On January 9th, I wrote a story titled "Calling Asians Racist Slurs on Fast Food Receipts is Now a National Trend" about a growing number of incidents where fast food workers identify customers on receipts with a racist slur, or in this latest case, a drawing. At places like Starbucks and Jamba Juice the person taking customers' orders is suppose to ask for the customers name to ensure they get the correct drink in a more efficient manner but as Angryasianman.com reports, that's not always the case:

Last month at a Starbucks Coffee location in Alpharetta, Georgia, two Korean customers -- who are not native English speakers -- discovered that their barista had identified them by drawing "chinky eyes" on their drinks. You know, where they usually write your name? OH NO THEY DIDN'T. Yes, they did.

You cannot tell me those are both just two random squiggles on those cups. I'm told that the customers immediately complained to the store manager, who did not defend the drawings or offer some kind of bullshit explanation, but simply apologized. And that's it. Oh, sorry for the racist way we run our coffee joint.

The caricatures were drawn at a Starbucks in Alpharetta where 72% of the population is white, while Asians make up 13.7 of the population, according to 2010 census data.

"I guess it's too much to hope that the Starbucks employees in question would give a damn about the people in their neighborhood. Instead, two Asian customers were simply reduced to a wordless, racist caricature with the stroke of a pen," Angryasianman.com went on to say.

Jeremy Lin wasn't supposed to matter. But now he does. And that fact both unearths and challenges some deeply held assumptions about the place of Asian Americans in U.S. culture.

Fresh off of two stellar games in which the second year point guard clawed his way out of relative anonymity, Lin has suddenly become a factor for a team--and a city--that's desperate to win games. Yet along the way, Lin, the deeply religious, American-born son of Taiwanese immigrants, is shattering stereotypes about who and what can make an elite basketball player.

On February 4, Lin shocked Knicks fans (and, from the looks of it, even some teammates) by coming off of the bench to score 25 points to help defeat the New Jersey Nets. He also had 7 assists and 5 rebounds, all career highs; he'd previously averaged just over 2 points per game in his young career. Two nights later, after being awarded the starting point guard position, Lin stunned the sports world again by scoring 28 points to lead the team over the Utah Jazz.

"I'm riding him like a freaking Secreariat," Knicks Coach Mike D'Antoni laughed to the Times about Lin, accounting for the fact that Lin played all but 3 of the game's 48 minutes against the Jazz. For his part, Lin maintained his humility, offering only that "God works in mysterious and miraculous ways."

It was a pivotal moment for the Knicks, who'd been searching for a point guard all season. And to show just how unprepared the team was for his sudden burst of stardom, the team had to photocopy his bio into the game notes package because he was signed too late to be included in its regular media guide.

Regardless of how the rest of the season goes for Lin, and the Knicks, his moment in the spotlight is an important time to reflect on how the country views its Asian American athletes.

"Of course we're far beyond the blatant discrimination that stopped players such as Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays from playing in the MLB, but there still is a similar psychological barrier that Lin is currently in the process of dismantling in front of our very eyes," said Dean Adachi, an historian and lecturer of Asian American studies.

Lin is only one of a handful of Asian-American players in the NBA's history, and the first in over a decade. Although 1950 is usually seen as the year when two black basketball players broke the color barrier, Japanese-American Wataru Misaka technically did it two seasons before in 1947-48, when he played for the New York Knicks. 

Though Lin has consistently shown promise since his high school days--even leading his Palo Alto, Calif., high school team to a state championship his senior year--he was overlooked by both college coaches and NBA scouts. The first time he showed up to a summer league game in San Francisco's celebrated Pro-Am tournament, someone at the gym told him: "Sorry, sir, there's no volleyball here tonight. Just basketball."

It was a precursor to the thinly veiled prejudice that Lin and other Asian American male basketball players often face after decades of racist caricaturing that's stereotyped them as nerdy and un-athletic, wholly incapable of excelling in a distinctly physical sport like basketball. "The most glaring stereotype to plague Asian athletes is that they are too small to succeed at the highest levels--too short for basketball, too weak for football," Adachi said.

