it appears that the phrase is being used as a pun.
There's nothing inherently offensive with the statement: "Excessive turnovers appear to be the chink in Jeremy Lin's armor." It's a well understood statement that is unfortunately phrased. The anchor spoke carelessly, but not maliciously.
Using the headline: "Chink in the armor" to headline a game story for the Knicks' loss is not just unfortunate phrasing. It's a racist pun.
There's a big difference between the two statements.
So would I. By all means, work towards having people not referred to with slurs. Change the way people actually think for the better. But taking away otherwise cromulent and inoffensive words doesn't solve anything. Censoring language is just retarded.
We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. You're claiming to know intent on both parts, and I can't determine the intent in either case. I don't watch enough ESPN News to know if "chink in the armor" is a regular term used by Bretos. Nor do I know if the headline writer used it because he heard Bretos say it and decided it was both funny and catchy.
In either case, I don't think the penalty should be different for each. Personally, I think suspension would have been appropriate for both, unless there are circumstances we don't know about (a previous disciplinary action against the headline writer).
"chink in the armor" substantially predates 1839. Various online dictionaries list the phrase as being approx. 600 years old. "Chink" in the sense of meaning a small gap predates Chaucer, who uses it in Canterbury tales, as does John Milton, Jonathan Swift and other notable authors.
The words, as indicated above, might have different origins, but "Chink" in the sense of small gap is from Middle English.
Fair enough. I do believe that an obvious racist pun is grounds for termination, though. That demonstrates a colossal lapse in judgment.
I see what you did there.
Or so I hope.
I also watched the Youtube of him saying it, and you would really have to be reaching to be offended by that. It seems clear to me that he was using an idiom without any backhanded intention.
non. stop. And if Lin were American Indian? "Lin scalps Lakers!!" I assure you. And the outrage would be 1/100th of this.
It's funny who this plays out. I'm African-American and on a 8 month assignment in Melbourne, Australia and while Aussies speak English there is a different phrasing that goes on. One of those different things is that they will call each other a monkey similar to the Howard Cosell statement, and one day a good friend of mine here made a monkey reference directly to me. I've actually had some good discussions with this same guy about race and the differences between AU and the US, and so I knew that he meant nothing personal about. But.. I won't lie and say that it didn't sting when it was said and I'm not particularly the sensitive type. I was able to put aside my feeling about the words, and realize the intent was completely harmless and didn't even mention it to the guy, but that's not always as easy as it seem. My point is that despite what some may think, minorities don't go in looking to feel aggrieved but sometimes you can't help but to feel a little sensitive about some of these issues whether you want to or not.
I've never seen anything like that with Ellsbury or Joba.
I don't deny the insensitivy about thing such as "Indians scalp" but I don't think it would be prominent with actual Native American ballplayers, as opposed to cases where Native American terms have been used as mascots/team names.
I always find it interesting how the Thought Police don't practice what they preach. A lot of the same people who claim it's better for a hundred guilty people to go free than for one innocent person to be convicted seem to use the opposite approach with thought and speech crimes, where the accused are guilty until proven innocent.
(* Obviously, as with the headline writer, Bretos could have some sort of history that impacted the decision here. But on the surface, we seem to be down the rabbit hole when a minority broadcaster with an Asian wife is suspended for 30 days because of an extemporaneous comment that had no apparent malicious intent and for which Bretos immediately apologized.)
1. Eddy Curry
2. Jerome James
3. Shandon Anderson
4. Howard Eisley
5. Stephon Marbury
*I can totally see Whitlock saying, "I know someone gettin crunk on the firewater tonight!"
My comment in #68 was a general comment about the controversy, not about you or anyone else in this thread. Not every comment is about or directed at you.
There was nothing resembling "wrath" in #68. But anyway, to what are you referring?
This is a really good point (at least from my perspective). I find that often this kind of thing can be pretty annoying, but as long as I put it in my head that the other person isn't purposefully being offensive, I can generally quash it fairly well. (interesting sidenote: I lived in Sydney for about a year when I was a kid and I found that, when it came to Indians, Australian children are substantially more aware than Americans regarding race and unintentional racism, so I wonder how much of this is access to different races and cultures).
I went through a lot of similar stuff when I was a kid (though it used to really confuse me that people would make racist comments about Arabs towards me, considering that I'm, y'know, not Arab). Children can be pretty bad about this kind of thing. One grows used to it fairly fast, I find, though.
EDIT: don't really like to get involved in this kind of discussion here normally, due to how heated it tends to get, but Australia came up, so... :p
And "concerned," too -- so it's a win-win-win.
They're a bunch of arrested-development chuckleheads who do a crappy job covering sports.(**) Sports. Nothing more. Stop acting like it matters what some guy on one of their most obscure broadcasts says.
(**) Does Jeff Van Gundy ever shut up?
30 days? Missed that on the first go round. Wow. I was thinking it was a ceremonial one-day kind of thing.
Many years ago my wife worked for the Wall Street Journal in Europe and approved a headline that read along the lines of "Investors Spooked on MLK Day Eve." She didn't write it, but saw it and passed it on or something. Someone else caught it before it ran and had to explain to her why it wouldn't fly.
And yet if it had been Halloween? No problem! Life is strange.
I guess I missed the arrests.
Look, I think the headline guy should have been fired. The best case scenario is that whoever it was is so unaware of history that they inadvertently made an egregious error. I think that it's likely that because someone came to that conclusion, someone else decided that for consistency's sake, action had to be taken against the on-air guy. I think that's a shame, because I don't think the on-air guy did anything out of malice (just used slightly unfortunate phrasing). I don't see anyone getting mad at Bretos in this thread, though. I think the headline guy did a very stupid thing that resulted in his deserved termination.
