Wednesday, February 15, 2012

This ...



... is totally gay. And I mean that in the most positive, multicultural, lust-filled way I possibly can.

Even I haven't been able to avoid the Jeremy Lin phenomenon, best described by Andrew Ti at Deadspin as the way an "Asian player who, through a combination of circumstance, luck, timing, and some monster performances, has captured America's admittedly infantile and famously fickle imagination." Still, the first full article I read about him was Alexander Chee's slobbering encomium at Salon today, comments under which led me to Ti's article and from there to the clip above. Here's the thing. Sure, it's nice that another racial line has been breached. It might even make a difference to Asian-American kids who are currently the most-bullied ethnic demographic in the country, but anti-black racism is still epidemic despite the high visibility of African-American college and professional athletes. Jeremy Lin has earned his success, but it has no real importance or significance.

It occurs to me, though: what will happen when we finally get an openly gay basketball star of the same prowess?