It's hard to prove others' action are racially motivated. When you accuse people of that without hard evidence, you are at a losing battle. What Lin needs to fight for, is his right to play and to contribute, NOT that the coach should "like" him. Because lip service is always easy, and it's useless.
Same thing at work, if you feel you deserve the promotion but didn't get it, you don't fight it with accusation of racism, that will only put the whole upper management in defensive postion, and there is no win for you. What you need to fight is hard fact about your qualification and achievements, that they have EARNED your promotion.
