Jeremy Lin has lunch with writer of offensive headline

Jeremy Lin took the high road last month after ESPN’s mobile website briefly ran a racially insensitive headline about the Asian American basketball star, accepting an apology from the person responsible for the slur and saying, “You have to learn to forgive.”

Lin took an even higher road Tuesday by having lunch with that person, Anthony Federico, who was fired from his job as an editor at ESPN after writing the headline. According to Federico, members of Lin’s family sent him an email more than a month ago and the two men had been trying since then to arrange a meeting around the New York Knicks point guard’s busy schedule.

“The fact that he reached out to me. ... The fact that he took the time to meet with me in his insanely busy schedule. ... He’s just a wonderful, humble person. He didn’t have to do that,” Federico said.

Federico was one of many people who went too far in trying to be clever during the heyday of “Linsanity.” ESPN anchor Max Bretos was suspended 30 days for using the same phrase.

Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock and boxer Floyd Mayweather also angered some people with their tweets concerning Lin. And there was more than one incident linking Lin to fortune cookies that caused public outcry.

Federico said that the offensive play on words -- which he said after the incident was “an honest mistake” -- barely came up during lunch at a Manhattan restaurant that Federico said lasted an hour.

“We talked more about matters of faith [and] reconciliation. We talked about our shared Christian values and what we’re both trying do with this situation,” Federico said. “We didn’t talk about the headline for more than three minutes.”

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Jeremy Lin has lunch with writer of offensive headline