Breaking Down Jeremy Lin-Sanity and the Emergence of Racial Insensitivity

It's official, folks: After two weeks of explosion and rapid expansion, Linsanity is a bona fide phenomenon, complete with the good and the bad, the believers and the doubters, the lovers and the haters, the celebration and the resentment.

And with Jeremy Lin's rise from near-complete anonymity to startling cross-cultural ubiquity comes an inevitable backlash, if for no other reason for the fact that he's the rare Asian-American who's not only competing, but enjoying tremendous success, in the largely African-American NBA.

World-champion boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. is among the most prominent public figures to have injected not-so-subtle stereotypes and tinges of racism into the discussion of Linsanity. Money May's sentiment was one of clear resentment, a famous African-American athlete questioning why Lin has been the recipient of such fervent attention:

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Jeremy Lin is a good player but all the hype is because he's Asian. Black players do what he does every night and don't get the same praise.

— Floyd Mayweather (@FloydMayweather) February 13, 2012"

As off-base as Mayweather was for discrediting Lin's accomplishment on the one hand, he does create cause for an interesting discussion on the other, one concerning the media's constant incredulity over how this kid could "come out of nowhere," how he's "deceptively athletic" and "unorthodox."

You don't have to read between the lines to pinpoint the locus of that surprise—he's Asian-American, and folks in the media, sports and otherwise, aren't used to seeing Asian-Americans succeed in athletic enterprises.

Heck, nobody is used to seeing an Asian-American stick in a major sports league in this country, much less tearing it up under the brightest lights on the biggest stage, with the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden. 

This story would still be a surprise if Lin were a baseball player, as he'd be defying the usual mold of Asian athletes being imported from overseas rather than being homegrown.

Realistically, then, to deny race as a factor in the discussion surrounding Linsanity is to deny the effect that he's having beyond the sport of basketball. He's inspiring millions of people in this country and around the world, generating enthusiasm and pride amongst Asian-Americans of all ethnicities while unwittingly breaking down preconceived notions about how to make it in sports in America.

As Grantland's Rembert Browne notes, Lin is essentially doing for Asian-Americans in basketball what Tiger Woods and the Williams sisters did in golf and tennis, respectively—blazing a trail into a particular sport without necessarily trying to serve as a symbol for something greater, even though he, like Tiger, Venus and Serena before him, ultimately became one for legions of fans and copycats to follow:

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These feelings I experienced watching Tiger, Venus, and Serena must be similar to what my Asian American friends feel when they see Jeremy in the NBA, splitting the defense between two black guards, blowing past a white forward, and hitting a reverse layup around a black center. I know that sounds crude and overly racial, but we process sports in crude and overly racial ways.

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At the same time, Linsanity has exposed some in the world of sports media as woefully ill-prepared to handle this, or any, phenomenon containing a racial component with carefully nuanced commentary. FOX Sports columnist Jason Whitlock made this rather poor attempt at humor (which he's since removed from his Twitter account and for which he has apologized) in the earlier stages of Linsanity:

Then came not one, but TWO public gaffes by ESPN, first on the front page of one of its mobile apps, as pointed out by TMZ:

Followed by the utterance of the same slur by SportsCenter anchor Max Bretos, who's been hit with a 30-day suspension for his clear lapse in judgement:

But while these incidents of offensively poor word choice are shocking and appalling for exposing a lack of filtration and quality control amongst their originators, they're also illustrative of just how insidiously persistent these slurs and attitudes are in our nation's collective psyche.

They remind us that our society—as great and diverse as it is and with as many opportunities as it affords people of all backgrounds—is still far from a post-racial utopia. The presence of an African-American man in the Oval Office and an Asian-American man at the point in the Big Apple don't disqualify the effect of ethnic origin and skin color on our national narrative.

If anything, they amplify it in a way that, while hurtful at times, is important in the long run. Jeremy Lin, as both a basketball player and a lightning rod for controversy, has sparked yet another meaningful dialogue about how we, as a society, handle differences of culture and cosmetology alike. There's no getting around the lingering effect of America's painful and complicated legacy of prejudice without addressing it head-on. 

Thankfully, Linsanity has given all of us a fresh jumping-off point for just such a discussion, all the while providing sports fans with an entertaining athletic diversion to accompany it.

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