Spanish Ad Spurs Charges of Racism

[DeclinetoState]

August 12, 2008, 12:13 pm
Spanish Ad Spurs Charges of Racism [UPDATED]
By ROBERT MACKEY (http://olympics.blogs.nytimes.com/author/rmackey/)

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/08/12/sports/olympics/15rings_spain.jpg

Not Spanish basketball’s finest moment.<br><br>
[UPDATE: The Spanish Olympic basketball teams are sponsored by Li-Ning, the Chinese footwear company sometimes called “the Nike of China.” See bottom of post.]

Thanks to a comment (http://olympics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/powerhouse-spain-puzzles-on-hardcourt/#comment-7474) by a reader named Will, on an earlier post about Spain’s basketball team, we were alerted to an article in The Guardian by Sid Lowe — a Madrid-based correspondent for the site’s excellent Football Weekly podcast — about the photograph above. As Lowe explains (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/aug/11/olympicsbasketball.olympics20081):

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.
More (http://olympics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/spanish-ad-spurs-charges-of-racism/)

[Timberwolf]

The Spanish Olympic basketball teams are sponsored by Li-Ning, the Chinese footwear company sometimes called “the Nike of China.” See bottom of post.
Ummm...maybe they were pretending to be Chinese because of who sponsors them?

Just a thought....

[PrezLeefun]

Not a very bright idea either way.

[Timberwolf]

Spain hasn't had a bright idea since the defeat of their Armada back in the late 1500s. :evilgrin:

[Beowulf]

I'm waiting for the Chinese to go crying to Jesse Jackson for some resolve.

*sits back and snickers*

[Wolfcounsel]

Yes, it is very upsetting to go through life with that epicanthal fold on the eyelids.:whine::baby:

I know if I had epicanthal folds, I would throw a shit fit if somebody squinted his eyes at me.

This looks like world court business!

Farking jackasses!

[DeclinetoState]

Yeah, those epicanthal folds make a woman look so unattractive. I mean, who could possibly find this chick hot???

http://img4.pcpop.com/CgImages/480x480/0/171/000171877.jpg

Oh, and before you type anything . . . Shut up, Moo!!

:D

[DeclinetoState]

BEIJING – When Jason Kidd logged into a laptop to see the Spaniards with his own eyes on Wednesday morning, the photo appeared just as described to him: Here were National Basketball Association players giggling like schoolgirls as they posed with fingers pressed against their temples in a squinty-eyed pre-Olympic salute to China.

Before long, Kidd considered the consequences had those giddy European faces been substituted with those of Team USA.

“We would’ve been already thrown out of the Olympics,” he told Yahoo! Sports. “At least, we wouldn’t have been able to come back to the U.S. …There would be suspensions.”

And for his European peers, well, Kidd suggested, “They won’t do anything to them. It’s a double standard.”

For Spain, there are several NBA players, including the Lakers’ Pau Gasol and Toronto’s Jose Calderon, in this unnerving team photo. More (http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/basketball/news?slug=aw-nbaspainphoto081308&prov=yhoo&type=lgns)

[DesertFox]

*Sigh*

One such does get SICK AND TIRED of political correctness.

That pic is not in good taste, but a whole lot more will be made of it than warrants. This should be handled quietly behind the scenes, with a note from the IOC to the Spanish roundball coach.

[DeclinetoState]

*Sigh*

One such does get SICK AND TIRED of political correctness.

That pic is not in good taste, but a whole lot more will be made of it than warrants. This should be handled quietly behind the scenes, with a note from the IOC to the Spanish roundball coach.

The Spanish Olympic basketball teams are sponsored by Li-Ning, the Chinese footwear company sometimes called “the Nike of China.” See bottom of post.
[Emphasis T-wolf's.]
Seems like the IOC should have a chat with "Li-Ning, the Chinese footwear company," if anyone is getting bent out of shape over this.

[DeclinetoState]

A second group of Spanish Olympic athletes has been photographed making “slit-eyed” gestures, threatening to overshadow the Beijing Games with a row over racial stereotyping.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/00790/spainrace_790866c.jpg

The photo was discovered on the official website of the Spanish Tennis Federation

The latest photo to emerge shows Spanish women tennis players pulling the pose, apparently in anticipation of their Federation Cup match against China in April.<br>
Pictures of the Spanish men’s and women’s basketball teams making the gesture, a crude impersonation of Chinese people, were published in adverts in Spanish newspapers earlier this week.<br>
The photos, which were reprinted around the world, added to Spanish sport's poor reputation for racial sensitivity.

More (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/olympics/2559578/Beijing-Olympics-Second-Spanish-team-photographed-making-slit-eyed-gesture.html)