There aren’t too many writers, at least these days, who are↵universally respected in the industry. Dan Jenkins is one of them. So↵maybe that’s why there was some pause to retweet a comment Jenkins made↵during the Masters about Y.E. Yang. And maybe that’s why when the big↵weekly Press Coverage column focused almost solely on golf, Jenkins’ Twitter gaffe was omitted. Everyone’s entitled to a bad joke or two, right? ↵↵But that’s the issue with the Internet…a bad joke is magnified. And jokes, no matter the subject, always seem less funny when the person to whom you’re referring gets the line sent to them. Make a joke about a fat guy (in, say, a little coat) and it just becomes hurtful if he overhears you. A little racial or cultural insensitivity is, pardon the expression, par for the course in most social settings, but when it’s consumed by the masses, it makes the joke-teller look pretty bad. ↵
Dan Jenkins Got Caught Trying to Be Funny, Maybe A Little Racist, On Twitter
↵↵Over the weekend, Jenkins, tweeted: “Y.E. Yang is only three shots off the lead. I think we got takeout from him last night.” ↵
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The joke, which is not particularly funny at all, clearly intimates that Yang – the reigning PGA Champion – is still so anonymous that he's indistinguishable from a guy working at a Korean restaurant. Or was he making it an "all Asian people look the same" joke and we're to assume he was talking about Chinese takeout? I'm not particularly interested in dissecting the humor within or intent of the comment. Either way, Jenkins deleted the tweet from his stream. But that didn't stop the word from getting to Yang, who fired back this morning: ↵
↵↵⇥Nice Job Mr Jenkins. By the way, I am in China right now. there are a lot of people here. around 1.5 billion.↵↵Let’s hope this flap doesn’t stop the 80-year old Jenkins from tweeting up a storm in the future. His major championship tweets are, mostly, can’t miss. I’m sure he realizes that people actually read what you write on Twitter, and comments last a lot longer than the seconds it takes to send them out into the ether. That, or just hope he orders a pizza next time, so there’s no confusion. I have a feeling Matteo Manassero doesn’t even have his driver’s license yet.
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↵(H/T to Waggle Room)↵
This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
