hello. i'm don lemon. thank you so much for watching. you're in the cnn "newsroom." we're going to begin with this. think about this, a lot of people have had relationships turn sour on them, but not everyone has had an ex who has the power to deport them. all at once an arizona sheriff publicly came out of the closet, left his role in the mitt romney campaign, and denied claims from a former flame. the phoenix news times reports that paul babue threatened it

deport his ex-lover, a mexican immigrant identified only as jose if he revealed their relationship. these are the photos that jose gave "the new times." babue who speak with gary tuchman in 2010 is nationally known for his tough stance on illegal immigration. he's also a republican running for congress, and he is staying in the race, he says, but he is leaving his role as mitt romney's state campaign co-chair. the sheriff says he did nothing wrong. >> i'm here to say that all these allegations that were in one of these newspapers are absolutely completely false except for the issues that refer to [ muted ] being gay because that's the truth. i am gay. >> welcome to the phoenix news times reporter that broke this story, monica alonso, and we asked her if she was concerned

that bobby's ex-boyfriend, jose, could be making up all of this out of spite. >> well, it was very clear from early on when i met with jose that clearly he had been hurt by this. you know, this was a relationship that they had over a period of several years. really what stood out the most is his desire to stop the threats and intimidation he says and his attorney claim the sheriff and sheriff's attorney were making. he just wanted to be left alone, and he felt ultimately that the best way for him to achieve that is to sort of just end up -- >> that was monica alonso from the new times. she's a reporter who broke the story. sheriff babeu appeared in re-election as for senator john mccain in 2010. mccain is warning against any rush to judgment here. >> sheriff babeu is a friend of mine. i do not know the details except

what has been published in the media, and i'm sure there will be a they ar they are thorough complete investigation. he also deserves the benefit of innocence until proven guilty, but i appreciate the support he gave me in my campaign and always will. >> it is a pretty interesting story. i want to bring in lz granderson and also will cain. as i said, it is an interesting story. lz, do you see any hypocrisy here? >> just a little bit. you know, i'm pretty used to this now, right, when it comes to the gop and this issue in terms of sexual orientation and sexuality. it always seems as if the person who's working for an anti-gay politician or is an anti-gay poll significanitician for some

seems to have these gay ties. i don't want to get into whether jose's story is correct or not, but i find it interesting he resigned from mitt romney's campaign but he's still running for congress. i'm trying to figure out why would you resign from mitt's campaign but still have your own? either you are qualified to continue on as a co-chair for mitt romney or you're not. >> hold on, hold on. why isn't the jose part important to you? because he could be making this up. we don't know. if we're going to take, you know, jose at his word, we have to take mr. babeu at his word as well. why isn't it important to you that jose -- jose's side of the story? >> it's not important to me because right now it's all rumor and projections, he said/he said sort of story. i think it's important we concentrate on what are the real facts. that is he's elected to resign from mitt romney's campaign and i'm curious as to why. does he feel coming out

disqualifies him from being able to serve a republican candidate? if that's the case, we have a larger issue to be talking about. >> if he was out in the first place, do you think this would be an issue? >> if he was out in the first place would mitt romney have him as a co-chair for his state campaign? i think that's the real question, right? why is he resigning? did he feel he had to resign because he couldn't continue on as an openly gay volunteer? in the best case that says something horrible about mitt romney's campaign. >> will, before i ask you my question, do you want to respond to anything ls has said? >> i want to respond to one thing. lz and i are friends and we've had a lot of conversations offline and conversations andl s almost invariably opposes generalizations both stereotypes when it comes to sexuality and stereotypes when it comes to race. but he made a broad sweeping generalization about the gop and its hypocrisy about sexuality. i think these stories should be looked at as individual circumstances and judged as individual circumstances. lz, by your own standard, i

