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Indecent Images
You may or may not have heard by now about the controversy surrounding Spain's Olympic Men's Basketball Team.
The basketball team has an official photo of them doing the 'slant eyes' thing. Their claim - it's an homage to China. It's caused quite the dust-up, because many have found it offensive, but the Spanish athletes/team heads don't get it, and their method of dealing with the controversy is to claim it's a media pile-on and not actually news.
Well, seems that the men's basketball team isn't the only Spanish group that thought that making 'slant eyes' photos was a great idea. The tennis team did it too. (You'll see a comment by me on that post. I'm sorry, but the claim that "I'm an American of hispanic decent and this isn't offensive" set me off. I've heard just enough rhetoric to know that other countries with major race issues of their own think their issues are less than the U.S., so there's no backing down when the light is shone back on them.)
I'm with Jason Kidd on this one. If that had been a U.S. team, not only would the world go off on them, the citizens in the U.S. would be going off on them too. The NBA would have been all over it. (Incidentally, the Spanish team consists of one or two players who do play in the NBA. The NBA is ignoring the incident. Interesting, huh.) The U.S. Olympic Committee would most likely have hauled them back to the States and they'd have had to withdraw from the games.
Now, I could understand if it was a case of ignorance with the Spanish. That's not an excuse, but it's a reason. They should be taking the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and using this as a cultural learning experience. Instead, they're being highly defensive. Never mind that the Spanish team was heartily booed by the Chinese fans when they played. And the Chinese fans haven't booed anyone thus far.
Then again, considering the incidents I already knew about (Spanish fans calling out derogatory and racist things to Lewis Hamilton at a F1 event last year in Spain) and the incidents I've read about since the 'slant eyes' photos came out, maybe I shouldn't be surprised at the "we didn't do anything" attitude. At least the Spanish government apologized profusely about the incident with Hamilton.
You may or may not have heard by now about the controversy surrounding Spain's Olympic Men's Basketball Team.
The basketball team has an official photo of them doing the 'slant eyes' thing. Their claim - it's an homage to China. It's caused quite the dust-up, because many have found it offensive, but the Spanish athletes/team heads don't get it, and their method of dealing with the controversy is to claim it's a media pile-on and not actually news.
Well, seems that the men's basketball team isn't the only Spanish group that thought that making 'slant eyes' photos was a great idea. The tennis team did it too. (You'll see a comment by me on that post. I'm sorry, but the claim that "I'm an American of hispanic decent and this isn't offensive" set me off. I've heard just enough rhetoric to know that other countries with major race issues of their own think their issues are less than the U.S., so there's no backing down when the light is shone back on them.)
I'm with Jason Kidd on this one. If that had been a U.S. team, not only would the world go off on them, the citizens in the U.S. would be going off on them too. The NBA would have been all over it. (Incidentally, the Spanish team consists of one or two players who do play in the NBA. The NBA is ignoring the incident. Interesting, huh.) The U.S. Olympic Committee would most likely have hauled them back to the States and they'd have had to withdraw from the games.
Now, I could understand if it was a case of ignorance with the Spanish. That's not an excuse, but it's a reason. They should be taking the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and using this as a cultural learning experience. Instead, they're being highly defensive. Never mind that the Spanish team was heartily booed by the Chinese fans when they played. And the Chinese fans haven't booed anyone thus far.
Then again, considering the incidents I already knew about (Spanish fans calling out derogatory and racist things to Lewis Hamilton at a F1 event last year in Spain) and the incidents I've read about since the 'slant eyes' photos came out, maybe I shouldn't be surprised at the "we didn't do anything" attitude. At least the Spanish government apologized profusely about the incident with Hamilton.
