# It's a travesty to end someone's career over "chink in the armor" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 21, 2012, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474 "2012-02-21T00:06:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474/281 "2012-02-23T23:49:37Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > But showing off newfangled and obscure terms like “homonym” is always important! Ha, this is funny considering at least one person mocked the fact that I just learned the term (from my English prof friend) the other day. Getting hit from both sides on that one! Getting back to those who do hear “chink” regularly used as a slur and so are more attuned to react to it as such: it sounds like you are less condemnatory toward people in your daily lives using it as an unambiguous slur than you are toward a guy who used a homonym of it in what both he and his boss insist was an innocent fashion. I don’t get that. If I heard someone saying that kind of thing around me, I’d tell them off in no uncertain terms. It may be too that people kind of sense that about me which is why I don’t ever hear it said around me, and that’s a good thing IMO. If more people had that attitude, these words really could be driven further into obscurity, except maybe in pockets where the coarsely racist make up the vast majority. ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2012, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474/282 "2012-02-23T23:56:07Z")
I really don’t understand how anyone can think chink as a slur has fallen into disuse. All my fellow Asian friends have heard it at least once in their lives. It’s nice to know that you are so unafraid of standing up for what you believe in, but when I’m walking down the street of a rough neighborhood and someone shouts a racist slur at me, I’m not going to stop and confront him about it. I would rather live to tell the tale, you know? ---
**Author:** ![HoboStew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f17d59/32.png) [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474/283 "2012-02-24T00:02:39Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > So I don’t think it makes sense to have this double standard, where we have to be conscious of the race of athletes to tailour headlines around them in a positive manner. Context counts in language. Hence things like “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.” In this case, “flies” means two different things, and its entirely appropriate for people to interpret words based on context. When the subject matter is an asian-american, “chink” is an ethnic slur and any professional writer should know better than to use it. Should he have been fired? Yes. Should he be banished to the wastelands? No. He will survive and hopefully be more careful in the future. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474/284 "2012-02-24T00:05:33Z")
> [@HazelNutCoffee](#): > > I really don’t understand how anyone can think chink as a slur has fallen into disuse. All my fellow Asian friends have heard it at least once in their lives. Depending on how old they are, though, that could still be the case (although I believe people who say they have heard it recently; but there are still some of us who have not found it to pop up in the 21st century). My best friend heard it a few times as the only Asian kid in the 1970s in a rural area in the Midwest. But not in the past three decades, a fairly long time. This country has seen a lot of social change in that time: a black president, for instance, would have been unthinkable even when Jesse Jackson was piling up delegates as essentially a protest candidate in the 1980s. > [@](#): > > It’s nice to know that you are so unafraid of standing up for what you believe in, but when I’m walking down the street of a rough neighborhood and someone shouts a racist slur at me, I’m not going to stop and confront him about it. I would rather live to tell the tale, you know? I hear you. But I was referring more to people who say they hear it from family members or acquaintances, and in more upscale environments. In a rough neighbourhood, from menacing strangers, I agree. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474/285 "2012-02-24T00:55:23Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I have never said or implied that if the headline said, for instance “Chink Struggles As Lin’s Knicks Lose To Hornets” that I would have either shrugged that off, or quizzically wondered “gee, why are they calling Lin a ‘chip or missing piece’? I don’t get it”. It would have been immediately obvious, within milliseconds, that they were using an ethnic slur I don’t know what you are rebutting here. I’ve never said you would have reacted that way. I’ve said you are wrong that it is archaic, and more importantly, you are wrong that a journalist should not be expected to be aware of it. Do you not understand this concept? Journalists need to pay more attention to their words than you do. It is a position of greater responsibility and scrutiny, not one where “basic literacy” is all that is called for. And it doesn’t matter if people had to have the connection pointed out to them. > [@](#): > > But I think (and here’s maybe a new way to state it that I haven’t tried before) it’s weird for us to have headlines that are okay (and not even odd) to use about players of certain races but not others. Maybe it is weird for humans to have insults that only apply to certain groups of people, but we do have those insults. If there weren’t an Asian-American player involved, nobody would have seen a second meaning in “chink.” That’s not new or unexpected information. Context counts. > [@](#): > > So I don’t think it makes sense to have this double standard, where we have to be conscious of the race of athletes to tailour headlines around them in a positive manner. The standard is “avoid terms that could be construed as racial slurs in the context of the story.” So there is no double standard; it’s one standard. It would apply to different words in different contexts, but that doesn’t make it a double standard. > [@](#): > > we should at least have news outlets spellcheckers flagged to highlight not only “chink” (regardless of context) but also “gobbledygook” etc. just like that columnist suggested. News outlets don’t use special spellcheckers. They do have style guides and they have editors who are supposed to look out for possible problems. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474/286 "2012-02-24T01:32:36Z")