don't know how you apply a broad generalization to an entire party. i don't know how you can do that by your own standard. >> lz? >> well, i can give you a long list of examples but i don't know if we can take up don's show like that. we certainly have plenty of examples of both people in religious front as well as the political front who happen to be gop candidates who happen to be anti-gay or linked to anti-gay organizations and then we find out later that they are somehow either wrestlingle with sexual orientation or involved with these kind of flames -- >> i don't know what broader conclusion we're trying to reach with that. >> okay. will, listen, i get both your points, and i think that both of you do have a point to some extent on this issue, so we'll stop it there, but, will, my question is the arizona primary is nine days away. is it going to have any impact, any at all, on the romney campaign? >> i can't see it having one, don. i can't see there's any broader

application. it seems to be my message in this story. i can't see what the broader implication or the broader narrative or the broader effect this has on politics in general. lz and you, don, were talking a minute ago about why he would resign from mitt romney's campaign but not his own congressional race. i think the answer is clear. i think this guy is now involved in a story that potentially deals with the abuse of power and around a story like that you're going to have a hornet's nest of bad press. he apparently doesn't want to bring that on mitt romney's campaign but is willing to take that on for himself. i don't see any broader political implications. >> i also think there is something as well about being openly gay and saying it and running on that platform and being the leader of mitt romney's campaign in that state and being open about it rather than sort of going the opposite way and having to come out after some scandal. i think lz has a very good point with that. so it's going to be about abuse of power -- >> i think log cabin republicans

or gop proud might have some smshs with you guys. there are such things as gay republicans. >> we didn't say there were no such things as gay republicans. we didn't say anything about that. i used to be a member of the -- republicans when i lived in new york. i know there are gay republicans. my problem is that, one, he seems to resign when people found out that he was gay, and that's my issue. it's like that has that says really, really poorly about how he feels that he would be accepted book as a volunteer with mitt romney's campaign. >> that's not the only thing going on in this story. that's not the only -- >> okay. that's it. i just said that. i said it's not the only thing. it's abuse of power and also what lz said. so i'm not taking any side. i see both your points but thank you very much. we're going to get back to you, lz and will. >> see you in a minute. >> we'll talk about the presidential race. we'll ask sheriff babeu some of the very same questions when he's our guest exclusively on

"ac 360" tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. eastern. make sure you tune in. whitney houston now in her final resting place. the music legend was buried today during a private ceremony in westfield, new jersey. her plot is next to her father's, john houston. yesterday houston was remembered in a star-studded funeral service at her hometown church in newark, new jersey. her ex-husband, bobby brown, left early because he says he was asked to move too many times and security kept him from seeing his daughter bobbi kristina. last night he did honor whitney on stage during a performance with his group new edition. >> i want to give blessings to my ex-wife, whitney houston. i love you. i want to give a lot of blessings to my kids, my fiancee, my brothers, and all of

you. >> there are still so many questions about how houston died, but toxicology results are still weeks away. the residents of homs, syria, woke to a familiar sound today. relentless shelling as security forces hammered their town for the 16th straight day. opposition activists say ten people were killed there today, 13 more were killed across syria. rebels are still scrambling to organize in the north. members of the insurgency say they're receiving no support from the outside world. cnn has just learned that three people have been killed in an avalanche in washington state. this information just coming in a short time ago. king county sheriff's officials say another two people received medical care.

cnn's jacqui jeras joins me now. where is this, and what's the weather like where they are now. >> this is in washington state. we put together a google earth to give you an idea of where it is. they've been receiving in the last 24 hours some pretty heavy snowfall, over a foot. and what happened here is some skiers at the ski resort went into what we call the backcountry or out of bounds skiing area and they believe that's what triggered the avalanche in this area and killed three people, two people were injured and it's our understanding now that the rest of the people that were involved have been accounted for. so that's the good news. to put this in perspective for you, this is around highway 2. this is some web cams from the washington department of transportation. you can see the slope of the terrain here. this time of the year we get frequent snowstorms that move through the area and the layers of snow will pile up on top of each other. if there's any melting or anything in between, that creates unstable conditions, and any little trigger, even something as little as a skier,

can make things go off. so that's very unfortunate, and here is just a map to give you an idea again of the location, the proximity to seattle. this is a very well-known area. the snow has moved out, just make a couple snow showers now and that's about it. so some sad news coming out of washington state. >> jacqui jeras, thank you very much. we'll update you as we get more information. rick santorum says the government should not require health care providers to cover costs for prenatal testing. and also when did slavery really end in the united states? if you think it was after the civil war, right after, you're wrong according to a noted journalist. we'll talk with him straight ahead here on cnn. whwheeee! ! whwheeee!! whwheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! ahah h heaeadsds u up. whwheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