That's not much of a concern for Lin, who's 6-foot-3. But media reports are filled with references to his immigrant parents, who are both reportedly only 5-foot-6, implying that he's something of a basketball miracle.

"It's a sport for white and black people," Lin told the San Francisco Chronicle back in 2008. "You don't get respect for being an Asian-American basketball player in the U.S."

Only Harvard and Brown guaranteed Lin a spot on their basketball teams. He chose to head East to Cambridge after being shunned by his dream school, UCLA, and his local university, Stanford. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that of the nearly 5,000 Division I men's basketball players in 2006-07, there were only 19 Asian Americans. That  included numbers for Pacific Islanders and ethnically mixed Asian American players, according to the NCAA Student-Athlete Race and Ethnicity report. In total, that translates to less than 1 percent.

And when Lin's hometown Golden State Warriors signed him just before the 2010 NBA season began, some critics claimed that it was only a publicity stunt by the team in an effort to appeal to the Bay Area's large Asian-American community.

"Through no fault of his own, Lin stands at a bombed-out intersection of expected narratives, bodies, perceived genes, the Church, the vocabulary of destinations and YouTube," wrote Jay Caspian Kang, who's Asian American, about Lin's electrifying play at Harvard. "What Jeremy Lin represents is a re-conception of our bodies, a visible measure of how the emasculated Asian-American body might measure up to the mythic legion of Big Black superman."

But while the NBA may have been caught off guard by a player like Lin, basketball has long been hugely important in many Asian-American communities. Japanese-American basketball leagues have been around since the early 1900s in places like San Francisco and Los Angeles, long before the game gained widespread popularity in the U.S. Over the decades, they've expanded to include other Asian ethnicities. The race-based leagues have garnered their share of criticism for being racially exclusive, but organizers have maintained that the leagues are important tools that help members develop a sense of community and preserve their ethnic identities.

The continued popularity of those leagues help explain some of Lin's rabid fan base.

"Especially now that there are lots of Asian Americans growing up and playing, I have to try to hold my own in college," Lin told the Chronicle during his Harvard days. "It's definitely motivational and it gives me a chip on my shoulder."

That chip on his shoulder could become much more important as his NBA career continues. Oliver Wang, a writer and professor of Sociology at California State University at Long Beach, says that the obvious impact of Lin's play is that he could inspire other young Asian-American basketball players to continue working on their games.

"It's difficult enough as it is to get to the NBA," Wang told Colorlines.com. "Without a few role models out there to inspire that interest, I think it makes it all the more difficult."

Wang notes that while former players like China's Yao Ming certainly helped change some perceptions of Asian men in sports, there's still what he calls a "dividing line" between foreign-born athletes--who are often products of highly developed professional athletic programs in their home countries--and Asian-American kids today. 

For Jay Caspian Kang, that difference has everything to do with familiarity, which is what makes someone like Jeremy Lin so appealing to many Asian-American basketball fans. "He's a kid who grew up similar to them, to me," Kang said. "He represents something different because of that than if he were just seen as an import from another country."

Now, however, questions are swirling about Komen's overall commitment to the health of all women. Colorlines.com readers have asked, What now? What if you're a person of color who's been touched personally by breast cancer? Should you pull your support from Komen? Before you can answer that question, you need to ask, what has Komen done for my community and what are they doing right now? Here's how you can find out more--and potentially impact Komen's work in your community:

1. Find your local Komen Affiliate. There are over 100 of them across the country and each of them has their own leadership structure, website and local funding priorities. Generally, up to 75 percent of the funds raised by each affiliate through their local Race for the Cure and other fundraising efforts go towards addressing breast health locally, mostly towards community breast health programs.
2. Find out what your Komen community health profile looks like. Each affiliate is required to regularly undertake an assessment of the breast health needs in their community. The needs assessment seeks to find out which communities and individuals are most at risk of not getting lifesaving breast health prevention, screening and treatment services. This profile then guides which local programs are funded. Read your own local community health profile (which should be available on your Komen Affiliate's website) and determine if you think it is in line with your own understanding of health access issues in your area. If not, you've found a good opportunity to begin a dialogue with the leadership or program manager of your local Komen Affiliate.
3. Find out what is getting funded in your community. Up to 75 percent of the funds raised by each affiliate go toward addressing breast health locally, based on the priorities established in the community health profile. Most of these funds are for community breast health programs. A list of current and past grantees should be available on your Komen Affiliate's website. Does this list reflect a responsive and equitable approach to addressing the needs of the most vulnerable populations in your area?