SlackerInc, are you British? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474/287 "2012-02-24T01:50:50Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > But I think (and here’s maybe a new way to state it that I haven’t tried before) it’s weird for us to have headlines that are okay (and not even odd) to use about players of certain races but not others. What’s weird about that? Some words have very different meanings, depending on the context in which they’re used. If there’s more than one applicable context, the meaning of the word becomes ambiguous. When meaning is ambiguous, it devolves upon the audience to determine which meaning was intended. When one of the possible contexts is highly offensive, some people are going to assume the offensive context was operative. Being aware of this sort of thing is extremely important for any journalist, as one of the things a journalist is supposed to avoid is ambiguity. An ambiguous headline is bad, even when it doesn’t have a potentially offensive interpretation. If it does have a potentially offensive interpretation, it can - and should - have serious career repercussions. This isn’t even some special, onerous burden we place solely on our journalists. The context in which one is speaking is something that should (and for most people, is) be on everyone’s minds whenever they open their mouths. I presume you use different language when talking with your friends, versus when talking with your parents, versus when talking with your SO. People who work in the public eye have an additional context they need to be aware of, is all. > [@](#): > > So I don’t think it makes sense to have this double standard, where we have to be conscious of the race of athletes to tailour headlines around them in a positive manner. Which means, if the software I described is really so impractical (it’s been years since I learned C++ but that strikes me as very defeatist in a world where we have Watson crushing Jeopardy champs), then we should at least have news outlets spellcheckers flagged to highlight not only “chink” (regardless of context) but also “gobbledygook” etc. just like that columnist suggested. Surely that’s not an extreme endeavour? It would be trivially easy to write software that would do that. Hell, you could get the same effect just by editing your spellcheck dictionary. Why bother, though? The vast, vast majority of journalists don’t have any problem writing headlines without “accidentally” including common racial slurs. > [@](#): > > Anyway, then we just stop using them regardless of the race of anyone in the article, how about that? That’s a pretty crappy idea. “Chink” serves a useful, non-derogatory role in language. There’s no reason to chuck it over the side just because one numbnuts sports writer fucked up and lost his job. On a slightly different topic: you keep insisting that “chink” is some archaic slur, almost unheard of in modern days. If that’s the case, what word has replaced it? When someone wishes to insult someone’s Asian ancestry in the 21st century, what word would you expect them to use? Or is it your position that people are so non-racist towards Asians these days that there is no contemporary slur for them? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474/288 "2012-02-24T01:58:18Z")
Also, **SlackerInc** , if it makes you feel any better, it wasn’t until this thread that I realized that this… > [@HoboStew](#): > > Hence things like “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.” …after first hearing this phrase over twenty years ago, I only just now realized that it’s a play on the double meaning of “fly.” So, you know, just about anyone can be a moron about these sorts of things. ---
**Author:** ![FixMyIgnorance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7feea3/32.png) [@FixMyIgnorance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FixMyIgnorance)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474/289 "2012-02-24T02:09:35Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > But I think (and here’s maybe a new way to state it that I haven’t tried before) it’s weird for us to have headlines that are okay (and not even odd) to use about players of certain races but not others. Had Lin been a white player from Harvard who was barely warming the bench, and then suddenly broke out the way he did, I can easily see the same headline being used (this is where we’ve seen a lot of disagreement, but that really was a common sports metaphor and it really does fit the situation, where a shooting star suffers his first setback), and obviously no one would see it as racist and (again, I strongly believe) no one would think it was a strange choice of words either. Whereas with the N word or other non-homonym slurs, they are never acceptable. > > So I don’t think it makes sense to have this double standard, where we have to be conscious of the race of athletes to tailour headlines around them in a positive manner. Which means, if the software I described is really so impractical (it’s been years since I learned C++ but that strikes me as very defeatist in a world where we have Watson crushing Jeopardy champs), then we should at least have news outlets spellcheckers flagged to highlight not only “chink” (regardless of context) but also “gobbledygook” etc. just like that columnist