By Shirley N Lew
AsAmNews New York Correspondent
The Wall Street Journal used a racial slur in reference to China’s General Secretary of the Communist Party, Xi Jinping, in a tweet sent late Sunday night about 11pm Eastern.
At 11:53 pm, the Wall Street Journal tweeted that their previous tweet about “a chink in his armor” had been removed.
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, 2015
“Might be seen as a slur,” their tweet said. I’m shaking my head at this. What bothers me about the Wall Street Journal, a highly respectable a newspaper (or no longer) is referring “chink” as a common idiom, which is just as insulting because they are not recognizing it as a racial slur.
Many others were just as upset about the Wall Street Journal’s racist tweet:
— H (@Tark31) August 31, 2015
@WSJ you learned nothing from ESPN’s ordeal re: Jeremy Lin and the implied slur?
— Sarah Beth Houser (@cottageofstone) August 31, 2015
@WSJ no offense was intended but no apologies issued??? Are you kidding me???
— Jean Cheng (@jeaniust) August 31, 2015
No apology has been tweeted from the Wall Street Journal at the time of this writing.
(Editor’s note: The lead has been changed from an previous version to clarify how the slur chink was used.)
re: Wall Street Journal Tweets Racial Slur about China’s General Secretary: “chink” n the armor” means a gap. The person who wrote this was probably not East Asian and therefor didn’t perceive this word a a racial slur until there was a reaction. It actually is a common idiom and probably predated the use of the C word as a racial slur.
RE: Wall Street Journal tweets racial slur about China’s General Secretary: It does not matter whether it was or was not used as a common idiom. We understand that it is an idiom, we are not stupid. The context of the used idiom (or non-idiom some may claim) is that it was a racial slur that is offensive and should have never been there. Regardless of the intent, an apology should be issued and it was not issued. That is even worse in many regards because WSJ does not think that it was important enough to apology for a racial slur that was tweeted.