Some people, like me, came to Komen because someone close to them was diagnosed with breast cancer. After walking in their Race for the Cure for several years, I became the program director for Komen NYC from 2004 to 2007. The facts are that Komen has invested close to $2 billion to advance breast health since 1982 and has impacted millions of women's lives through outreach, screening, treatment, support and research. But it is also true that much of that money was raised at the community level and intended to improve breast health in those communities, with specific attention to those most vulnerable, including communities of color. So, a good place to start is to find out if, in fact, that is what's happening.

Kavita Das is the director of marketing and communications for the Applied Research Center, which publishes Colorlines.com. She served as program director for the Greater NYC Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure from 2004 to 2007.

On Sunday Martin tweeted: "If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham's H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him! #superbowl" and "Who the hell was that New England Patriot they just showed in a head to toe pink suit? Oh, he needs a visit from #teamwhipdatass"

Martin says now that his comments were about soccer, not gay men, and that they were deliberately over-the-top jokes. Though, it wasn't Martin's first turn with controversy over his comments about LGBT people. 

"Even if he meant it in a jovial manner, Roland Martin's words carry a real impact on the everyday lives of Black LGBT people, especially our youth. Given the number of rash murders, attacks and violent acts involving LGBT people of color, we cannot let statements such as this go unchecked. Silence is a form of acceptance and only perpetuates the problem," said Sharon Lettman-Hicks, Executive Director of the NBJC, the nation's largest black LGBT civil rights organization.

On Monday night Martin took to his blog and said he was sorry that his comments were misconstrued. In a post titled "Final Thoughts On Super Bowl-Twitter Controversy," Martin wrote:

My joking about smacking someone, whether it was in response to a commercial or food they prepare for a Super Bowl party or wearing an opposing team's jersey, was stated in jest. It was not meant literally, and in no way would I ever condone someone doing such a thing.

As I said repeatedly, I often make jokes about soccer in the U.S., and my crack about David Beckham's commercial was related to that and not to anyone's sexuality. To those who construed my comment as being anti-gay or homophobic or advancing violence, I'm truly sorry. I can certainly understand how someone could come to a different conclusion than the one I meant.

I'm disheartened that my words would embolden prejudice. While public debate over social issues is healthy, no matter which side someone takes, there is no room for debate as to whether we need to be respectful of others.

Colorlines.com editor Kai Wright, of #teamproudtowearpink, said Martin still misses the point. "Whether Roland Martin was talking about soccer is entirely beside the point. He was shaming and advocating violence against people who don't fit his outdated idea of manhood, and it wasn't funny. It's not been funny previously, either. It's precisely the kind of casual harassment that people who refuse to live under Martin's gender rules face every day. Martin says he's sorry that I misunderstood. Whatever. I'm sorry he still won't explore why he feels it so comical that I wear pink."

"HIV touches every corner of black communities," Fenton went on to say in a statement. Below is an excerpt from Fenton's statement on state of black HIV/AIDS rates in the U.S. and what the CDC is doing about it:

The impact of HIV has been devastating among black youth, with approximately 40 percent of new infections among blacks now occurring among those between the ages of 13 and 29. Young black gay and bisexual men are the most severely affected, experiencing a nearly 50 percent increase in new HIV infections over the past few years. In addition, HIV is now the third leading cause of death among black women in the prime of their lives - those aged 35 to 44 years.

