To Whom It May Concern:
Last week, The Collegian’s managing editor, Joshua Knopp, chimed in with his thoughts on the Jeremy Lin/ESPN headline debacle. His argument: the use of the word ‘Chink’ in the phrase ‘Chink in the Armor’ was done with malice. In fact, his final statement was “I can only conclude they did it with malice.” (emphasis mine)
Really? The only way? Since Jeremy Lin started his pro career, he hadn’t had much playing time. So Lin, who had only played a total of 55 minutes for a team about to play their 24th game, was essentially an unknown. He proceeds to play so phenomenally that his coach compares him to Secretariat.
But nobody’s perfect. Two weeks later, Lin has nine turnovers, and the knight in shining armor is shown to be imperfect, that he can be beaten if one knows how. One might even say that there’s a … chink in the armor.
Yeah. Because that’s the phrase. Chink in the armor.
There’s an adage, attributed to Heinlen and Goethe: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. And here’s another one: Once is an accident. Twice is coincidence. Three times is an enemy action.
So give the guy a pass. It happened once, it’s an accident. If it happens again, give him another. You know, because we’re all human.
Wait for the third time. And Joshua, I’ll give you the same pass. Because after all, this is just your second mistake, right?
John Quasnitschka
SE Campus student