suggested. Surely that’s not an extreme endeavour? Anyway, then we just stop using them regardless of the race of anyone in the article, how about that? Context is important though. “Chink” isn’t associated with white people, so why would people make that connection or get up in arms about it? It’s not nearly as blatant and using it in an article focused on an Asian guy who, I remind you again, has been hot news in large part because of his race and background. It’s extremely poor judgment. Touching on the program stuff a bit: As someone who knows how to code, it’s trivially easy to take a list such as [List of ethnic slurs - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs) and sanity-check the output. The problem is that most slurs are pretty specific and lack innocuous homonyms. Most of the words that DO have innocuous homonyms are words that don’t typically fit too well in idiomatic phrases you’d use in reporting anyway. The ones that do can be counted on two hands at best and don’t really justify rolling out a program, especially since most people know those slurs anyway. Journalists should hopefully, as writers, be better equipped when it comes to such awareness anyway. A lot of it is common sense. It’s not so much that it’d be hard to implement – it’d just be needlessly annoying and useless – a wasted cost. Do I really need a program to flag words like “chink”? If you have to roll out that kind of program for your writers, you have shitty writers. It’s like suggesting that surgeons need to listen to The Bone Song or something before they go into surgery and that it’s not a big deal to implement the musical training. If a surgeon seriously does not know that the foot bone is connected to the ankle bone, I’d expect his career to be rather short-lived. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474/290 "2012-02-24T02:29:22Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Ha, this is funny considering at least one person mocked the fact that I just learned the term (from my English prof friend) the other day. Getting hit from both sides on that one! I begin to see why you’re struggling so much with the idea the journalist was joking. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474/291 "2012-02-24T03:00:14Z")
I bet Frederico is thankful that he changed the original headline he came up with. \*\* Chink In The Armor\*\*: Chink’s 9 Turnovers Cost Knicks In Streak-Snapping Loss To Hornets. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474/292 "2012-02-24T03:48:43Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > I begin to see why you’re struggling so much with the idea the journalist was joking. Well, you know, that and the fact that both he and his boss strenuously insist that he was not. But okay: you were being drily sarcastic–and you think that dry sarcasm from strangers is easily communicated in written form online? That is notoriously not the case. I’d add that your sarcasm seems misplaced here, since I’d be wiling to wager a lot of money on the proposition that the percentage of American adults who can correctly define the word “homonym” (including the fact that it does not properly include homophones that are spelled differently) is in the single digits, and not likely the high single digits. So for you to post what you did as arch mockery, conveys far more elitism than any that can be pinned on me. > [@FixMyIgnorance](#): > > As someone who knows how to code, it’s trivially easy to take a list such as [List of ethnic slurs - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs) and sanity-check the output. Great, that’s what I figured. As for the idea that since there are such a small number of them that are okay in non-racial contexts: great–make a list of those and tape them up if you don’t want to add them to the checker. Just stop people using them altogether, like the columnist I linked to said. I find that sort of absurd, but upon reflection it’s probably the “least worst” way to go. I still fear though that we are opening up a can of worms with this. One of the words on there is “dink”. Now, “dink and dunk” is another hoary sports cliche. Is that now going to be off limits? What about “mock”? And while we’re at it, _why the fuck is it still okay_ for “Redskins” to be the name of the football team in our nation’s capital? Isn’t that a thousand times worse than the great “chink in the armor” scandal of 2012? Where’s the proportion? Oh, and someone asked if I was British. No, I am not–I’m American, although I was born overseas and I’m the only member of my nuclear family (that is, the one I grew up in) who currently resides in the U.S. Yes, I use many British/Canadian spellings, a habit I started when George Bush was president and I was loath to be instantly tagged as an American in multinational online forums. I also think they look nicer. Is that a problem? ---
**Author:** ![FixMyIgnorance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7feea3/32.png) [@FixMyIgnorance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FixMyIgnorance)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474/293 "2012-02-24T04:10:38Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Great, that’s what I figured. As for the idea that since there are such a small number of them that are okay in non-racial contexts: great–make a list of those and tape them up if you don’t want to add them to the checker. Just stop people using them altogether, like the columnist I linked to said. I find that sort of absurd, but upon reflection it’s probably the “least worst” way to go. This sort of misses the point though. You don’t _need_ this kind of list. A lot of the nastier ones are just common sense to most people. A writer’s ability is more than just being able to avoid using slurs. There are many innate qualities and skills to a good writer, and judgment is by no means limited to a mere word list. It’s about assessing context and judging psychological impact, which is by no means a hard-edge objective thing to pull off with some algorithm or computer program. