Spanish Basketball Team’s Photo
August 13, 2008
A controversial advertisement for Seur, a Spanish courier company, that featured 15 Spanish basketball team members in uniform pulling back the skin on their eyelids, with smiles on their faces, appeared in the Spanish daily sports newspaper Marca yesterday. The team photo was taken at a center court bearing a dragon logo.
AsianWeek would like to create a healthy platform for multicultural discourse on issues that affect our community. As an integral part of the Asian American community, we would like to know how you feel about this photo. Was this advertisement made in “good fun?” Or was this photo completely unacceptable and utterly racist?
Please make respectable comments in accordance with our policy stated below.
Thank you.
*****Related Articles:*****
Spanish Olympians - More Controversial Photos Uncovered
*****Keeping up with Olympics:*****
2008 Beijing Olympics Meet Your Asian American Olympians!
****************************
Comments
21 Responses to “Spanish Basketball Team’s Photo”
Got something to say?
This is what we feel about the photo:
http://www.theimproper.com/Template_Article.aspx?IssueId=4&ArticleId=2146
As an Asian American I am extremely offended. The fact that they did not immediately apologize and realize what they had done wrong just illuminates the fact that they have ignorant racist thought processes within their team, and who they represent- their country. They should apologize to their own country’s people, all the people with Asian blood, and the world for insulting all of us by such a blatant disgrace to human rights. Personally I want the NBA players in that photo fired, and if not, I hope us Asian Americans here in the US boycott their games. On another note, this is a great chance for Asian Americans to now demand equal rights in terms of treatment as the racism against the Asian Americans in this world has now been exposed - so much so that this happened at the OLYMPICS. We should stand up, make our voice finally HEARD - strongly and with the same dignity we have shown through the Asian American growth in this country.
I’m very disgusted with the Spanish team and their sponsor. It just shows how taste-less and class-less these people are. We are still a long way from erasing racism. I hope Spain will not get the 2016 summer Olympic. The country and the people are not ready to accept the world and the differences of people. Everything what the Olympic stand for.
The outrage over this photo is ridiculous. There are innumerable cultures and traditions on this globe of ours and we are not all the same. Picking up and joking about such differences will be with us as long as we are human beings. Hyper-sensitive and self-appointed guardians of what is right or appropriate should go find something else to do instead of whining about being offended by the humor of others. Rachael Patten? Get a life.
In this country, as recently as WWII we were putting asian-americans in concentration camps just for looking asian. Here that gesture is definitely offensive. In Spain however, the intent is quite the opposite. It was directed to the country of China, not to Chinese-americans. The country of China has not expressed offense.
By ignoring the Spanish Culture and the intent of the gesture we are guilty of the same ignorance we are trying to pin on them.
Here is an example of why intent matters: Do you know what the American Sign Language signs for “Black” and “Chinese” are? Would you label a deaf person as “racist” for using them? Of course not. The intent is only to communicate, not to offend. And intent is everything.
John,
You’re obviously some cracker from the midwest who scans websites like this just in hopes of finding an Asian girl who’s self-effacing enough to exclusively date white guys. Back off of Rachel.
Well, it looks like the racism runs deep among the Spanish. This time, the Spanish Fed Cup (tennis) team is making the slant-eye gestures in a photo around the time Spain played China in the semi-finals. Seriously, GROW UP!
http://www.theimproper.com/Template_Article.aspx?IssueId=5&ArticleId=2157
I tell you, this pic against Chinese people is just a joke in comparison with what they really do and say EVERYDAY about Catalans and Basques. Pau was born in Catalonia and he is a symbol for Spanish ultranationalism because, despite being “Catalan”, he acts and speaks as a real Spaniard (that is to say, more or less as a Serbobosnian). They say things about Catalans that if they were said about Jewish or people with a different colour of skin wouldn’t be accepted by anyone. But they’re only Catalan (”Polish dogs”, as Spaniards say to them). They talk about Catalans as if they were a cancer, guilty of everything, an enemy who must be hidden and erased to secure the “Sacred Unity of the Spanish Nation”. It’s quite disgusting. Yes, Spain is a racist kingdom but this pic, for them, is just a joke…
i don’t think spanish conquistadors
colonized any of asia but the phillippines…
and north, meso and south america
atlas, i digress
All I gotta say is– Spain, you are starting to piss me off.
