Spanish Olympic Teams Mock Asian Eyes

[Madame Vengier]

Racist to the core, needless to say. I just don't know what is wrong with people. How did they think this was okay??

The [url="http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/aug/11/olympicsbasketball.olympics20081"]link[/url] has a photo. And the Spaniards have done stuff like this before.

[quote]Spain’s Olympic basketball teams have risked upsetting their Chinese hosts by posing for a pre-Games advert making slit-eyed gestures. The advert for a courier company, which is an official sponsor of the Spanish Basketball Federation, occupied a full page in the sports daily Marca, the country’s best-selling newspaper.

The advert features two large photographs, one of the men’s basketball team, below, and one of the women’s team. Both squads pose in full Olympic kit on a basketball court decorated with a picture of a Chinese dragon. Every single player appears pulling back the skin on either side of their eyes. The advert carries the symbol of the sport’s governing body.[/quote]

Edited August 12, 2008 by Madame Vengier

[Selah]

I'm not even going to look at that photo. What disgraceful people. Ugh.

[homeschoolmom]

Oh croutons. I was hoping by the title that this was going to be a case of a few members being dorks in the locker room or something... Sheesh... Who authorized this? Nice.

[Madame Vengier]

[quote name='Selah' post='1625179' date='Aug 12 2008, 08:46 AM']I'm not even going to look at that photo. What disgraceful people. Ugh.[/quote]

Lots of blogs are posting on this. I was looking at the comments on Michelle Malkin's blog and I can't BELEIVE how many people are brushing this off as "they are just trying to identify with the Chinese" and comments from people married to Asians and half-Asians saying how this is no big deal and that even Asians makes these jokes. I'm just shocked that people think this is funny and/or harmless.

You should look at the photo. What's appalling is that it's an OFFICIAL Spanish league photo. It's not like it's a photo of a gang of atheletes caught goofing off in the locker room.

[Madame Vengier]

[quote name='homeschoolmom' post='1625183' date='Aug 12 2008, 08:50 AM']a case of a few members being dorks in the locker room or something... Sheesh... Who authorized this? Nice. [/quote]

LOL, I just wrote that!

[Selah]

[quote]"they are just trying to identify with the Chinese"[/quote]

Bull. cr*ap.

Seriously, people need to grow up and stop being racists. Racism just irks me to the core.

Edited August 12, 2008 by Selah

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='Madame Vengier' post='1625186' date='Aug 12 2008, 09:53 AM']LOL, I just wrote that![/quote]

[Winchester]

Racism is a philosophy that one race is inherently superior to the other. Joking about morphology is not racism.

Athletes do this sort of thing, and it should be taken on a case by case basis.

I haven't looked at the pictures, but when you laugh at the stuff people say or mime, in this case, about you, you take away the power of those who intended it as cruelty. It's elementary school that teaches you how to deal with stuff like this. I reckon the typical Chinese citizen, who has to deal with the serious problems of oppression and coerced surgeries doesn't have time to froth at the mouth over a few crazy spaniards. Maybe the Asians should pose in Spanish Inquisition costumes or something.

Aren't there people dying somewhere? This is nothing.

[Didacus]

I would qualify this as tasteless, but not as racist. I don't necessarily see anything derogatory or hateful in their stance.

Just tasteless. And I bet the athletes were just doing what they were told to do.

[Selah]

Couldn't they just say no?

[Archaeology cat]

I see it as very juvenile, and not fitting for an official advert.

[Deb]

Juveline is the correct term. The trademark of those who never grow up and think they are something special because they are athletes. Shallowness to the nth degree. Certainly not surprising to me. What is surprising is that anyone would use that for an ad as it is a representation of their country. We are talking Spain though, so there ya go.

[ruso]

[quote name='Madame Vengier' post='1625175' date='Aug 12 2008, 04:41 PM']Racist to the core, needless to say. I just don't know what is wrong with people. How did they think this was okay??