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > And while we’re at it, _why the fuck is it still okay_ for “Redskins” to be the name of the football team in our nation’s capital? Isn’t that a thousand times worse than the great “chink in the armor” scandal of 2012? Where’s the proportion? As for the Redskins issue, it _has_ generated plenty of debate. > **[Washington Commanders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Redskins#Native_American_mascot_controversy)** > > The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) East division. Formerly known as the Washington Redskins, the franchise was founded by George Preston Marshall as the Boston Braves in 1932. They became the Redskins in 1933 and relocated to Washington, D.C. in 1937. The Redskins name and logo was viewed as controversial ... > **[Hail to the Commanders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hail_to_the_Redskins#Native_American_stereotypes)** > > "Hail to the Commanders" is the fight song of the Washington Commanders, an American football team belonging to the National Football League (NFL). At home games, the song is performed by the Washington Commanders Marching Band when the team scores a touchdown. > The music was composed in 1937 by Barnee Breeskin with lyrics written by Corinne Griffith, the wife of franchise founder George Preston Marshall. The musical arrangement and lyrics have since gone through various revisions. The song was... The difference, though, is that a great deal of Native Americans (via multiple studies) didn’t even find the phrase offensive, and there has been a lot of ambiguity/debate as to whether or not it’s even considered a disparaging label to begin with. In other words, “chink” is a lot more controversial than “redskin.” If you named your team “The California Chinks” you can guarantee that would be burned down and rejected in an unholy firestorm within moments. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474/294 "2012-02-24T05:34:23Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’d add that your sarcasm seems misplaced here, since I’d be wiling to wager a lot of money on the proposition that the percentage of American adults who can correctly define the word “homonym” (including the fact that it does not properly include homophones that are spelled differently) is in the single digits, and not likely the high single digits. You might be right about that. I find that most people use “homonym” in the non-technical sense that covers either homographs or homophones. That said, this is a distinction we learned in elementary school, but most folks I run across seem to use homonym where homophone might be better. (So much so that “homophone” is definition 1a. for “homonym” in Merriam-Webster, and “homograph” is 1b.) Regardless, “homonym” in and of itself is not an obscure term. Whether somebody knows/remembers the technical definition or the non-technical one is another matter. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474/295 "2012-02-24T05:51:46Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I still fear though that we are opening up a can of worms with this. You’ve yet to give a solid explanation of why this opens a can of worms. > [@](#): > > And while we’re at it, _why the fuck is it still okay_ for “Redskins” to be the name of the football team in our nation’s capital? Isn’t that a thousand times worse than the great “chink in the armor” scandal of 2012? Where’s the proportion? People do complain about sometimes, and more recently there’s been a debate about Native American college sports mascots. (They have essentially been banned by the NCAA, which runs college sports.) Names like Redskins continue to exist for a couple of simple reasons: most people aren’t very upset by them because they’re used to them, and the people who are offended by them haven’t been able to get the public on board with any campaign to change the names, so the franchises have not seen any reason to change them. It’s not much of an explanation, but that seems to be the state of affairs. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474/296 "2012-02-24T07:24:24Z")
> [@FixMyIgnorance](#): > > As for the Redskins issue, it _has_ generated plenty of debate. Yeah, I know that; but it shouldn’t even _be_ a debate. There shouldn’t be any team in professional sports that uses that name–but for it to be (a) the team that represents our nation’s capital and (b) the team that remained racially segregated longer than any other professional team in either football or baseball (though the Red Sox gave them a run for their money). BTW, my wife is an alumna of the University of North Dakota, which is still in the dying throes of resisting the NCAA edict on “Indian” mascots. She is a liberal sociologist as I’ve mentioned, and always hated the name; but she knows a lot of people (including some relatives) who support keeping the nickname. My somewhat heated exchange with her brother and his friends on Facebook about it is about as close as I’ve gotten to the experience some of you have with having acquaintances or family members who say “chink” as a racial slur; but I’m not sure how close that is still (I can’t imagine any of her family members calling an Asian person “chink”, certainly). And there’s a segue back to the topic of this thread: I actually hope those of you who believe the “chink in the armor” reference was an intentional racially motivated pun are right. If you are, no injustice has been done and I don’t mind if Federico’s career is over. And stubborn though I may appear to be, I’d say my estimation of the probability that you all are right has been increased by about 300 percent due to the testimony here (some of you are more credible and persuasive than others though, that’s for sure). At the same time, I still think there’s about an 80 percent chance it really was an innocent mistake (down from 95 percent when I started the thread); and I still believe in “innocent until proven guilty” and giving people the benefit of the doubt. That’s my policy for people accused of crimes, and it’s my belief about people in the workplace (I do not go for that “at will” line, but that’s a subject for another thread). ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474/297 "2012-02-24T08:02:17Z")