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republican presidential hopeful rick santorum is not playing it safe in his new role as primary challenger to mitt romney. he's made several remarks in recent day that is set the political world on fire. i want to bring in cnn contributor will cain in new york, lz granderson in grand rapids, michigan. he's a contributor to cnn.com and a senior writer at espn. are we all friends now? is everybody fine? >> we always have been. >> we'll always be friends. >> just joking. for the people at home, it was like you guys are mad at each other on twinter. i'm like, no, we're just having a conversation. let's start with santorum's comments about president obama's quote. theology, right? take a look at what santorum said yesterday followed by reaction from the obama campaign. listen. >> it's not about you. it's not about you. it's not about your quality of life. it's not about your jobs. it's about some phony ideal,

some phony theology. oh, not a theology based on the bible, a different theology, but no less a theology. >> i can't help but think that those remarks are well over the line. it's wrong. it's destructive. it makes it virtually impossible to solve the problems that we all face together as americans. >> so, will, rick santorum said this morning that he wasn't questioning the president's christianity. so why did he use the word theology? he's been around for a while. he knows what he's doing. >> it's inappropriate. i don't know why he used it, don, but i do think it's an inappropriate use of verbiage because whether or not it's intended or not, it is going to have those implications for a broad range of people out there. did he know that? i can't get inside his mind, i don't know, but the bottom line is people out there are going to hear someone invoking religion

and in a way that is a nonchristian religious context to say -- to suggest president obama isn't a christian. that's the bottom line. it's going to imply that president obama is not a christian. those inappropriate. >> i think that's the way most people are reading it. lz, do you think it's strategic. will says he's not sure if it was. >> i tend to think it was strategic. it's just another code word he's using to remind people he's not like us. he is different from us. >> i got it, i got it. so, lz, santorum said today that insurance companies shouldn't be required to cover prenatal testing because certain tests often lead to abortions. are comments like this calculated? >> i just wish people in the area would just ask themselves or ask santorum what do you base this on? what facts are you using? did you interview a bunch of doctors? have you interviewed patients and this is what they told you? why are you saying these things? he says a lot of things like this to challenge president

obama. he doesn't get challenged himself on the facts. i think that's disturbing and it skews away from the larger conversation about health care. >> lz -- i mean, will, if you want to weigh in quickly. >> i just love to kind of put this comment about prenatal care in context. rick santorum is opposed to amniocentesis for some reason. call him a knuckle dragger, call him backwards, whatever you want. he doesn't want the government to ban prenatal testing. he's not trying to seek that out, but what he's opposed is to oft forcing private employers to include it for free in their health care plans. we're opposed to the government forcing employers to provide many things in a health care plan. this is a broader problem with obama care. >> okay. listen -- >> and did you say he's pro-choice? >> what did you say? >> did you say you're pro-chase? >> are you playing off my words or asking if santorum is

pro-choice? >> you said you want it to be a choice. so i'm saying, yes, are you pro-choice? >> am i pro-choice versus pro-life in the abortion debate? >> no pro-choice versus no choice. >> i'm not following, lz. >> let's move on. >> all right. >> he's referring to mandatory health care. we get it. it was a moment but the moment is passed because you're not getting it. let's move on, will. i want to talk about michigan. a new poll shows that santorum and romney basically are tied in the state where romney grew up. if romney loses, are we looking at this race lasting into the summer? >> well, it's going to last a long time, don. it might last all the way to the convention. it takes 1,144 delegates to win the republican nomination and between now and that convention there are many states that are proportional delegate awards, not winner take all. so it's going to be hard to

putting together those delegates. if you lose michigan, you lose momentum, a lot of things. >> thank you. we have to get -- all of us should be in the same room at some point to conduct these interviews because i think your discussion is very lively and very watchable. see you next week. >> sorry i got confused. >> well, it's not the first time, will. next, a powerful report about slavery in america. it may not have ended when you think it did after the civil war. pull litser prize winning journalist explains right after the break. for a limited time, passages malibu

