In 2008, it really is sad that these sort of things keep happening. The Guardian reports that the Spanish Basketball Federation has published a good luck advertisement for the national team in Beijing. The problem? In the ad the Spanish hoops squad appears to be pulling the sides of their eyes back, making a slant-eyed gesture. Many are reading this as a dig at Olympic host China.
The ad ran in one of Spain's largest newspapers. Not one person stepped in to suggest this may be interpreted as a derogatory gesture to the words Asian countries? Not one person from the Basketball Federation to the team itself to the photographer to the newspaper staff thought better than to run the photo?
It's really disappointing...
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I am from Spain and I can tell you that this gesture is not considered offensive here... I am sad that other countries can take it as an offense, because it is not our goal.
Are asians sad about having slant eyes? Is it a taboo? I don't think so... Why should it be offensive to reproduce that physical characteristic?
I feel sorry for the Spanish Basketball team for showing their ignorance to the entire world!
At the very least - this team needs some serious sensitivity training before traveling to another foreign country.
It's obvious they need it.
I wonder if we as Americans (generally speaking) have become too sensitive. So quick to cry fowl over any little thing.
I can understand being sensitive on sensitive issues, but does our Spanish friend Buciente have a point?
Take for example the Don Imus comment "Nappy headed hoes." I don't think that he had some sort of racist's adjenda, I think he was just trying say something clever and and it blew up.
He'll never have a job again.
R. Kelly made a sex tape of him pissing on underage girls. People still love him and buy his music.
I wonder if sometimes our oversensitivity takes us so far over the top that we overlook greater wrongs?
In my business, I have worked with many different cultures from different countries. Many of the things they say and do would be considered racist by our standards, but to them it is in good fun without hurtful intent.
I'll be the first to admit that there are some personal favorite sensitivies that I hold of my own(Overly Patriotic.)
I'll even admit, that first sight of the Spanish B-ball team holding slanted eyes pissed me off.
But looking at the big picture, are we making racism a bigger deal, by making a bigger deal out of it?
And by making a bigger deal out of racism are we ourselves becoming hypocritical racists?
Do we find ourselves saying: "Hell, I'm not going to cheer for the damn Spaniards they are a bunch of racists. I'll overlook the fact that these young men worked their asses off to represent their nation in a sport they love, but because the photographer said "quick hold your eyes like the Chinese for the photo" have become my team that I love to hate."
I guess it's a two edged sword, and with racism being a two edged sword, perhaps we should just put the swords down and start living as adults and building on the common bond that we all hold of just trying to find a way to be happy.
PLEASE! Let's get past all this politically correct nonsense. People have become much too thin skinned. I doubt the Chinese, or any other Asians would find this offensive enough to demand something as uselessly idiotic as "sensitivity training". I think only white bread American soccer moms are offended by these sorts of amusingly adolescent antics.
Sensitivity training...pfffp. We are waaaay too quick to pass this type of thing off as a display insensitivity and racism. The Chinese make fun of the way we speak, saying it sounds like a dog's bark. Does that make them racist? It certainly doesn't offend me. Where is the outrage at the Atlanta Braves and Washington Redskins? They use hackneyed caricatures that embellish Native American facial features. They SELL that shit on their fucking merchandise...in the name of capitalism ferchrissake! All these Spainards did was take a goofy picture. Something about glass houses is coming to mind.
Coming up next week: PETA bashes Barcelona for using "Dragons" as a mascot.
I think that it may be considered offensive because of the gesture itself (presumably teasing slant eyes - or the term "slant eyes"). Personally, I agree that we've gotten a little out of hand with being PC. Wolf and Dave - you guys nailed it on the head. But consider this... If the Olympics were being held in South Africa, would it be appropriate to take the picture in blackface? How do we move past cultural sensitivity without consequence?
it's just a goof over analyzed because of... yeah, that's the thing, there's no reason to go to town on a bunch of guys just for taking a goofy picture.
I have to agree in principle with the overall theme here; we have grown overly-sensitive in this country. Generally, this picture doesn't seem like a real big deal, but the manner in which it is presented to us by the media may make it seem as though it SHOULD be a big deal.
Still, you have to wonder if there would be international commentary if the picture were of Kobe and company. If there would indeed be more international outrage if it were Americans, does it mean that, perhaps, we have become over-sensitive to these issues because we are held to a different standard on the international scene?
(Excuse me while I duck under my high horse.)
Maybe the commenters should identify what race they are. While I doubt the basketball players meant any malice, its still an rude gesture that they probably did not realize.
My Chinese daughter gets this pull-the-eyes thing from white kids all the time, here in a town where many of those kids have never seen an Asian person in 3D. She doesn't exactly take offense or become outraged, but it hurts.
Miss C-
Would having commentors identify their race add or subtract from the credibility of thier statements in your mind?
Why throw that out?
We aren't children pulling our eyes and singling out someone who is different.
I hate more than anything that other children make your daughter feel bad over her eyes that she should be proud of.
Children are children, most of the hate isn't out of evil and hate, it's just kids. Kids are going to be mean at a number of things, and kids will have thier feelings hurt, that's part of growing up.
When I was a kid, I came home from school sad because a lot of the boys told me that I had cooties because all the girls kept trying to kiss me. I couldn't help that I was as good looking as I was.
I told my dad, and he told me to kick thier asses the next time they did it.
The next day at school, I beat up 6-seven year olds.
We never had any problems after that.
Kids are kids and adults are adults.
As an adult, I don't need to know a person's race to give credibility to his or her comments, it's too bad that you feel that you do.