The [url="http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/aug/11/olympicsbasketball.olympics20081"]link[/url] has a photo. And the Spaniards have done stuff like this before.[/quote]
Look no racism where there is no. Where are the protests of the Chinese?.

[Farsight one]

I'm just wondering here...when I was five years old, the slit eyed thing was not seen as racist even one iota to pretty much anyone on the planet. When, in the last 20 years, did it become that way?

And really - if it's truly racist, where are the complaints from the Asian countries? Or did you think that all of you non-Asians get to determine what's offensive to Asian peoples?

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='Farsight one' post='1625937' date='Aug 13 2008, 07:48 AM']I'm just wondering here...when I was five years old, the slit eyed thing was not seen as racist even one iota to pretty much anyone on the planet. When, in the last 20 years, did it become that way?

And really - if it's truly racist, where are the complaints from the Asian countries? Or did you think that all of you non-Asians get to determine what's offensive to Asian peoples?[/quote]
Really? Cuz I think I'm older than you and it was when I was a kid. Maybe not "racist" but certainly tasteless and derogatory.

[Madame Vengier]

[quote name='Farsight one' post='1625937' date='Aug 13 2008, 06:48 AM']I'm just wondering here...when I was five years old, the slit eyed thing was not seen as racist even one iota to pretty much anyone on the planet. When, in the last 20 years, did it become that way?

And really - if it's truly racist, where are the complaints from the Asian countries? Or did you think that all of you non-Asians get to determine what's offensive to Asian peoples?[/quote]

Well, when I was growing up it was considered a mockery and very rude. Maybe not overtly racist, but without a doubt inappropriate.

So was calling them "slit eyed".

[Madame Vengier]

[quote name='homeschoolmom' post='1625943' date='Aug 13 2008, 07:57 AM']Really? Cuz I think I'm older than you and it was when I was a kid. Maybe not "racist" but certainly tasteless and derogatory.[/quote]


Oh my gosh, I copied you AGAIN. And I hadn't even seen your response.

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='Madame Vengier' post='1625956' date='Aug 13 2008, 09:07 AM']Oh my gosh, I copied you AGAIN. And I hadn't even seen your response. [/quote]
yeah... knock it off

[Deb]

This is what the team had to say (their sponsor is Chinese)

Jose Manuel Calderon, an icon of the national team, explains in his blog at elmundo.es that it was a wink from the sponsor, something they thought appropriate and affectionate. He is blunt: “Whoever wants to interpret something different is totally confused.”

“It turns out that in the photo shoot for the submission of our team, one of our sponsors asked us to make, as a ‘wink’ to our participation in Beijing, an expression of Eastern eyes — we felt it was something appropriate and that it would always be interpreted as an affectionate gesture,” Calderon says. “However, some European media have not looked on it well,” laments the linchpin of the national team.

Calderon denies any racist tinge in the gesture and expressed his “great respect for the East and its people.” The Extremaduran highlighted his great personal relationship with several Chinese friends by his team in the NBA, Toronto Raptors, and recalled that the sports brand Li Ning China outfits the Spanish team as one of its sponsors.

[Deb]

I thought this was very mature though:

[b]AUSSIE OFFICIAL CRACKS WISE ABOUT THE BRITISH AND SOAP[/b] There was also another bit of bother Monday, between the Aussies and the British, although it was in more of a music-hall vein. In a report from Beijing in the British daily The Guardian (the same paper that broke the Spain ad story on monday), the paper’s Matt Scott noted the [url="http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/aug/12/olympicgames.aquatics.britainaustralia"]“sporting spat between Britain and Australia plumbed new and comical depths yesterday as the most senior Australian Olympic official accused British athletes of lacking personal hygiene.”[/url]

Australian Olympic Committee President John Coates. (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)The remark in question came from Oz Olympic Committee chief and IOC member John Coates, who reacted to Rebecca Adlington’s gold in the 400-meter freestyle swim for Britain with the observation, “It’s not bad for a country that has no swimming pools and very little soap.”