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zawahiri slavery in america really end in 1865 with the 13th amendment to the u.s. constitution? pulitzer prize winning journalist douglas blackman says there was a systematic reenslavement of african-americans ending as rent lie as 50 or 60 years ago. his book is entitled "slavery by another name." it was shown at the sundance film festival. why would you quite honestly a white man from the south take on this particular topic? >> i grew up in a place in mississippi that was -- where there were more black people than there were white. i went to schools where overwhelming they were black in the public school in the 1970s primarily and for whatever reason from really early on in life i was sort of possessed

with trying to understand why were things the way they were. why were all the black people i knew facing such greater difficulty in their lives than i faced in mine. i began to write about civil rights at an early age and have been doing it for a long, long time. >> your book is an investigation of american corporations using slave labor after slaves were free. what did you learn? >> i learned after the civil war when the emancipated slaves were, indeed, free for a period of time, they were in tough times, but they were authentically free, but then began this great campaign all across the southern states to essentially reenslave large numbers of african-americans and over the ensuing decades, a whole new system of slavery emerged partly through the criminal justice system but also just through the terrible means of economic exploitation of african-americans in the rural

areas of the deep deep south, but it was a return of slavery and a very really kind of slavery in which people were being bought and sold and abused terribly. >> so people are going to say what does that mean? what does that mean today? >> what it means is that slavery didn't end 150 years ago, and so that any time you're in a conversation when somebody says to you, well, why are we still talking about all this stuff? why are we still having a conversation? why are black people still complaining about disparities, it's been 150 years since slavery ended, why can't they just get over it. that's fundamentally untrue. slavery didn't really begin to recede from american life on a big scale until more like 50 or 60 years ago, and in many respects that were vestiges of this that continue up into the '60s, right up into our life times and for sure there are thousands of elderly african-americans alive today who were born on farms in south georgia or south alabama or south carolina who were born into slavery in their childhoods, and for us to deny that is to deny one of the most

important aspects of american history in the past 100 years. >> tell us about a couple of descendants names tonya grooms and susan benoir. who are they and what was your influence on them. >> in the case of tonya grooms, it was that she's a descendant of the main character in the book and the main character in the film whose name was green cotton ham, and he was an african-american, young african-american man who was arrested on a specious charge in 1908. he was sold into slavery in a coal mine in alabama operated by u.s. steel corporation, and he died there under terrible circumstances a few months later. susan is a white woman, and she's the great granddaughter of john williams who lived in georgia and who in 1921 after there was a brief investigation into that he was holding large numbers of african-american men as slaves to try to a void prosecution, he murdered all of the black men who were on his

farm and there were at least 11 bodies found. and so these two women who come from -- whose ancestry goes back to the opposite sides of this terrible chapter of american history, both came forward, and they both have these beautiful perspectives and wonderful ways of discussing exactly what you've been asking about, and that is what does this matter in modern life. >> it's fascinating. the documentary fascinating, the book fascinating. thank you douglas blackman. >> that's for having me. next, those two women we just spoke about join me in the studio here and you will hear their compelling stories in their own words. that's right after the break.

