Jeremy Lin details racism he experienced in childhood as he opens up about mental health struggles during ‘Linsanity’ period
- Jeremy Lin is accompanied by his older brother Josh for a web series on mental health that touched on a variety of subjects
- Joined by a clinical psychologist, Lin speaks about racism and how he has handled fame over the years
Jeremy Lin remembers growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area and being picked last to play basketball on the neighbourhood courts because of his race.
“Every time we went to the court, we wouldn’t get picked,” said Lin, who was talking with his older brother Josh for a live Instagram web series about mental health, which invariably touched on racism. “When you get there, you get to go in line and then you’re in for the next game, but they would always try to bypass us or pick up somebody else.”
However, Lin, 32, and his brother were quick to dispel myths about race and said once the game began, everything changed.
“Until we started playing, and we would scrape them, and they would be like ‘Oh, we’ll play with you.’ So it was definitely something we experienced on the court a lot growing up.”
Lin and his brother spoke live via the social media platform as part of a “121” series organised by the US-based Mental Health Coalition, a non-profit organisation. The two were joined by Dr Jenny Wang halfway through the discussion, who is a clinical psychologist and also Asian-American.