The Cure For Discrimination Series

For his part, Lin seemed willing to accept the ESPN apology and perhaps even believe Federico’s claim that the headline was not intended to be racist.

“ESPN has apologized,” Lin said after the Knicks’ next game, a win over the Dallas Mavericks. “I don’t think it was on purpose or whatever. At the same time, they’ve apologized, and so from my end I don’t care anymore. [You] have to learn to forgive. And I don’t even think that was intentional, or hopefully not."

After losing his job, Anthony Federico, ESPN editor issued a long apology via Twitter, insisting that his mistake had been honest and referring to the Christian faith he shared with Lin. At the end of his apology, he included his email address. According to Federico, by way of Newsday, a member of Lin’s family reached out via email to arrange a time for the pair to have lunch.

"The fact that he took the time to meet with me in his insanely busy schedule . . . He’s just a wonderful, humble person," Anthony Federico, the ex-ESPN editor who ran the headline, told Newsday, adding that their conversation pertained mostly to ideas of reconciliation their shared faith.

Jeremy Lin is a vocal Christian and he lived out his faith by showing mercy. We need to extend that same sort of forgiveness and grace to people. Those who deserve love the least, often need it the most. It may be that we are prejudiced against a group of people because of what someone in that group has done to us. It may be that we’ve had negative experiences or we’ve been hurt deeply. I know that my grandmother, who lived in Hong Kong during World War II had a strong dislike against the Japanese. She lived through the Japanese occupation and she witnessed firsthand some of the pain and loss the invading Japanese army caused.

The only solution is to extend mercy. We need to forgive and show grace to others, especially to those we find the hardest to love. If we did that, then discrimination would disappear from our lives and from our church.

You know people are dying to come to a church where they feel totally welcome, safe and free from judgement. They want to come to a place free from prejudice, where they can experience the mercy of God.

Tony Campolo, a psychology professor and Christian speaker tells this story in the book, “The Kingdom of God is a Party”:

I had to go to speak in Honolulu. If you go to Honolulu, because of the distance from the east coast where I live, there’s a six‐hour time difference. And I woke up at about three o’clock in the morning and I was hungry and I wanted to get something to eat. But, in a hustling city like Honolulu at three o’clock in the morning, it’s hard to find anything that’s open. Up a side street, I spotted this greasy spoon, and I went in. It was one of these dirty places and they didn’t have any booths, just row of stools at the counter. I sat down a bit uneasy and I didn’t touch the menu.

So, there I am, three‐thirty in the morning, drinking my coffee, and eating a dirty donut. And into the place comes about eight or nine prostitutes. It’s a small place, they sit on either side of me, and I tried to disappear. The woman on my immediate right was very boisterous and she said to her friend, "Tomorrow’s my birthday. I’m going to be thirty‐nine."