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I think players look at a man like Ichiro and don't see the kind of figure they're used to seeing attached to the other players that they respect - not to mention his style is impossible for anyone else to emulate...even Muni Kawasaki can't do it.
As for your O'Hare story...why would you assume that the Asian woman got blasted because she was Asian? Maybe the flight attendant had had just about enough of people thinking only of themselves and rudely cutting in line all day and just snapped. Airport personnel are extremely stressed at all times because their customers are extremely stressed at all times, and...like opinions and rear ends, most of those stressed customers just stink. Rude, self-absorbed, oblivious, thankless, and pushy. That's not to say that it's ever right to blow up at someone for a minor infraction like cutting the line...but it says something to me about your personal biases that you would leap to the conclusion that this particular woman was punished because she was Asian. I don't buy it. Not unless the flight attendant said something like "You blinkin' Asian people are always in too big a hurry!" Personally, I just think this flight attendant was, as Amy Alkon puts it, a "Costly Punisher" - someone who reacts to rudeness by calling attention to it and shaming the rude people publicly to make their behavior change.