Come on. COME ON. I'm going to say it again: can we all just mutually agree to retire the expression "chink in the armor" -- especially in reference to anything having to do with China/Chinese/Asians?
Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal tweeted a link to a story about the perceived vulnerabilities of Chinese president Xi Jinping, and thought it would be clever to include the phrase "chink in the armor." Seriously? Is this somebody's not-so-sly attempt at slipping in a very obvious racial slur?
The tweet, which was posted on Sunday evening, was quickly deleted. A few hours later, the Wall Street Journal followed up the offending tweet with a perfunctory "no offense was intended" tweet, claiming that their use of a "common idiom" was nothing more than a huge coincidence.
We recently removed a tweet on our Xi Jinping article because a common idiom used might be seen as a slur. No offense was intended.
— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) August 31, 2015Context. Context upon context. Maybe someone at the helm thought they were being clever. Maybe they didn't think that using "chink" in this context all that bad. Or maybe -- and I doubt this -- somebody really, truly had no friggin' clue that this "common idiom," which indeed uses a word that doubles as a racial slur, might be cause for offense, or at the very least, a raised eyebrow when talking about China or Chinese people.
Whatever the case, do you really want someone this clueless working on your social media staff?
More here: WSJ Tweets Horrible 'Chink in the Armor' Joke About Chinese President
In light of yet another such incident, the Asian American Journalists Association once again cautioned against use of "chink in the armor," and urged media outlets to retire the expression.
More here: AAJA Urges News Media to Retire "Chink in the Armor"
