“Jeremy Lin: Why Having Asian American Role Models & Heroes is Important”
. . .Before Linsanity swept our nation (hereby demarcated as B.L. or Before Lin), we were still being treated as hostile foreigners even to the point of being portrayed as money grubbing Chinese outsiders seeking to gain influence over the American government in a political attack ad by Pete Hoekstra, a Senate candidate, that aired during the Superbowl, the largest viewed television program in history.
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And much like in 1954, the overwhelming opinion of the informed population has been told or suggested by the media that Asian Americans are not truly American. That we are a people set apart. Either invisible or foreign. Submissive exotic women and effeminate martial arts super-nerds.
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And it’s more than just the sport he plays or his race that has given Linsanity so much momentum. If it was, than his fanbase would never have grown outside of the Asian American community.
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he is the ultimate under-dog: the scrappy fighter, the little guy who never backs down from bullies. Jeremy Lin is fairy tale Linderella story:
- He was never given an athletic scholarship even while lesser players were being courted by bigger schools and handing them out.
- His Ivy League court competitors would made ching-chong noises and threw outright racist insults at him.
- He was cut from two national teams without having ever been given a real chance to play (and you can bet all those general managers are regretting their narrow mindedness).
- He was so undervalued that he only got his chance to start after two other players were injured and another left on bereavement leave.
- His NBA contract was unsigned and he has no endorsement deals.
- His future has been so uncertain that he has been sleeping on his brother’s couch!
- To Floyd Mayweather who recently flamed Jeremy Lin’s popularity on his race (Mayweather also did the same thing to Manny Pacquiao),
When no one believed in him and in fact tried to push him down time and time again, he still believed in himself. Jeremy Lin was his own Asian American role model.
All he needed was that one moment, that one perfect moment of clarity, a clean slice of time, to prove to the world what he was capable of doing.
“Lin great role model for young Asian-Americans”
For many Jeremy Lin fans, he is more than a sensational basketball player. He's an important cultural figure who is helping to break down stereotypes about Asian-Americans.
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There's a lot of kids out there in the Asian community that will be able to look at him playing and see themselves out there. They will start to think that this is something possible out there for them."
1 comment:
This is all new to me, but you so have my attention now, who is this guys, and why am I sitting here crying. *sigh* I have to google him......
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