I know an apology when I see one, and Jason Whitlock didn't offer up much of an apology after making an inappropriate and stereotypical comment about Jeremy Lin on Friday night.
Not cool, Whitlock. And honestly, neither was his apology. Let's break it down.
I get Linsanity. I've cried watching Tiger Woods win a major golf championship. Jeremy Lin, for now, is the Tiger Woods of the NBA. I suspect Lin makes Asian Americans feel the way I feel when I watch Tiger play golf.
Yep, he went with Tiger Woods. Gee, I wonder why.
I should've realized that Friday night when I watched Lin torch the Lakers. For Asian Americans and a lot of sports fans, his nationally-televised 38-point outburst was the equivalent of Tiger's first victory in The Masters. I got caught up in the excitement. I tweeted about what a great story Lin is and how he could rival Tim Tebow.
We're still on the Tiger Woods comparison, huh? You realize there is only one way that comparison makes any sense, right?
I then gave into another part of my personality -- my immature, sophomoric comedic nature. It's been with me since birth, a gift from my mother and honed as a child listening to my Godmother's Richard Pryor albums. I still want to be a standup comedian.
We're inching toward an apology, I can feel it now. Burying the lede a bit, but I'm sure it will be worth the wait. Clearly, the third paragraph will do more than mask the inappropriate comment as a moment of misled humor from someone who apparently can't help having that sense of humor.
The couple-inches-of-pain tweet overshadowed my sincere celebration of Lin’s performance and the irony that the stereotype applies to pot-bellied, overweight male sports writers, too. As the Asian American Journalist Association pointed out, I debased a feel-good sports moment. For that, I’m truly sorry.
Wait, what the hell? Did you just apologize for debasing a feel-good sports moment and not for tweeting a racially insensitive joke? Nobody cares about the "irony" that the stereotype, at least according to you, also applies to "pot-bellied, overweight male sports writers."
In that last paragraph, I think we were all expecting an actual apology.
You know what would have worked, Whitlock? How about this?
I'm truly sorry for the inappropriate and stereotypical joke I made about Jeremy Lin on Friday evening. It was a poor attempt at humor and a lapse in judgment. As a writer that has based his style on pointing out instances of racism in sports, my tweet was especially hypocritical.
Short, sweet and apologetic. That's all he needed.
Listen, I'm not in the camp that believe Whitlock should be fired. His tweet was most assuredly offensive, but I do believe his intent was humor and he didn't mean to be malicious in any regard.
In other words, he used a stereotype, but not as an attempt to belittle or insult the Asian-American population. He did belittle and insult the Asian-American population, however, and that's where the apology comes into play.
Which makes his non-apology all the more disappointing.
Hit me up on Twitter—I'm #Linning.
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