before the break we told you about a powerful book called "slavery by another name" that was recently turned into a doumary. it looks at african-americans who were freed after the civil war but later re-enslaved. two women share emotional stories about their relatives on opposing sides of the slave controversy. susan bernoir is the great granddaughter of a slave owner who murdered 11 slaves to hide evidence of slavery. tonya grooms discovered her great grandfather was a free man falsely arrested on a trumped up charge of vagrancy and made a

slave until he died. we begin with tonya talking about her great grandfather. >> it represents these people but for the detailed research, they would have disappeared completely. what we didn't realize is people were being re-enslaved on a large scale. they were working for companies as leased labors but their crimes as in the case of my late ancestor vagrancy which means you can't prove you have a job. you could be picked up at any time, forced into labor where the sheriff's department or the courts may receive payment for your work but you never do. and often times it was brutal and unfortunately in the case of green cottingham, he does not survive. >> susan, your great grandfather, john williams, murdered 11 black workers. he was essentially using them as slaves. i want to play a very powerful moment from you in the film.

>> i just got so emotional to think about not just the fact that these men were murdered h but the cruelty with which it was carried out. that's what's hardest for me to imagine and hardest to accept. >> so susan, it's decades later, do you have any guilt about that at all. how do you feel about that? >> i can't say it was guilt because it was 90 years ago long before i was born, before even my father was born. still, it's just -- it's a horrible thing to know about your family. however, i have known this about my family for quite a while. >> and people shouldn't be guilty because as we said, this is american history. if there's any shame in it, it's not to know it and accept it and talk about it. >> that's what was so remarkable about this book and this film, that i already knew my family's history, but i didn't know how widespread this problem was. i didn't know that it really is

a big part of american history. >> so what do you want people to get out of this, susan? many people would say why dredge this up. we know this is so painful. why do this to yourself and to us? >> well, we don't drige edge it for anything good for my family. it's very painful to read about these things and talk about these things, but i think it's important for our country, important for our education system that they include this information because all of us growing up never knew this, never knew this problem that existed for so many years with thousands and thousands of people. >> and ignorance is not bliss, right? >> no, it is not. and i think what we do is we sort of rehabilitate the reputation of the, you know, 20th century african-american because these people worked extremely hard. your choice was to work hard or die, and people didn't even know what happened. a lot of times these people would disappear and you wouldn't know what happened to your relative, and that's how they were lost in our own family

history. and in the course of this book, you know, our family is not only -- we discover this ancestor who probably disappeared -- he was the first cousin of my great grandfather, and you can imagine even though he was one person, how horrifying it would be to live under that fact. but the beauty of it is that these people, and i did talk to a lot of my older ancestors, they weren't broken. they weren't pitiful. so i guess instead of me seeing them as victims i kind of see them as survivors. >> did you ever have a chance to talk to each other before this project? did you even know each other? >> no, we met through the project. >> tell me what happened snp. >> it's funny but it seems like we met and immediately had a connection. we have a lot of things in common, even though our stories about this particular project come from totally different positions. but we just hit it off and we've been hanging out some. >> thank you very much, ladies. very interesting conversation. appreciate you joining us here

on cnn. for more on slavery by another name, visit our blog, cnn.com/inamerica. or cnn.com/don as well. we'll put that segment on there for you. also catch the full documentary airing on your local pbs stations. up next here on cnn, a weather update, including winter troubles in the east and the west. and later they're training female ninjas in iran. we'll explain what this is all about coming up. but your erectile dysfunction -- that could be a question of blood flow. cialis for daily use helps you be ready anytime the moment's right. you can be more confident in your ability to be ready. and the same cialis is the only daily ed tablet approved to treat ed and symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently or urgently. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medications, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sexual activity. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess with cialis. side effects may include headache, upset stomach,

