Before I open up the forum on this "not-so-newsworthy" story (it was first reported via Floyd Mayweather’s Twitter account last Monday), I will confess to three things. 
- I am a fan of Floyd Mayweather the boxer, not necessarily as a philosopher on racial matters.
- As a long-suffering New York Knicks fan, I am a fan of Jeremy Lin the basketball player.
- And although I largely disagree with Mayweather’s take on Lin, it does have some fragments of truth.
I know my last statement is an apparent contradiction. But as is often the case on matters of race, things are oftentimes not as black-and-white as they may appear.
The problem that I have with Mayweather’s statement below is that it suggests that Lin is only receiving the recent attention simply because he’s Asian.
"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," Mayweather wrote on his Twitter account on Monday afternoon.
What Floyd "oh-so-conveniently" leaves out are the assists, points, rebounds, steals and, most importantly, the wins that Lin has contributed towards my beloved Knicks’s improbable turnaround this month. They have gone from 8-15 and out of the playoff hunt, to 16-17 and squarely perched as the NBA Eastern Conference’s 8th playoff seed.
And there is the fact that Lin is a Rocky Balboa-type, underdog story. It’s not every day that an un-drafted, former bench player with a Harvard degree in economics turns the basketball world on its head.
In the end, the captivating story of Jeremy Lin is a prime example of how hard work, talent, but more importantly, the right opportunity, can help break down racial assumptions, barriers and stereotypes. The positive as well as negative press that Lin’s story has received also shows that race still matters to much of the public.
Thankfully for me, the only colors that matter in this story are blue and orange (go Knicks!).
