BuzzFeed

how can you be a writer and not make the connection between the racial history of “chink” and your headline, “Chink in the Armor”? i understand that it works for the situation if you strip it of its racial meaning, but i simply do not believe that he “didn’t make the connection”. call me cynical, but i think he thought it was a clever pun and ran with it thinking that it wasn’t a big deal to offend asians.

I absolutely agree that there should be zero tolerance against racism however I think you may have misunderstood what Mr. Fredrico was trying to say. He never said that he didn’t know that “chink” was a racial slur, he simply said that it was a lapse in judgement and that he owed an apology to Mr. Lin and anyone else he offended.

Out of context though “Chink in the Armor” is a perfectly valid and unoffensive metaphor for a situation that could describe the article he wrote the headline for. I don’t think its that he didn’t know that its a racial epithet. I think its that he woefully didn’t make the connection until it was too late. He got fired.. and he made a resounding apology that made zero excuses. I think this showed a lot of class.