Who Shot It Better? Chris Trotman vs Heinz Kleutmeier: Jeremy Lin 2!

Who Shot It Better? Chris Trotman vs Heinz Kleutmeier: Jeremy Lin 2!

Are we Linsane covering the same subject back-to-back? Hey, don’t blame the player, blame the game! But seriously, given the continuing cinderella story and phenomenal play of Jeremy Lin, it’s no surprise that he’s showing up on more covers, so here we go again!

Earlier this week, I expressed a preference for this Nathaniel Butler photo over Heinz Kleutmeier’s. After reading your comments, I have officially recanted my position. I think that the Butler photo is technically better because it’s on strobe and thus very crisp with no distracting backgrounds. But this Kleutmeier photo tells a better story with the game action.

Ironically, this week, Sports Illustrated used a more TIME-like image with the “jube” (that’s short for “jubilation”) shot that doubly ironically was shot by a Getty photographer, Chris Trotman. Jeremy isn’t the most outwardly emotional player, so this smile is about all you’re gonna get after making a good play. It’s a nice image, and the bokeh is buttery. By the way, SI hasn’t used the same athlete on back-to-back covers since….last year. Dirk Nowitzki.

Verdict: If last week’s cover was good enough to best a more pedestrian image, then it’s still good enough this week. Hooray for the SI staffer! And also, thanks for your comments — I like to have a civil discourse which leads to changing my opinion. Still love ya, Nathaniel!

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Mini-rant: Defend Against Racism

A photography blog isn’t the type of place that I would typically use as a platform to speak about racism. And truth be told, having grown up in the very culturally diverse state of Hawai’i, I don’t really think about race that much. But I gotta speak my mind. Oh yeah, disclosure: I’m Asian-American.

Jeremy Lin is a star because he’s an unrecruited, undrafted, slightly above average height Asian-American who went to Harvard, and came off the bench as the 4th string point guard to turn into a superstar, all the while sleeping on a teammate’s couch. When his parents emigrated to the US from Taiwan, his father became so enamored with basketball, that he trained his sons to play. In his last 10 games, Lin is averaging nearly 25 points, 9 assists and 4.5 rebounds. MSG (the company that owns the Knicks) has seen its market cap increase by $228M since Lin started. Any one of these facts would be impressive on its own (e.g. if he had been the starting point guard and put up these numbers). So if you don’t understand the appeal of the story, try to understand the improbability of these events.

During the past two weeks since he started, the media has tried every single pun it could that incorporated his surname: Linsane, Linsanity, #linning, Linvasion, Lintense, Lindescribable, and the NY Post’s “Amasian” (which I thought was pretty funny).

Then came the “Chink in the Armor” headlines. I skeptically accept that one sports writer might innocently use that phrase — it’s commonplace enough. But when multiple sports writers use it to describe his first lost after using Lin puns for so long, I can only chalk it up to racism. That pundits would try to defend it as innocent strikes me as linsanity. Using a phrase that has a racist double entendre is crazy. It’s akin to saying a black point guard with no turnovers gave a “Niggardly performance” or a Hispanic relief pitcher had a “Spic-and-Span Performance.” They are both semantically accurate, but the racist connotation is undeniable, and no one would stand for it.

Following Lin’s 38 point performance against the Lakers (in which he outscored the scoring league leader, Kobe Bryant), FOX sports commentator Jason Whitlock tweeted, “Some lucky lady in NYC is gonna feel a couple inches of pain tonight.”

And then when JR Smith joined the Knicks a few days ago after playing basketball in China, ex-NBA player Rex Chapman tweeted “I say JR is such a great pick-up 4 the only because he’s been playing the past 6-mo’s in China. So easy now 4 him to recognize his PG.”

When he was criticized, he responded with, “I’ll let you know when I begin 2 give a shit.”

Boxer Floyd Mayweather tweeted “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.” You might initially think the same (former WNBA Rebecca Lobo posed the question in a more politically correct way), but you have to understand that no athlete rose from such anonymity to such stardom ever. Playing the Asian card only exposes Mayweather’s ignorance of the stats.

At some point, the rise of Jeremy Lin will jump the shark (maybe it’s already happened). And truth be told, as a NJ Nets fan, I was more than happy to see Deron Williams torch him with 38 points the other night. But the story is incredible, and the shrugging off of obvious racism towards an Asian-American, in a way that wouldn’t be tolerated if it were directed at other races, is a real moment for reflection as expounded upon by the Los Angeles Times’ Bill Plaschke’s insightful op/ed. Throwing racists barbs erode the foundations of a remarkable story that should serve to inspire. Racism is insidious to the fabric of society — culturally, morally and economically. And racism that’s casually shrugged off as innocent is all the more caustic. Defend against racism.

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

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Allen Murabayashi is the co-founder of PhotoShelter.

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