To turn the tide on this epidemic, we must confront the complex social and environmental conditions that help fuel the HIV epidemic in African-American communities. Lack of access to health care plays a role. We know that those who don't have the means to see a health care provider may not get an HIV test or treatment until it's too late. We also know that nearly 1 in 5 African-Americans are without health insurance.

In addition, where you live and choose sexual partners also has a significant impact on your HIV risk. Higher rates of HIV in black communities and the fact that African-Americans tend to select partners who are of the same race increases the likelihood of being exposed to HIV infection with each sexual encounter.

We must also tackle factors such as homophobia and stigma - far too prevalent in many communities - that prevent too many in the black community from getting tested, and if HIV positive, from getting treated. And we must speak out about HIV and begin to shed light on these issues that continue to hide in the dark.

At CDC, HIV prevention in black communities remains one of our top priorities. Last year, we invested more than half of our HIV prevention budget to fight HIV among African-Americans. We've expanded initiatives to reach more African-Americans with HIV testing, increased the number and reach of HIV prevention programs in black communities, and are working with our partners, like those in the Act Against AIDS Leadership Initiative, to launch campaigns aimed at increasing HIV testing and awareness among black women and black gay and bisexual men, among other groups.

Fenton went on to call on the faith community, public health and community leaders, teachers, parents, and business leaders - both within and outside black communities - to "maximize the powerful tools we have at our fingertips and to work together to bring this epidemic to an end. "

An analysis by the Black AIDS Institute found that if black America were its own country, it would rank 16th in the world in the number of people with HIV -- ahead of Ethiopia, Botswana, and Haiti.

"As our first Public Advocate, Andrew Lorenzen-Strait will work to expand and enhance our dialogue with the stakeholder community," said ICE Director John Morton in a statement. "We want the public to know that they have a representative at this agency whose sole duty is to ensure their voice is heard and their interests are recognized, and I'm confident Andrew will serve the community well in this capacity."

"This is part of the other package of reforms the Obama administration is taking up to address ICE abuses, including the cases of U.S. citizens who are mistakenly detained by immigration authorities," said Julianne Hing, Colorlines.com's immigration reporter. "My sense though is that the appointment is a largely symbolic gesture that won't get to the root of the problems with ICE's rampant racial profiling and mistaken detention of U.S. citizens."

Lorenzen-Strait has served with ICE since 2008, first as an advisor and analyst on policies related to immigration enforcement, detention and juveniles and most recently, as the senior advisor for Enforcement and Removal Operation's (ERO) detention management division.

Recently ICE also established an 1-800 hotline for detainees claiming U.S. Advocates say ICE would do better to halt programs like Secure Communities than patch things up with these sorts of minor reforms.

"I openly acknowledge my role in the matter and continue to believe our decision was the best one for Komen's future and the women we serve. However, the decision to update our granting model was made before I joined Komen, and the controversy related to Planned Parenthood has long been a concern to the organization," Handel wrote in her resignation letter.

Although Komen reversed their decision to end grants to Planned Parenthood last week, news has continued to surface that Handel was behind the decision.

Published in it's entirety, below is Handel's resignation letter:

February 7, 2012

The Honorable Nancy Brinker

CEO, Susan G. Komen for the Cure VIA EMAIL

5005 LBJ Freeway, Suite 250

Dallas, Texas 75244

Dear Ambassador Brinker:

Susan G. Komen for the Cure has been the recognized leader for more 30 years in the fight against breast cancer here in the US - and increasingly around the world.

As you know, I have always kept Komen's mission and the women we serve as my highest priority - as they have been for the entire organization, the Komen Affiliates, our many supporters and donors, and the entire community of breast cancer survivors. I have carried out my responsibilities faithfully and in line with the Board's objectives and the direction provided by you and Liz.

We can all agree that this is a challenging and deeply unsettling situation for all involved in the fight against breast cancer. However, Komen's decision to change its granting strategy and exit the controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood and its grants was fully vetted by every appropriate level within the organization. At the November Board meeting, the Board received a detailed review of the new model and related criteria. As you will recall, the Board specifically discussed various issues, including the need to protect our mission by ensuring we were not distracted or negatively affected by any other organization's real or perceived challenges. No objections were made to moving forward.