[…] another controversy surrounds the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Following the offensive photos taken by Spanish Olympians, the legitimacy of the gold medal won by China’s women’s […]
While Asians in Asia might not be offended by this, probably because they’ve never been in a situation where they were taunted by a bunch of white kids doing the slant eyes, all of us who are expats, immigrants, or children of immigrants should DO SOMETHING. Shall we threaten NBC with a boycot of Olympic sponsors? Are we going to pressure the NBA (who employs two of those players)? One of the reasons our complaints aren’t taken as seriously as they should be is that we don’t organize and hit back where it hurts. I hate that this gesture survives to torture my children and other Asian children outside of Asia simply by dint of that photo appearing all over the world this summer.
rasicm against Chinese? let them
1000 years ago in Tang dynasty all thsoe tens of thousands of Europeans in the Capital city of Changan were once looked down upon, they look like ghosts in Chinese folklores
history repeats itself
Write to the Spanish consulate and express
your outrage. Encourage others to email
as well.
Time-slip, if you will, back to the 1950-1960’s. The boss (of course, male) walks into the office, and pats his female secretary’s rear end. He says, ” I like them round and plump.” Now, someone from the 21st century tells this boss that he has done and said an awful thing, and he is being downright sexist.
His response: “I was giving my secretary a friendly greeting. It was just harmless fun. It is absurd for anyone to make a big thing of it. How could women possibly take offense at this? I’ll have you know that I am friends with many women!”
Dear stupid Spaniards, don’ t you think it’s about time you learned that it is offensive when the people you direct your words and actions think it’s offensive. The one dishing it out has no say in whether people should be offended or not.
Join us. We have already moved into the 21st century. Hope you can catch up.
People need to relax on the entire subject. I am Irish and people poke fun of me for not being able to hold my liquor down, as well as my pale skin. I take the heat from Italians, Germans, etc.. I don’t take offense to it AT ALL. Again, people are making fun of my appearance, and the way I socialize, and I don’t mind. I don’t pass it off as this corrupting evil known as racism, I pass it off in something called a JOKE. And, even though my grandmom goes on lengthy charades about how oppressed Irish Catholics were in Northern Ireland, that attitude only creates cultural divides. I think the more we can make fun of each other, the more we can get along.
You’ve heard of the fearsome team from Spain:
They persevered for Gold in vain.
Poised with confidence, unrestrained,
Their eyes betrayed the heart they feign.
“Friendly and harmless, simple and plain.
You read into it; it’s all in your brain.”
Such words of comfort they hope have regained
The misplaced trust ever more to attain.
Good humor they claimed they wish to retain,
But it all came under fire and rain.
In centuries passed, their glory has waned,
In clueless oblivion they choose to remain.
Shell-struck people of Asian terrain
Witness again the white man’s refrain.
Branded “sub-human”, they once were detained
In the confines of their master’s domain.
So goes the story of the team from Spain:
They persevere for support in vain.
Poised with resolve, but now restrained,
Their shame foreshadows all that they feign.
I am your slant-eye, but this I maintain:
My blood is as red as that in your vein.
My insides are torn, my emotions drained,
To hear you proclaim there’s no one in pain.
…by Slant-eyed Asian…
hey slant-eyed, that was beautiful. i usually skip over anything that remotely looks like a poem, but that was truly great stuff!
Hi guys and gals,
I am a citizen of Spain and Catalonia, and I have lived in the USA for over 5 years.
It’s great cultural mix over the US, and different sensitivities. In a global world, a picture that was intended for a Spanish audience has reached the far corners of the world.
Like reading historical texts, it would be necessary to get into the context and culture of the region before we make some judgement. There are many American symbols and ways that are taken in Spain and Europe as pretencious - chocky - show off, and they are simply forms of expression between friends and dudes. Same case for this photo, which within the Spanish culture shows complicity.
The Chinese consulate in Madrid expressed that this picture is neither racist nor offensive. In fact one of teh main sponsors of Spanish Basketball is Chinese (shoes).
If I think about it, for me there is no reason for offense. I mean, what is wrong with Chinese eyes? Nothing! So where is the ofense? On the other hand, if the media presents this as a team “laughting at …” or in similar form then obviously people will see it in another light - as if we cut a pic of anyone and take it out of context.
Anyway - those who want to see ofense will see it. I think we have many more things to worry about before we even consider this topic.
Cheers everyone!
Actually Chinese do not care about this at all, they might even think it is funny. Only overseas Chinese care, as they are influenced by our culture. To Chinese living in China this is all very normal and natural, just like they will will openly tell you as a foreigner you have a big nose…Equal rights and respect are great, but sometimes in the USA we are too over the top with the political correctness. I really don’t think the players meant any harm.
spanish ppl are mostly rascists.