Source from NYDailyNews

The editor, who was fired, insists that he intended no pun on Lin’s ethnicity — in which case he was guilty only of being bad at his job, because absent the racist reference, the headline is so stale it’s nearly senseless.

Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) has slammed that explanation as preposterous, condemning any use of the word “chink.” Lin himself has said he believes the slur was unintentional and advocates forgiveness.

Meanwhile, plenty of armchair commentators seem dubious of just how offensive the word “chink” really is, while positing that the headline was merely a gaffe, the kind of thing that might happen to anyone at 2:30 in the morning.

But all of this speculation is beside the point. The editor might well have made an honest mistake.

That is precisely the problem.

Most Americans — particularly those who are fastidious about cultural sensitivity and horrified by any charge of racism — don’t think they have anything to learn when it comes to Asian-Americans. They are accustomed to seeing us as model minorities, accepting us as honorary whites (often with the unthinking condescension that term implies) or dismissing us as foreign, exotic or irrelevant. They are not accustomed to one of us becoming an overnight basketball phenom — or to hordes of us shouting our anger at an egregious offense, as is now happening.

Put another way: People don’t worry about making fun of Asians. Not even when it comes to a slur that is, indisputably, as ugly as “the N-word.”

There is no other explanation for how the ESPN editor, whatever his original intention, didn’t think twice before posting the headline. Or for how, in recent weeks, sportswriters and anchors have referenced Asian eyes and penis size — and received, for the most part, only chuckles and winks.

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