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Oct. 6 (UPI) -- Brooklyn Nets guard Jeremy Lin has responded to a dis from Kenyon Martin regarding his dreadlocks. Martin, who is no longer in the NBA, posted a photo of Lin's hair on his Instagram account. He also posted videos talking about the hair. He has since taken the posts down.
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"Do I need to remind this [expletive] boy his last name Lin?" Martin said one of the videos. "Like, come on man. Let's stop it with these people. There is no way possible he would've made it on one of our teams with that bullshit on his head. Come on man, somebody need to tell him, like, 'alright bro, we get it. You wanna be black.' Like, we get it. But your last name is Lin."
Lin responded to the call-out with a comment on the Instagram post.
"Hey man," Lin wrote. "It's all good you don't have to like my hair and definitely entitled to your opinion. Actually I legit grateful you sharin' it tbh. At the end of the day I appreciate that I have dreads and you have Chinese tattoos bc I think it's a sign of respect. And I think as minorities, the more we appreciate each other's cultures, the more we influence mainstream society. Thanks for everything you did for the Nets and hoops...had your poster up on my wall growin up."
Martin followed up with another video.
"That man grown, that man can rock whatever hairstyle he want to rock," Martin said. "...That don't mean I have to like it or agree with it."
Lin, who has a history of interesting hairstyles, wrote a piece about his hair Tuesday for The Players' Tribune. In the article, he explained that he got the haircut with teammate Rondae Hollis-Jefferson.
"I'll be honest: At first I didn't see the connection between my own hair and cultural appropriation," Lin wrote for The Players' Tribune. "Growing up, I'd only ever picked from one or two hairstyles that were popular among my friends and family at the time. But as an Asian-American, I do know something about cultural appropriation. I know what it feels like when people get my culture wrong. I know how much it bothers me when Hollywood relegates Asian people to token sidekicks, or worse, when it takes Asian stories and tells them without Asian people. I know how it feels when people don't take the time to understand the people and history behind my culture. I've felt how hurtful it is when people reduce us to stereotypes of Bruce Lee or 'shrimp fried rice.'"
"It's easy to brush some of these things off as "jokes," but eventually they add up. And the full effect of them can make you feel like you're worth less than others, and that your voice matters less than others."
Lin elaborated on the comments after the Nets' 107-88 win against the Miami Heat Thursday in a preseason game at the Barclays Center.
"At the end of the day...we need to spend a little more time thinking about what it'd be like to be somebody else," Lin told the New York Post in his postgame comments. "He said what he said but I'm not really that offended. If that's how he thinks, that's how he thinks. But my job is to be gracious, loving and if I can just share with him a little of my side I think the next time maybe he'll have a different viewpoint."
"He might have a different viewpoint in a week, but not if my whole fan base comes and starts calling him - I didn't see it, but I heard people were saying the N-word on his page. That's not what I stand for at all, and that's not helping us move in the direction we want to move in. I think both sides need to come together."
Lin had a team-high 16 points in the Nets' win Thursday.