Perhaps you could teach your daughter to kick some ass in leau of the bigotry.
Miss C-
That last comment was just given to prove my point. I truly don't believe that you are a bigot.
By me being overly sensitive, I can turn a nice lady like yourself with innocent inquiries of a persons race into bigot.
In one aspect of my line of work, I could fall under a lawsuit for even asking a persons race.
(Yeah, Iv'e wasted plenty of time in "Sensitivity Trainings". )
I don't think the S.T.'s made me more caring to others, just gave me a label gun to label the insensitive.
Well, it strikes me as a little tacky but if they felt like it was a goof though, it seems like no big deal. (I'm white fwiw).
Anyone recall when Shaq made fun of Chinese, the language, when referring to Yao Ming, some time ago? Shaq was just joking and Yao said he got the joke. (Maybe on the inside he was pissed, only he knows.)
An opinion is valid no matter what race you are, but I wonder if any of the people who say we are getting to be "too PC" or "overly sensitive" have ever been the butt of racial jokes. I've never been an oppressed minority, so I honestly don't feel I am qualified to judge how offended someone else is entitled to be.
Then again, if I were a member of an oppressed minority, I would probably keep my mouth shut in a forum of people who are saying I am overly sensitive. The Rutgers bball players that Don Imus referred to said they were not offended, which had to be BS. If they had said anything else, they would have been torn apart publicly, and they knew it.
My kid knows that being the only Chinese around, her behavior will stand in for a billion Chinese in the formative minds around her, so she will NOT kick ass. I'm a poor substitute for a parent who had been there, done that, but I tell her (as minority parents have for generations), to be strong and never, ever let them see you cry.
But China? That's a whole different story. They are probably laughing inside at all the foreigners with enormous noses in their midst.
I see your point Miss C, but I don't think that these guys were trying to hurt anyone's feelings. They weren't running the ad in China, they weren't making the face to any Asian fan's in particular. Giving people grief in person just to be a dick, like in the situation you describe, is a little different.
They are mocking "the other" in a mass media production, with no sense of being self-aware. That's a problem. It's really that simple. Making sure that you point out difference, mockingly, and doing it in a way that doesn't suggest any connection with that "other" is a sad thing. One of my closest friends since high school is Korean, when we make Asian jokes, the jokes themselves are what is being mocked. Not the case here.
That gesture means "We are chinese too", it doesn't mean "Hey your eyes look funny". Body language is not universal, and the photo was published in Spain for the Spanish public, where we have our own asian population, mainly hard working people, as do so many other countries. It is not just that there is no intention, only a fool's misinterpretation can read the photo as an entire team of professional players mocking their host Olympic country.
We can spend all day trying to justify their bad behavior by saying
things like "boys will be boys", "kids do these things all the time"
and "they are just goofing around".
The fact is the team in this photo are grown men that
were selected because they are the best of the best from their country.
They have been selected to represent their country in China
- in front of the world at the historic Olympic games.
At the end of the day any insensitive, immature and crude behavior
is still not what is expected from people of their stature.
This is just some Spainards being provincial. Don't get bitchy about it folks.
To those that think this is no big deal - please tell me what would be wrong with painting the whole team black if the games were to take place in some African Nation?
It doesn't matter what the intention was, it was stupid, it was immature, it ISN'T what people should expect from the Athletes representing their Nation. I mean, come ON, these people are ATHLETES, not comedians, not public-speakers, or artists - so please, just stand and smile in your group photos.
Oh, and it is ignorant - mostly due to the fact that Spain probably has a tiny Asian population. When I hear people of Asian descent complaining that it is ignorant and immature, then I listen and take that very seriously.
As an Asian person, I find it ridiculous that white people will try to justify their reasons why people,specifically minorities, should not be so easily offended. And the reason is because there's very rarely any credibility in their explanations.
What happens instead is that white people will substitute their own past (white) experiences and ultimately conclude that "Hey, if I'm not offended, why should they?" as if they've known all along what it's meant to be a minority. On the other side of the coin, other white people will find it offensive and announce their indignation as an olive branch to understanding the minority.
In both cases, white people talk about issues they don't and will never really understand. This is why white people will interchange black with Latino with Asian with white according to the current racial soup du jour. The problem here is that interchanging races assumes that all races are equal, and I'd really like see someone argue the mythical concept of post-racial equality.
That said though, this whole eye slant thing over the backdrop of the Beijing Olympics was hilarious. Some Asian people will find this offensive, some Asian people won't, so in the end, all of this postulating one way or the other over something so trivial means absolutely nothing when there are bigger racial issues everyone needs to deal with. So, please white people, stop assuming.
Why are Asian people so over-sensitive over racism?
I don't think that Asians are as abused as, let's say, Africans. Or Jewish. Or Middle-easterners.
Seriously, I once got in a heated discussion with a Japanese guy because I tried to explain that most westerners cannot tell the difference between the different asian facial features - that's a fact. It's sad, but it's true, hence the "they're all the same" attitude from many.
I'm Greek, should I get pissed off every time I was mistaken as a Turk? Or an Italian? Or a Bulgarian?
Focus, people.
As for the ad... As a citizen of Europe and a great fan of Asian cultures, I don't find it even the least insulting. I think it's cute, actually.
There are no right answers for this, nor will there ever be until the whole world is populated by mutts, which will probably happen in the next 10 generations or so.
In saying that, I think everyone should go follow this link and read the lyrics:
http://www.lyricsdownload.com/avenue-q-everyone-s-a-little-bit-racist-lyrics.html
Because it's true...