March 9, 2012:
The greatest thing about Linsanity is that Jeremy Lin can win, he can lose, but he has already achieved the near impossible. In just a few short weeks, he's turned a country on its head and made it examine how Asian Americans are viewed in the mainstream.
AC
Team
members
head
to
New
York
this
week
with
high
hopes
to
see
Jeremy
Lin
play
in
a
Knicks
game.
When
we
watch
him,
we
will
be
watching
a
talented
basketball
player,
but
we
will
also
be
thinking
about
the
historical
milestone
he
has
already
achieved
-
for
all
of
us.
Related Update:
February 23, 2012:
Following on the recent racist and racially-offensive incidents in coverage of NBA star Jeremy Lin, the Asian American Journalists Association has issued guidelines on how to and how not to cover Jeremy Lin.
These guidelines are good for everyone, not just news media.
You would have thought that by 2012 our nation's news media wouldn't need such etiquette lessons, but the recent incidents prove otherwise. Let's hope AAJA's advisory serves not only as guidelines, but as a warning shot that any future incidents will not be tolerated.
Born in Los Angeles and raised in Palo Alto, California, Jeremy Lin is a native born American.
AAJA introduces its guidelines with the following:
Asian American actors are cast in only two percent of the roles in Broadway and major Off Broadway productions according to new data released by the advocacy group, the Asian American Performers Action Coalition.
The two percent number is dismal. The data disclosed that of the 6,639 total roles cast in the past five theater seasons, only 54 Broadway parts went to Asian American actors, and 100 Asian American actors got work at nonprofit companies.
Asian American Performers Action Coalition advocates point to these statistics as proof that there is negligible representation of Asian Americans on stage, and a serious lack of true diversity.
Asian Americans are New York City's fastest growing ethnic group, currently comprising 12.9 percent of the population.
More than 400 people, mostly performers attended the RepresentAsian conference at Fordham University on Monday February 13, 2012 to listen to a roundtable discussion about the topic moderated by Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang (Chinglish, M.Butterfly) and 17 other members of the theatrical community.
Theatre industry veterans at the round table discussion included Broadway director Bartlett Sher, Vineyard Theatre's Doug Aibel, playwright Douglas Carter Beane, producers Nelle Nugent and Stephen Byrd, and Actors' Equity boss Mary McColl.
Related:
NPR's Randy Gener covers the RepresentAsian conference
Update:
February 27, 2012
Two award-winning writers weigh in on the Jeremy Lin story.
Author and former Wall Street Journal writer William Wong reports on what Jeremy Lin may have had to do to get his 'game on' and how that confirms a few stereotypes, in his fifth "Linsanity" column.
Wong writes, "In at least two articles, sportswriters in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York have given us a fuller picture of how Lin — with the help of coaches and trainers — transformed himself from a skinny kid with an awkward jump shot into one of the most exciting point guards in the NBA, after graduating in 2010 as a star player at Harvard (definitely NOT an NBA “farm team” the way lesser universities are), but ignored in the NBA draft and getting cut by two other NBA teams."
"The essence of these stories is that Lin has worked extremely hard over the past 18 months to improve his game — gaining weight and bulk, refining his jump shot, learning the fine points of point-guard play. In doing so, Jeremy Lin, instead of smashing stereotypes, is confirming a few stereotypes of Chinese Americans/Asian Americans — of being diligent hard workers, and smart."
William Wong's full article at SFGate.com
AsianConnections' columnist, author, and former senior editor of Rolling Stone magazine Ben Fong-Torres says Jeremy Lin's success is a dream come true - his dream, as well as the dream of countless other Asian American kids.
Related:
Update
February 29, 2012
The blogosphere an social media erupted again - This time over a conversation about race and Jeremy Lin between ESPN.com's Lynn Hoppes, Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless.
Just take a look at the running comments about ESPN's commentary on the video replay page online at http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=7624785
The conversation was titled by ESPN "Has Society Become Oversensitive with Race?"