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the appalachians and the mid-atlantic have been getting pelted with snow and the weather picture is similar in parts of the western u.s. meteorologist jacqui jeras following the snowstorms from the cnn severe weather center. are they really bad? >> well, it's bad for travelers, ooirl tell you that. it's been big, fat, wet snowflakes across the virginias and into the central appalachians. there you can see the video. this is out of roanoke, and there's only been about an inch of snow so far in the city itself, but you get up into the higher elevations and we've seen as much as 7 inches. so visibility has been very poor. the roadways have been wet. certainly slick over the bridges and overpasses and as

temperatures drop down tonight we're concerned about that really freezing up and creating that black ice as we call it and that's going to carry over into your morning drive even, you know, if you may be out for presiden presidents' day you still want to keep that in mind. this is where the heaviest accumulations really have been and now the real intense snowfall is pushing into eastern parts of virginia. norfolk, you're just rain right now but you are going to see that transition over so expect that as we head into the evening hours for tonight. our second storm right here into parts of the rockies. that's going to move into the plains for tomorrow. we're going to see rain, sleet, and snow, especially on the northern tier of the system. >> jacqui, thank you very much. you're going to like this next story. you're going to be interested in it because i know a lot of people are. look at this. more than 3,000 women, jacqui, being trained as ninjas. what's going on? in a country you might not expect. find out why coming up next.

♪ sing polly wolly doodle all the day ♪ ♪ hah

thousands of women taking part in some unexpected training in iran. they're learning how to be ninja fighters. they say they'll use their martial arts skill to defend their country if it is necessary. cnn's international desk editor takes us globe trekking. tell us about this school in

tehran. the video is interesting. they are -- >> they're serious. >> they are not messing around. the school started in 1989 and there are about 3,500 women that are officially in training for japanese ninjitsu. this is a segment that ran on the iranian state-run channel press tv, and ever since this segment recently ran, it got a lot of buzz online. and these women, look, you can see them -- >> can we hear them? let's listen. wow, don't mess with them. >> you can see they're showing off their techniques and all -- >> is this unusual in iran? >> it's not unusual, but it is gaining a lot of traction and a lot of popularity, don, especially among the women. why is that? because it appeals to them. it's a form of self empowerment in a country where they feel

like their personal expressions are limited, and so it's a sport and women are really taking to it. and they have students as young as 5 up to 56 years old. >> i can't get enough of this video. seriously. if they have to defend their country, they will. >> well, i mean, these are -- they're not doing this -- they're not in the army but it's more of a personal choice that they do to take this on as a recreational activity, but possibly. >> wow. okay. i'll stop looking at the video. i think it's so cool. i could watch that all day. but this is going to be great video, too. rio dejannero, carnival under way. it's more than parades. >> it is. we know it is indisputably the biggest party on the planet. >> bigger than mardi gras? yeah, i guess it is. louisiana boy, got to put it in there. fat tuesday is tuesday. >> but sometimes getting seats at the actual carnival festivities can be very

expensive. they can cost hundreds of thousands -- hundreds of dollars and depending where you sit and how you participate, the price can go up. but what brazilians do, they are probably the biggest partiers in the world. they're not going to stop. if they can't get to the show, they will throw the party in their neighborhoods and this is some footage we're seeing here from earlier today out of rio e deja narrow. this year the government has stepped in and said you can have a good time, but they have taken an official stance against urinating in public. they have put 15,000 port-o-potties up across the city, and they actually have this tv ad running on brazilian tv with a catchy samba tune that says, you know, don't pee, more or less. >> i hope so. it's okay to -- i'm not going there. >> have a good time but -- >> but really there are limits. thank you. >> you're welcome. >> appreciate it.

have fun down in new orleans for mardi gras. espn takes action after controversial jeremy lin headline, one that could be interpreted as an ethnic slur. that's after the break. but first this -- each week cnn's dr. sanjay gupta profiles innovators from all walks of life. the prom gram is called "the ne list." next sunday he talks to the industrial designer of creative things like the $100 laptop and the wireless speaker jam box. here is a preview. >> when we started designing the $100 laptop, we were just looking at how do you protect the keyboard and the screen. how do children sort of carry it around. we set aside between 10% and 30% of our work hours towards those kind of projects. i can't tell you that that's

just what made business sense every month, but i can tell you that it's what made human sense every month. $100 laptop, we were just that it's what made human sense

one espn employee was fired and an anchor suspended over a phrase used to describe jeremy