[This](http://www.twitlonger.com/show/g2gn26) is from Federico himself: > [@](#): > > I wrote the headline in reference to the tone of the column and not to Jeremy Lin’s race. It was a lapse in judgment and not a racist pun. It was an awful editorial omission and it cost me my job. > > I owe an apology to Jeremy Lin and all people offended. I am truly sorry. > > Actions speak louder than words. My words may have hurt people in that moment but my actions have always helped people. If those who vilify me would take a deeper look at my life they would see that I am the exact opposite of how some are portraying me. > > They would see that on the day of the incident I got a call from a friend – who happens to be homeless – and rushed to his aid. He was collapsed on the side of the road due to exposure and hunger. They would see how I picked him up and got him a hotel room and fed him. They would see I used my vacation time last year to volunteer in the orphanages of Haiti. They would see how I ‘adopted’ an elderly Alzheimer’s patient and visited him every week for a year. They would see that every winter I organize a coat drive for those less fortunate in New Haven. They would see how I raised $10,000 for a friend in need when his kids were born four months premature. They would see how I have worked in soup kitchens and convalescent homes since I was a kid. They would see my actions speak louder than my words. They would see that these acts were not done for my glory, but for God’s. They would see that each day I live and will continue to live a life of joy and service. > > It never has been or will be my intention to hurt anyone. > > I wrote thousands and thousands and thousands of headlines in my five years at ESPN. There never was a problem with any of them and I was consistently praised as an employee – both personally and professionally. Two weeks prior to the incident I had my first column published on [espnW.com](http://espnW.com). My career was taking off. Why would I throw that all away with a racist pun? This was an honest mistake. > > It is also crucial that people know that the writer of the column had nothing to do with the headline. I wrote it and now I take responsibility for it. > > I am actually a Knicks fan and an ardent supporter of Jeremy Lin. Not surprisingly, he has handled the entire situation with grace and class. > > Now I have to find a new job and move on with my life. > > My solace in this is that ‘all things work together for good for those who love the Lord.’ I praise God equally in the good times and the bad times. > > -Anthony Federico > [anthonyfederico9@gmail.com](mailto:anthonyfederico9@gmail.com) I’m an atheist, so the Jesus-y stuff makes me throw up in my mouth a little; but I do think it tends to undercut the idea that he was smirkingly making a racial double entendre or pun. As such I think he needs to be put in an entirely different category than, for instance, that “ching chong ting tong ling long” girl. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474/298 "2012-02-24T08:24:48Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > But I think (and here’s maybe a new way to state it that I haven’t tried before) it’s weird for us to have headlines that are okay (and not even odd) to use about players of certain races but not others. It’s how you prevent slurs from co-opting your entire language, while avoiding the impression that you are choosing the slur to describe someone. It is unavoidable, if you use a slur-homonym in an article about someone who would be the target of the slur, people will wonder if you did it deliberately. Those questions are bad publicity, and an editors job is to avoid approving articles/headlines that will generate bad publicity. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474/299 "2012-02-24T11:50:18Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > [This](http://www.twitlonger.com/show/g2gn26) is from Federico himself: > > I’m an atheist, so the Jesus-y stuff makes me throw up in my mouth a little; but I do think it tends to undercut the idea that he was smirkingly making a racial double entendre or pun. As such I think he needs to be put in an entirely different category than, for instance, that “ching chong ting tong ling long” girl. I can’t believe he put his email address on there. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2012, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474/300 "2012-02-24T12:34:33Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Oh, and someone asked if I was British. No, I am not–I’m American, although I was born overseas and I’m the only member of my nuclear family (that is, the one I grew up in) who currently resides in the U.S. Yes, I use many British/Canadian spellings, a habit I started when George Bush was president and I was loath to be instantly tagged as an American in multinational online forums. I also think they look nicer. Is that a problem? Not a problem, just another wierd thing, especially for a wannabe copy editor. Learning that it’s just a pretentious affectation makes perfect sense. Thanks for the quote from the guy himself. Notice what argument he _doesn’t_ make? In fact, he describes it as a “lapse in judgement.” He’s not claiming that he never heard the fusty old term, nor is he denying that he should have been responsible. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-travesty-to-end-someones-career-over-chink-in-the-armor/613474.md?page=16)