I am deeply disappointed by the gross mischaracterizations of the strategy, its rationale, and my involvement in it. I openly acknowledge my role in the matter and continue to believe our decision was the best one for Komen's future and the women we serve. However, the decision to update our granting model was made before I joined Komen, and the controversy related to Planned Parenthood has long been a concern to the organization. Neither the decision nor the changes themselves were based on anyone's political beliefs or ideology. Rather, both were based on Komen's mission and how to better serve women, as well as a realization of the need to distance Komen from controversy. I believe that Komen, like any other nonprofit organization, has the right and the responsibility to set criteria and highest standards for how and to whom it grants.

What was a thoughtful and thoroughly reviewed decision - one that would have indeed enabled Komen to deliver even greater community impact - has unfortunately been turned into something about politics. This is entirely untrue. This development should sadden us all greatly.

Just as Komen's best interests and the fight against breast cancer have always been foremost in every aspect of my work, so too are these my priorities in coming to the decision to resign effective immediately. While I appreciate your raising a possible severance package, I respectfully decline. It is my most sincere hope that Komen is allowed to now refocus its attention and energies on its mission.

Sincerely,

But even among black folks, there's bias, too. And so it is that black gay and bisexual men--or, men who have sex with men in public health parlance--are today at the center of a surging epidemic. 

The question, of course, is why? The answers are manifold, but I've always used this shorthand: HIV infection rates are an excellent measure for who societies don't give a damn about. Worldwide, go looking for the worst epidemic and you'll find the group of people who are hardest hit by a whole host of other bad things, too. But for a more sophisticated explanation, check out The Body's excellent slideshow, in which several smart folks offer short, succinct explanations of key factors. 

Today is National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. It's an annual ritual that we perhaps need more than ever. As individuals and as communities, we've only got so much bandwidth. And from recession to war to political upheavals worldwide, much of our mental and emotional space has been fully occupied in recent years. It's easy for things like health, wellness and sexuality to get shoved to the back burner, put off as luxurious problems. We all know what happens when we do that in our personal lives--that health issue we say we'll deal with when there's more time inevitably grows worse, until it intrudes on its own terms. The process is no different for communities, cities and countries.

This summer, Washington, D.C., will host the International AIDS Conference, in which tens of thousands of scientists, treatment providers, advocates and policy makers come together to share strategies and experiences confronting the epidemic globally. It's the first time the event will be in the U.S. since the early 1990s; it's able to come here now because President Obama finally lifted the longstanding ban on visas for people living with HIV. The event will likely generate a rare, if brief national focus on the epidemic. Many are hoping something meaningful can come from that.

For now, Colorlines.com's Hatty Lee offers a graphic primary for why that focus is so desperately needed right now.

--Kai Wright 

Brinker publishing those statement in her own book illustrate an understanding of how a decision to cut funding for breast cancer services could affect poor women.

Milowent.blogspot provides more details:

In 2010, Komen founder and Nancy Brinker published "Promise Me", a memoir of how the group was founded and grew, starting from the deathbed promise made to her sister, Susan G. Komen, who died of breast cancer in 1980.

In the book, she discusses how the Curves workout chain withdrew their support to Komen in 2004 due to Komen's grants to Planned Parenthood centers. Brinker is clear about why they refused to buckle to Curves' pressure: 

 "The grants in question supplied breast health counseling, screening, and treatment to rural women, poor women, Native American women, many women of color who were underserved--if served at all--in areas where Planned Parenthood facilities were often the only infrastructure available. Though it meant losing corporate money from Curves, we were not about to turn our backs on these women."

Several sources have claimed the person behind the new regulations that attempted to block grants from Planned Parenthood is the new Vice President for Public Policy Karen Handel. Earlier today a source working close to top executives at Komen alleged "Karen Handel was the prime instigator of this effort, and she herself personally came up with investigation criteria" to sever ties with Planned Parenthood.