lin. the headline referenced the knicks loss to the hornets friday night, but the comments could be interpreted as an ethnic slur. did lin fans find it offensive? susan candiotti joins candiotti. what are they saying, susan? >> reporter: hi, don. they are not at all happy about it. many of the fans that we spoke with in china town today, that espn headline read chink in the armor and it came after the new york knicks lost in new orleans which ended a self havenven gamg streak. after that, espn today fired, as you said, the headline writer and also suspended for 30 days an espn anchor who also used the same phrase. espn also offered this

statement. an apology that read in part, we again apologize, especially to mr. lin. his accomplishments are a source of great pride in the asian-american community, including asian-american communities. they called the comments insensitive at best and an ethnic slur at worse. >> any racist tone to any other race so why should chinese be excluded? >> it's inappropriate. it is. and he should be treated like any other player. it shouldn't be -- i don't know. i don't think race should be a factor. >> reporter: all right. i hope you can all appreciate the ambience that is going on

behind me. but jeremy lin addressed this issue and he is a bit more fill sof cal about it. take a listen. >> espn apologized. i don't think it was on purpose or whatever but at the same time, they've apologized. so i don't care anymore. i have to learn to forgive and i don't even think that was the intention, or hopefully not. >> reporter: you know, we watched part of the game this afternoon at a bar called libation, fans taking in all of the linsanity but other asian-american fans were telling us that they hope throughout all of this that he helps ease the stereotypes of all asian american athletes. >> susan candiotti, thank you very much. we appreciate that. as we mentioned, jeremy lin is the talk of the nba and his

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well, from a noeb to a sports sensation, i'm talking about jeremy lin, the new york knicks basketball player that has taken the lead by storm in an unforgettable season. we will speak with john, the new si cover featuring, you guessed it, jeremy lin. john joins us now. he is in -- john, where are you? >> reporter: philadelphia. it's a little different this week. >> i'm glad you're not in china town. did you see snl last night? what did you think of that skit? >> people had to tread carefully. i hate that. this is such a great sports story. i seriously hate that it's masking such a great story this is. it's a great story on all sorts of levels. >> lynne had 29 points in year high and 14 assists. how could a guy this high fly

under the radar. two other teams gave up on him. ? >> and basically the whole league had a look at him. general managers have got to do explaining to their general managers. if you look at his game, it's not necessarily flash she. he's talked about this. he's been very outspoken. so much talent and evaluation is based on metrics and analytics and statics. his game doesn't translate well to those numbers. he needs to be in the right situation and now that he is, this is a great, great story. i don't know how you short change this. two weeks now of just sensational day. a guy who super bowl weekend was on the verge of -- it's great. it's great. >> i remember we were talking about is the nba going to have a size son? it wasn't great news about the nba and then you have jeremy

lin. i think you're right. we're missing the story here. yeah, it's great and i think that jeremy lin, if he's the person to shed light on what some would deem racist and on this when it m coulds to the asian american community, then so be it. that's great. but we're missing the broader point, right? >> yes. and the nba could not have ordered this better. right after the super bowl here comes this guy in new york and we have this compressed season because of the lockout. what it means is that this sensation, if you don't like him tonight, he's playing again tomorrow. he's playing four or five games in a week, that's fueled this whole phenomena again, too. >> yeah. and we talked about -- i don't even know if we need to go on and talk about all of these punts. the guy who was suspended -- i don't want to play that. it's much to do about nothing and i think you're right. but, listen, i think he is

foreseeing people to sort of change their minds about what an nba player looks like. >> yeah. i mean, let's not be naive. not a lot of asian players and harvard grad. but who was the star of the playoffs last year? i think the better part of the story is, who knows this guy at the end of the bench on the verge of being sent down to the minors, he can lead to beat the mavericks. i think it's inex act and that to me is much more compelling than, oh, he went to harvard. >> and allstar events next weekend which i think is great. >> right. >> he's a star now. he's leaded with the media in taiwan to give his family space. they are even following his