OLYMPICS--is this racist or not?? HAHA

[98koukile]

At least no teams dressed up like this before coming to Atlanta

[Andrew Bohan]

hey i'm offended

this is an outrage!

[RiversideS13]

i can see why people felt offened. i think it is almost same feeling as it is like when you see a person try to imitate you speak your home language and thought it was funny. sometimes, the humor just doesn't go universally at global level.

just in case no one seen the picture or article, it is here
CBC Olympics | Spanish basketball players defend controversial photo

[Matej]

Spanish response.
Gasol, Calderon question fuss over photo - Olympics - Yahoo! Sports


BEIJING – Pau Gasol sat courtside with his feet dunked in a bucket of ice as the irony of ironies unfolded around him.

The Los Angeles Lakers center had just finished training Wednesday at the Beijing Language and Culture University, where students from around the world gather to learn Mandarin and promote international understanding.

Four days into the most global of events, and surrounded by buildings which foster social harmony across all colors and creeds, Gasol had to apologize for the actions of a Spanish men’s basketball team that made Asian “slant eyes” at the camera for a sponsor’s advertisement and thinks it’s OK.

Around him, his teammates and coaches reacted to the criticism homing in on them from around the world with a mixture of embarrassment, confusion and some mild defiance. The ad in question was for a Spanish courier company, Seur, but the Spanish team also counts the athletic shoe and apparel company owned by Li Ning – the former Chinese Olympian who lit the torch at this summer’s Games – among its sponsors.


Jose Calderon of the Toronto Raptors has spent the last three years in North America, but he didn’t get it. He could still not understand how an action with such deep racial undertones had generated so much attention. In his mind a non-story became a story only when it was blown out of proportion by journalists with a mind for mischief.

“We did it because we thought it was going to be something nice, something with no problem,” Calderon told Yahoo! Sports. “But somebody wants to talk about it. It is too much of a big deal with you guys (the media) and everybody talking about that.”

Head coach Aíto García Reneses didn’t get it, either. Reneses comes from an older generation of Spanish society, one which has little time for the politically correct niceties of the modern world.

“If I go to play with a taller team and I put here (raising up on the tips of his toes) it is not an offense,” Reneses said. “I can’t understand anything more.”

But Gasol got it. He didn’t get it when the Spanish courier company persuaded the players to pose with their index fingers stretching their eyes to a thin slit at a team media day, but he sure as heck gets it now.

“Some of us didn’t feel comfortable doing it just because to me it was a little clownish for our part to be doing that,” Gasol said. “But the sponsors insisted and insisted. I think it is just a bad idea I guess to do that, but it was never intended to be offensive or racist against anybody.

“I didn’t find it very funny. I didn’t find it offensive, either. I guess some guys didn’t mind. To me I don’t want to be that way, I guess, to be doing that stuff.

“If anybody feels offended by it we totally apologize for it. We never meant anything offensive by it.”

The advertisement has regularly run as a full page in Spanish sports daily Marca soon after the picture was taken on July 1. However, it only came to prominence after it reached the attention of the Guardian newspaper in London this week.

Spanish sports is no stranger to racial controversy.

Luis Aragones, the head coach of Spain’s men’s soccer team, was overheard telling his player Jose Antonio Reyes to “tell that black (expletive) you are better than him” at a training session in 2004. Aragones was referring to Thierry Henry, a black player from France who was then a teammate of Reyes at English Premier League club Arsenal.

Aragones also struggled to understand what all the fuss was about, even as anti-racism groups seethed and soccer’s power brokers held their heads.

At a Formula One motor racing testing session this year, a group of Spanish fans believed to be supporting home driver Fernando Alonso were pictured with their faces covered with black paint. They wore T-shirts with the slogan “Hamilton’s Family,” a reference to Alonso’s world title rival Lewis Hamilton, a black Englishman.

Moreover, at an exhibition match in Madrid in 2004, several black members of the England men’s soccer team were subjected to monkey chants and whistles whenever they touched the ball.

Back in Spain, there has been no criticism of the advertisement, just support for a group of players who shoulders the hopes of a nation. Members of the Spanish media who spoke to Yahoo! Sports on Wednesday could not grasp why the issue had garnered so much publicity.

And while Gasol, in many ways the public face of Spain’s basketball team, sensed the photo was not a great idea, he refused to back down from his assertion that no harm was intended.

“If you put it in the wrong context and put it with the wrong people or a different kind of people, you could take it that way,” he said. “But not with our group and not with our people. I would find that a wrong read.”

[SexPanda]

Originally Posted by Brian

If an asian person came here to USA and used their fingers to make their eyes real big and round, I'd laugh and probably give them a high five.

Totally. lol.

I actually have an asian friend who makes fun of me for having white people eyes.

[ESmorz]

He's racist.

[HyperTek]

Originally Posted by AkademikONE

http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p39/Swizz_Dub/random/1211161225520.jpg

oh man thats funny, i see that all the time, and shes probably dating that guy too lol
but they had to use a girl ? =( its seems more sexism with racism

I dont find it offensive.. Id only take offense when i see people make fun of the culture, then go date one of the girls.. respect the culture!

now lets all watch Natalise http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G04OpY6c_ow
stupid video but natalise is gorgeous lol

[Andrew Bohan]

maybe there aren't enough asians in spain for the spanish to know how offensive it is.

it's offensive here cuz asians have been here in large numbers since i believe the mid 1800s. plenty of time for teasing to develop and observations of reaction to be made, and developing an understanding of what's cool and what's not.



my dad uses the terms "cotton pickin" and "cotton picker" a lot. like "this cotton pickin dvd player won't work right" or "it's hotter than a cotton picker out here"

he has never lived around black people. i'm sure he just picked that up from people around him when he was growing up (north dakota and montana). he's always said it around me, so it sounds "normal" for me to hear him say it, even though i NEVER hear ANYONE else say it.

for some reason i had the good sense to not start saying it myself.
but in his environment, it's not offensive, because there are no black people to offend.

[HyperTek]

So did China find it offensive?? It should only matter if the recieving end finds it offensive.. if they where cool with it, then who cares..

[ESmorz]

Originally Posted by Andrew Bohan

maybe there aren't enough asians in spain for the spanish to know how offensive it is.

it's offensive here cuz asians have been here in large numbers since i believe the mid 1800s. plenty of time for teasing to develop and observations of reaction to be made, and developing an understanding of what's cool and what's not.



my dad uses the terms "cotton pickin" and "cotton picker" a lot. like "this cotton pickin dvd player won't work right" or "it's hotter than a cotton picker out here"

he has never lived around black people. i'm sure he just picked that up from people around him when he was growing up (north dakota and montana). he's always said it around me, so it sounds "normal" for me to hear him say it, even though i NEVER hear ANYONE else say it.

for some reason i had the good sense to not start saying it myself.
but in his environment, it's not offensive, because there are no black people to offend.

I went to a bomb Chinese Restaurant in Barcelona.

They only spoke Chinese and Spanish. Ordering was a trip.

If I remember correctly there was a small China Town even.

[!Zar!]

[ESmorz]

[Nimso]

rofl... thats funny