Saturday Night Live this week tackled the Jeremy Lin phenomenon sweeping the country, in a cold open sketch that addressed race, professional sports history, and yes, all the terrible puns.

Wow. The SNL writers could have just hashed out a couple of absurd Lin phrases, but it seems like they actually had some strong opinions on the matter! They’re making a pretty clear complaint: insensitive jokes about African Americans are generally understood to be off limits (horrible chain e-mails not withstanding), but comments about Asian Americans get a free pass (although that headline writer at ESPN did prove there is a limit).

I also thought it was interesting that Taran Killiam and the SNL writers would be making that argument, considering they gave us this boderline sketch:

I couldn’t decide if this was a brilliant satire of what Americans feared about Jon Huntsman, or an offensive use of stereotypes. It was one of those moments that had me laughing but thinking, “This is so wrong.”

What do you think? Did Saturday Night Live nail the Jeremy Lin issue?

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