I just don't see where the Thought Police came into things.
That's because you might not be a die-hard conservative/right-winger. For them, the "Thought Police" and the "PC thugs" are always around and ready to attack the defenceless people who say something "silly" or "funny" about someone of a different race/gender/ethnicity/religion.
It's like they wear a warped version of the glasses from "They Live", and instead of aliens (and alien messages), they see "Thought Police" and "PC thuggery" everywhere.
Once again, #68 was a general comment and not specifically about you or anyone else in the thread. Seems like some people here either have a guilty conscience or a persecution complex.
The Thought Police "came into things" when a guy got suspended for 30 days for an extemporaneous comment that had no apparent malicious intent and for which he immediately apologized. Sacrificing that guy on the altar of political correctness is every bit as wrong as firing the headline writer might be right.
On the face of things, I have no problem with the headline writer being fired, but it's another case of a liberal double standard. If the headline writer was a teacher, he or she assuredly would remain on the payroll for months or even years while an appeal process played out. (Note: This is not an attempt to dredge up the Castro thread conflagration; just a simple statement of fact.)
Rather than see firings, I'd much rather want to know why these people decided to use these slurs. I'm guessing its ignorance, which I suppose isn't entirely a defense, but it makes it makes it a bit more understandable.
I think I mentioned this once, but I grew up in a pretty white Evangelical community, then moved to a high school in a different part of town that had more Jewish students. I was pretty naive and once used a term I had heard often as a kid "to Jew someone down" to one of my new friends at high school. Turned out he was Jewish. He was cool about it, but did educate me that it was an offensive term which frankly, I should have known, but didn't.
I really liked SNL's take in their cold open last night.
He was sacrificed on the alter of commerce.(*) Do you really think an ESPN personnel action is the third most important current sports story in the world? Well, it's third on ESPN.com's headlines. A nonentity, a throwaway remark, 2:30 in the morning.
It gives ESPN a chance to look influential and concerned, and to garner attention.
(*) And since it's about commerce, who cares? It's right up there with Wal-Mart adding a penny to the price of tighty-whities on the proper area of concern chart.
ESPN already had that with the headline writer. Barring a prior history of which I'm unaware, there was no reason to suspend Bretos.
Again, it seems likely that he was sacrificed on the altar of HR concerns. If the headline writer wanted to sue for wrongful termination, and they did not punish the anchor, it might have weakened ESPN's case.
Still ludicrous. Punishing potentially innocent Person A to bolster a case against Person B is a joke. I can't believe self-described liberals would be OK with such a thing.
I don't think Bretos should have been suspended, all things considered. But I suspect his situation was a white bear moment. In trying to be sensitive and not make any reference to Lin's race or ethnicity, his mind pulled up an uncommonly used phrase that probably was not ideal.
I'm not thrilled with it, but it's not really my business. In a perfect world, no one would have gotten fired. The headline guy should definitely have been taken off writing headlines, though.
It's ultimately ESPN's choice. I don't think people getting suspended over saying something unfortunate is a big enough issue to pass legislation over. I'm not quite sure what you're looking for here.
I think that was his initial salvo; he then doubled and maybe tripled down. This from a guy who can't see why everyone isn't jumping at his ideas -- a pre-playoff play-in including every team, three or four teams contracted, a second team in Chicago, etc.
I'm not looking for legislation. I was just pointing out what I see to be odd and unfair double standards. It seems odd that speech is often punished more harshly than actions. It's also odd that media people apparently have a lot less margin for error than teachers.
It seems like we need to ratchet down the moral indignation a few notches if we've reached the point where people can get suspended for a month for using the wrong phrase accidentally.
Sorry, Joe. If you're interested in continuing the conversation, we can do so by site mail.
Yankees announcer John Sterling likes to use dopey catch-phrases for Yankees who homer.
So Mark Teixeira often gets a, "And Mark sends a 'teix' message!' after the preliminary call, for example.
Sterling also likes to do "It's an A-bomb for A-Rod!"
A couple of years back, he mixed up his players, and said, iirc, "It's an A-bomb for Matsui!"
I don't recall any disciplinary action being taken - or called for by the media.
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/sports/John-Sterling-Confuses-Hideki-Matsui-for-A-Rod.html
But it's their job not to use the wrong phrase, even accidentally. That's the whole point - he was too dumb to know it might be a problem. That's really why he might be suspended. People accidentally say incredibly dumb #### all the time at work, and there are consequences. That's how life goes.
It seems like an awfully tough standard to say that any slip of the tongue, even one that's immediately corrected, is enough to subject one to a 30-day suspension (or worse).
When your job is to communicate your company's message and brand to millions of people and not have a slip of the tongue - that's when you get suspended. Maybe it's a tough standard, but it's at the core of your job not to draw heat to your employer.
I thought the expression was "kink" in the armour, but this thread shows me to be wrong.
This is the same thing I got into a game website when discussing niggardly in relation to Setters of Catan (and its trading system if you must know). I took the opinion that if people percieve it to be a slur then it's a slur regardless of its progeny (someone had referenced the O.E.D. that the word was Danish in origin). But having said that, I wish to hell people would not get so FREANIN HUNG UP ON WORDS. WHat the hell is wrong with people anyhow?
So sure it's a slur. But what the hell is the pt. of free speech anyhow?
And then the thread got locked down which pisssed me off to no end as well. so go figure...
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