Re: [Celtics' Stuff Just let it go

["hironaka@xxxxxxxxx"<hironaka@xxxxxxxxx>]

The Shaq-Yao matchup is being hyped in a fun way by the 
media, but it looks to be a painful mismatch this year. 
The stats aren't close, Yao is 50-60% of Shaq's level 
across the board. Bird and Magic were in the NBA before 
Yao was even born. 

This would be a good opportunity for Shaq to show some 
class/sportsmanship before or after the game. But I know 
he'll try to go for 40 and foul Yao out during the game, 
as he should. If this were boxing, I'd fear for Yao's 
life.

As for Shaq's comments, I'd blame it on insensitivity if 
he worked in another part of the country, but Shaq plays 
in a city where Asians have been an everyday part of 
American life for five generations. I've read there were 
considerably over 100,000 people of Chinese decent alone 
out there before the first trickle of Italian or Irish 
immigrants even began arriving on the East Coast. Almost 
all of my Asian-American friends are Lakers and Shaq 
fans. Its the team and city they feel most comfortable 
with. 

Back in college, and this was way back in the 1980s, my 
mainly Asian friends commonly referred to UCLA as 
the "University of Caucasians Living Among Asians". It 
wasn't meant as a joke. That's just how it was known to 
us. Stanford and Cal Tech were already 20% Asian-American 
by then. So were most of the other colleges out there. 

5th generation Asian-Americans in LA are as ubiquitous as 
Irish-Americans in and around Boston. I don't think most 
people out there think of Asian-Americans as anything 
other than American- not people you need to squint your 
eyes at and say "ching chong" to even though they speak 
perfectly good English. 

A guy like Shaq wouldn't go around mocking Yao's "accent" 
without sensing who he might potentially offend.

I don't think Shaq is a racist, but it is doubtful that 
he didn't know how retarded he would sound to Americans 
whom he unevitably interacts with every day of his life 
out there. He doesn't have naivete as an excuse, IMO.

I personally think the media (Brent Musberger and Charles 
Barkley) did just as much at Shaq to create an 
environment where bashing someone's country of origin 
would seem appropriate, even patriotic. Yao's handling 
everything really well, so that's good. 

I imagine there is some honest resentment over how many 
All Star votes Yao has received, but that's just not in 
his control. His team has been better than the Lakers 
with Shaq, and he didn't sit out a quarter of the season 
while his team struggled. And the NY Times reported that 
the Yao-Shaq vote tally in America is nearly identical to 
that in China, despite Musberger's alarmist quote about 
Asian hordes stuffing the ballot.







 
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