The New York Times faced another online public relations nightmare Friday when they characterized Asian Americans in figure skating as &qu...
The New York Times faced another online public relations nightmare Friday when they characterized Asian Americans in figure skating as "overrepresented."
The article pointed out that Asian Americans have come to dominate the sport of figure skating which previously had been predominantly white.
But it was their use of the word "overrepresented" that made many on Twitter lash out in confusion and anger.
"Figure skating in the U.S. is now plainly an Asian American sport," read the tweet from the Times.
"Asians make up around 7% of the U.S. population but have become vividly overrepresented in ice rinks and competitions at every level, from coast to coast," the thread continued.
"Gradually, they have transformed a sport that, until the 1990s, was almost uniformly white," they added.
The response
Many on social media took objection to what they perceived as a negative tone to the word "overrepresented."
"Please tell us how many Asians are the appropriate amount on the ice rink, New York Times," replied Kristina Wong of Breitbart News.
"Are you f***ing kidding me!" tweeted Kurt Bardella, a Democrat advisor.
"Liberals embrace racism, especially against Asian-Americans," responded Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas.)
"New York Times casually spreading anti-Asian propaganda," tweeted Danny Haiphong.
"My favorite attempts at wokeness are the ones that look awful to the woke and non-woke alike," tweeted Noah Blum.
"Is there an article about the overrepresntation of African-Americans in basketball or football available in your archives? There shouldn't be for the same reason this headline shouldn't exist," read another critical tweet.
'No judgment baked into it'
The writer of the article, Andrew Keh, responded to many of the critics and tried to explain why he used the word that offended so many.
"I used the word after hearing in conversation with multiple Asian American sociologists," Keh tweeted. "It literally just means that participation is clearly disproportionate to the population stat cited in the same sentence. There's no judgment baked into it."
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