ESPN.com Editor Apologizes For Racist Jeremy Lin Headline

By Moye | Monday, February 20, 2012 | 5 Comments

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8a lin2 ESPN.com Editor Apologizes For Racist Jeremy Lin Headline

This past weekend, ESPN finally took action in their “chink in the armor” fiasco by suspending the news anchor, Max Bretos, who used the phrase on-air and firing the editor responsible for posting the awful headline. While Bretos has apologized for what he said (by pulling the whole “My wife is Asian!” card), now the ESPN.com writer is speaking out. And he’s really sorry.

In an exclusive interview with NY Daily News, Anthony Federico claims this was all an honest mistake.

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

His rational behind using the phrase at 2:30 in the morning was that he had used the phrase numerous times in the past. This time, it just happened to be the wrong time for the wrong article underneath the wrong photograph. Federico understands why ESPN had to let him go, stating “I’m devastated that I caused a firestorm.”

As for Jeremy Lin, he’s moved on. According to the article, the basketball star has forgiven Federico: “You have to learn to forgive, and I don’t even think that was intentional.” Unfortunately, the Internet is famous for holding grudges so it’ll probably be a while before the Asian American community forgets this headline ever appeared online for 35 minutes.

I’m ready to move on. Well, everyone knows how I feel about Lin over-saturating social media but I did pay attention to the ESPN scandals, only because it brought to light what our community has been noticing and fearing this whole time. Racial tensions against us do exist and having a strong Asian American take the spotlight would soon bring these to light, whether through punchlines about stereotypes or racist slurs. The APA community had a right to be outraged over what Federico wrote. Even if the headline was an “honest mistake,” it gave everyone to opportunity to understand our role in the dialogue about race in America. And yes, that includes derogatory words that also have different meanings in different contexts. I’m glad that ESPN took serious action with their employees by making it clear that using the word “chink” is unacceptable, even if it wasn’t intentional, and hopefully others will understand why. (I’m also okay with Bretos only being suspending due to their different situations.) So I’m forgiving, not forgetting but moving forward.

So how do you feel about these official apologies? Do you accept them as Lin did or are you still angry? Should Federico never find work in this town again?

Categories:

DiscriminationSports

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Facebook Comments (Beta)

brazybear

Watching an interview with a gentleman named Rick Quan right now on CNN and the topic of discussion is Asian stereotypes, how they seem more ‘acceptable’ than, let’s say, African-American stereotypes (as seen in that SNL sketch, which I thought was awesome), even how there are barely any Asian male role models nowadays (all we see are douche bags like Ken Jeong, Han from 2BG, etc). While I didn’t agree with everything Mr. Quan said, it was nice to see these issues we’ve all known for years being discussed on the national level.

As for this sports writer, I don’t see what the big deal is since he has an Asian wife. Doesn’t matter if she’s Chinese or not, as long as she’s Asian it’s okay since we’re all the same. LMAO!!! Seriously though, I’m glad ESPN fired that idiot.
http://www.erniehsiung.com/ Ernie H.

@brazybear Hey, that’s the sportscaster from Channel 7 in San Francisco! Interesting to hear his perspective on CNN. The link: http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/15/opinion/quan-lin-asians/
Luv4theGame

@Ernie H. @brazybear http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zePbdt1rb9A
http://masirjones.blogspot.com MaSir

Ahhhh pulling out the old, “I can’t be racist because my wife is Asian” card…

I’m so sick of hearing how non-Asian men use this line over and over again like a broken record whenever they try to legitimize some racist remarks against Asian-American men. Who cares if you’re married to a woman of Asian descent? What the hell does that prove?

Oh I get it. Suddenly you’re immune to being a racist pile of shit because you’ve been sleeping with an Asian woman for a while now. Yes, isn’t it obvious, Max Bretos couldn’t possible by racist!!

Now that an Asian-American guy finally gets his well-deserved time to shine, some American mainstream media outlets can’t stomach it and have to inject “unintentional” racial slurs into their headlines.

Sorry Bretos, but just because you may be fucking an Asian/Asian-American woman, doesn’t give you the right to intentionally OR unintentionally diss an entire ethnic group of men that has paid more of their fare share of dues getting shit on since the 1800s when they were building this country’s goddamn railroads. I hope your Asian wife dumps your ass for a Jeremy Lin look-a-like.
Krantzstone

@brazybear I’m sure I’m not the only non-Chinese Asian to have been called the ‘c’ word so I don’t believe one necessarily has to be Chinese to take offense or to recognize that it’s meant to offend. However, I suspect I would be much more offended and angry if I were Chinese, as I’m sure I would be much more offended were I subjected to epithets that actually hit the mark for me ethnically.I get hit with enough anti-Chinese racism to be much more sympathetic about and sensitive to specifically anti-Chinese sentiment even though I’m not Chinese, and in that sense I feel us East Asians have a commonality in that regard. I’ve encountered very little anti-Japanese sentiment by comparison (not sure why, considering Japan has the bloodier history in relatively recent history with both East and West). I guess I should count myself lucky.One question: why is Ken Jeong a “douchebag”? Just wondering, I don’t really know anything about him except that I’ve seen him in Judd Apatow films.

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