ESPN Apology to Jeremy Lin: Is it possible

[dynasaw]

that in this day and age that an editor of a major network wouldn't know that the word "chink" is equivalent to the "n" word???? I find this mind boggling.

"The editor fired by ESPN for using "chink in the armor" in a headline about Jeremy Lin contends he wasn't making a racist joke and that the offensive wording was unintentional.

"This had nothing to do with me being cute or punny," Anthony Federico told the New York Daily News. "I'm so sorry that I offended people. I'm so sorry if I offended Jeremy."

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2012/02/jeremy-lin-slur-an-honest-mistake-says-fired-espn-editor/1#.T0J53JjR6xg

[TheDebbieDee]

4. Lol !

[Son of Gob]

6. Yea!!

Fighting racial slurs with more racial slurs! Cool Dude!

[trumad]

7. duck

right over your head.

[Son of Gob]

9. Replying to your original post before your cowardly edit.

So racial slurs are funny nowadays? I didn't get the memo.

Edit : Apparently the jury found it racist also. I guess they don't like racist humor either.

[Viking12]

2. My wife actaully rasied this possibility...

Could the headline writer be completely unfamiliar with the slur? If so, she thought, it may actually be a sign of progress. YMMV.

[Bandit]

3. I think your wife might actually be correct

I think that term has been by the wayside for so many years now, very few people have even heard it, or even of it.. Back in the day here in Alaska most cannaries had a machine that had the name "Iron Chink" that was stamped into the metal of the machine from the factory.. Those days have long passed though

[trumad]

5. I asked my 3 teenage kids if they knew and each did...

They watch South Park.

[Viking12]

11. Interesting experiment. I'll ask my kids tonight.

They're 9 and 11 and don't watch South Park.

[hfojvt]

10. I cannot find the actual headline.

The phrase "chink in the armor" is a fairly common one. Was it used innocently, or was a double meaning intended?

It's not certain to me that the second iterpretation is a certainty.

I am reminded of an incident in the 2008 primary, when Hillary said that Obama has not done the "spade work" and some were sure that must have been meant with a double meaning. Some of these standard phrases are not necessarily meant with double meanings.

Then, too, there is a knowledge factor, espcially in a younger person.
It was not until I was 24 that I heard or read that "coon" had a derogatory meaning. The same was probably true with spade. I was in my 40s before I heard that there was a racist connotation to the term 'tar baby', or heard the term cracker. I only heard that term in the movie "Remember the Titans".

Some of that is regional too. What to some people is learned at an early age, is not necessarily learned in all parts of the country.

[RZM]

8. I've heard it used in lectures about modern China

i.e. 'chinks in the armor' of the Chinese empire, meaning the weaknesses and mistakes that resulted in its loss in status and eventual domination by foreigners.

And this was from a liberal to boot. Obviously this editor knew exactly what he was doing.