It makes me laugh honestly, so easy to be called a racist these days, you can’t open your mouth. However its always us whities that are labelled Whatever happened to tongue in cheek! Get a sense of humour, the pc brigade really get up my nose…

Meant for thread below

Please, clever… You’re easily impressed

It’s actually quite racist. There’s nothing clever about cheap racial abuse.

Well said, Desmond. It was racist.

Can’t believe this has been upvoted to the extent it has. It’s not funny or clever, it’s cheap and racist.

It makes me laugh honestly, so easy to be called a racist these days, you can’t open your mouth. However its always us whities that are labelled Whatever happened to tongue in cheek! Get a sense of humour, the pc brigade really get up my nose…

“us whities” – who is us? Irish? People in Europe? People reading thejournal?? Very presumptuous indeed.

All people in all nations can be racist, maybe it is just cos u r here (im guessing ireland) and racism is so inherent in our society that u only see it from one side.

Further, it is a racist caption and people like you only belittle it.

It is not clever nor is it funny. No racist remark can ever be funny or clever. Cheap laughs are just that, cheap and nasty.

You might find it funny, but if you were an Asian living in a country that has a such an alien culture to your own, maybe you might find it offensive.

Judging by your name, I doubt your Asian and I don’t think your really in a position to say “It’s grand”

Wasn’t too long ago the Irish were treated like shite across the sea, labelled as alcoholics and terrorists…. I wouldn’t like English people making jokes (even light-heartedly) about me. Imagine, 30 years ago, the Sun saying “Paddy Mac bombs the Liverpool defence in FA Cup Final”… You’d want an apology too…

You should read up about the racial abuse and stereotypes Lin has had to endure during his career, and how he has risen above it, before you spout off about him crying about a bit of name calling.

Random I never mentioned Lin but you’re right I know nothing about him, I was actually thinking about footballers and when I said I’d be worried about someone loosing their job I was referring to the mention of “appropriate disciplinary action” in ESPN’s statement. As I did say racism is wrong, no question.
What I was referring to however is how we as a society have gone overboard, manholes can’t be called that because it offends women, black bin bags can’t be called that because it offends black people (not a joke) and so on. Maybe I wasn’t clear. I think there are those who are prepared to jump on any bandwagon, this muddies the waters and makes the more genuine racism cases look trivial.

No, I think you were clear enough: it is ok for the media to make puns based on ethnic slurs such as “chink” and “paddy” (and presumably also “mick”, “wog”, “spic”, “kike” etc.), and offended parties should man up and stop crying about it. Well Lin, who the story is about, probably isn’t crying about it, and has brushed off far worse abuse and discrimination throughout his career.

Hold on there Random, please don’t speak for me or put words in my mouth. I said “I” wouldn’t be offended by being called a Paddy but would if someone lost their job for it, how you feel is up to you. I did NOT use words like “mick”, “wog”, “spic”, “kike” and I imagine its somewhat up to the individual.
A word said in the heat of the moment, with no malice behind it is one thing (how many times have you said you were going to kill someone, it doesn’t mean you should be arrested for threatening behaviour) whereas a campaign of hatred is a completely different thing and should be punnished. I’m not going to speculate how.
I also wonder how society believes the majority of racists are white people, why is this? Are blacks, Asians, Middle Easterns or any other ethnic groups not capable of racism? Logic would say they’re just as capable as anyone else, so why are the majority of racist offenders white?

The article is not about words said in the heat of the moment or campaigns of hatred (or black bags, or manholes, or racism being the exclusive domain of white people), it is about the media using a headline that is a pun based on an ethnic slur. I know you didn’t use the words I mentioned, but I happen to think that if somebody is ok with the words “chink” and “paddy” being used in this context then there is no good reason why they shouldn’t be ok with slurs against other groups as well. So are you ok with these words being used in the media or not?

Am I ok with the words “chink and Paddy” being used in the media? Well our UK neighbours regularly have comedians who poke fun and tell jokes about the Irish, using terms such as Mick and Paddy, every second Irishman in a UK comedy show is usually called Mick, Paddy or Shamus so no, the term Paddy used in the media doesn’t offend me. As to the term chink, we all know this is a term referring to a person of Chineese decent so I think you’d have to ask someone of Chineese descent if it offends them.
Look if you’re offended by the terms Paddy, Mick or Shamus being used by the media and consider them an “ethnic slur” fair enough, I’m not. I think it’s HOW they’re used that makes them racism, not the mere fact that they’re used.
I personally don’t think that headline was meant as an offense, it was a play on his ethnicity, just as they may say “a Paddy to the rescue of the Paddies” in reference to an Irish player called Paddy. There was no malice behind it. I wonder did anyone actually ask the player himself what he thought of it? We could be getting all hot and bothered over something he may have laughed at.

It seems ESPN have fired the person responsible for putting up the headlines, but they have also admitted to carrying this headline over 3,000 times in the past, even on a USA basketball game in China which also drew criticism. So it would appear the headline was not referring to Lin at all, it was just an unfortunate coincidence, but at this stage its unlikely that will be believed.

Not to mention the bloody comments. You’d think we were never discriminated against as a group if you were to go by our current lack of empathy.

Empathy. That’s the word Random. If people felt rather than thought we could move on. Things are changing but the diehards or the senseless remain shouting loudest. ;)

reada championing the “downtrodden” as always…..yawwwn

Catch up on your beauty sleep tourkeel. You’ve got a lot of ugly stuff “up your nose…” Think I’ll vacate.

Mark. When every race on the planet are treated with respect and without discrimination – then we’ll all sit down together and have a good laugh at our fore-parents’s choice of language and their pathetic attempts at oneupmanship.

Well Mark you should spend some of your free time learning to hit the reply button when you converse with me. I can’t rely on my 6th sense to catch you every time. It took me 6 mins to get the message this time. Funny that…