There's been a lot of coverage of the controversy surrounding the Spanish Olympic Basketball team's racist mocking of Asians in an advertisement run in a Spanish paper.
José Calderón, (who normally plays guard for the Toronto Raptors), made the situation worse by blogging an apology that wasn't sincere (claiming that the US and UK has racism as well) and that called Asia the "Orient" (a phrase that has long since been deprecated.)
"During a photo session where the Spanish national team was unveiled, one of our sponsors asked us to pose with a 'wink' to our participation in Beijing and we made an oriental expression with our eyes," [Calderon] wrote on his Internet site.
"It seemed to us to be something appropriate and that it would always be interpreted as an affectionate gesture," [Calderon] added.
"I want to express that we have great respect for the Orient and its people, some of my best friends in Toronto are of Chinese origin."
The "some of my best friends are" line never works in this situation. Who cares who your friends are or how multi-cultural Spain is- that's irrelevant here. If your actions or words are racist, they are racist.
Now there's news that the Spanish Olympic Tennis team was caught doing the same thing. Spanish Tennis Team Also Strikes "Chinky-Eyed Chinaman" Pose!
The Telegraph UK reports that:
The photo is still visible on the official website of the Spanish Tennis Federation, where it was spotted. The original is captioned “Estamos preparados para China”, which translates as “We are prepared for China”.
With this second image, it's clear to me that in Spain (as it is elsewhere), this "slant-eye" gesture is a culturally-recognized way to image Asians, albeit a racist one.
Even a journal article looking at the Chinese in Spain recognizes that,
"Even though the Chinese community has a long history of settlement in Spain, the Spanish population still considers the Chinese as a closed and somewhat mysterious community. References to exaggerated stereotypes and prejudices regarding their activities and social organization can often be overheard in daily conversations."
Finally, Spanish writer, Pablo Bustelo, Senior Analyst, Asia-Pacific, Elcano Royal Institute and professor of Applied Economics at Madrid’s Complutense University, writes in The Economic Rise of China and India and its Implications for Spain:
The Spanish economy cannot allow itself the luxury of failing to adapt to the rise of China and India –a world economic trend that will profoundly alter the international scenario in the coming decades–.
Seriously... WTF?!
Man, that's horrible.
I have a Spanish friend in Madrid whose wife is Japanese. Gotta show him this and see what he has to say...
As someone whose wife studied in Spain for four years (she sang at a Spanish conservatoire) I feel bad to see something like this. It must have been their way of humor of some sort... but claiming it was a sign of affection is totally over me.
It is cultural ignorance criticizing the photo for a racism that only exists in their minds as part of the American culture. For many Spanish people is just a cool thing.
Another sample is the word "nigger", only racist in the American culture. Spanish equivalent "negro/a" is not racist.
Seems part of the Chicago 2016 marketing strategy. Slogan could be "We own world morality".
I want to leave one comment here because the majority of the readers seem to hail form English speaking countries. Actually, this slant eye gesture is common in the continental Europe. I lived in France and I had direct experiences. Now I live in Germany and saw that gesture for Japanese on TV. I haven't heard the TV director apologized afterwards. I also had a direct experience from an Italian. The thing is, they don't have any bad intention at all. Rather, they think that kind of eye pretty attractive.
In UK, I lived for 4 years and I've never seen that. Generally speaking, I think at least UK and US have much more political correctness in their society and therefore it may be considered straight racism. Elsewhere, though, the thing is more ambiguous.
You can call it racism but I think it's too far fetched. I'd rather characterize it as immature. As Japanese, I frankly don't like someone to do that. Why, it's not because I find it racist but because of simple common sense. Who on earth dares to point out one particular physical feature of someone?
What do they say if I say " and your nose?" to
those who make a slant eye gesture? Do you think they can stay calm without blushing?
Simply, unless you have physical perfection, you'd better not point out others' feature.
It's as simple as that.
I use to do this eye thing when I was a child.
I'm from Southeast Asia, and I wonder what the fuss is all about. The photo didn't strike me as offensive at all. In fact I even found it--well, cute. After all, what's wrong with being chinky-eyed? Those who reacted calling the gesture "racist" might think so, and in that regard might be betraying their own suppressed racism, because for them being chinky-eyed is a defect, and calling attention to it is being offensive. But we Asians, of course, don't think so. So if a pretty Spanish senorita pulls at the corners of her eyes to look Chinese, I'd take that as a compliment.
The Japanese would never do anything like that....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo7U4hvXF7k
do you really think we are like that in spain? man, we are the country with most chinesse children adopted...
I would agree that Calderon's actions and poor excuse for an apology indicate racism.
But I think that his use of the word "orient" is not really an issue. "The Orient" may have emotive connotations in American English, but not in Spanish, where it merely means "the East". By extension, it's also the word for "Asia" in several languages.
In English speaking countries other than the US, "Orient" doesn't necessarily have "power" as a racist word. The University of Cambridge offers an undergraduate course in "Oriental Studies" - http://www.cam.ac.uk/guide/ugcourses/orstudies.html
I'm pretty confident that Cambridge U. won't teach students to make slitty eye gestudes...
It's a mistake to expect the rest of the world to respect US word taboos. And it's worth noting that Americas obsession with certain "bad words" actually produces idiocies such as the newspaper articles that replace Tyson Gay's name with "Tyson Homosexual" and describe Nelson Mandela as "The first African American president of South Africa."
By all means call out this guy for his racist actions - they speak louder than any words. And by all means point out the fact that his lame excuses fall short of the apology we would like. But picking on the word "oriental" is a mistake. It distracts from the big issue that Spanish sports has an institutionalized race problem. I'm talking not only about olympians -- It's endemic to Spanish football ("soccer") too. Spain needs to fix this.
Warning! Explicit racist emoticon!-> ¦-)
(oh please! are you kidding?)
In Spain that is not an offensive gesture.
People, who criticize this spanish action, easily forget that we dont live in an unique mindset world.
Well, to be truthful, if you understand what you posted about James Fallows and David Brooks, you should be able to understand how much a warm heart is the main thing involved, in both of these Spanish 'asian-eyes' images.
If it isn't visible enough in the smaller faces of the basketball team image, the tennis team at closer view ought to make the point: this is all with a smile, and a shyness gone around, to say hello.
We can't pretend not to know difference in this world, but we can befriend it. When we do, there are so many more subtleties which I think the correctness view would actually like very much feel it was able to enter. That place of warm and complex human hearts, which we all enjoy best.
I bet the Spanish teams have found some, among their Chinese hosts. And I bet the Chinese athletes have no problem with 'we are ready for you', with its gentle tease.
Best hopes for relaxation about all of this.
W.
Just because it's common, or done with a smile, or done at the playground (in many countries), doesn't make it right.
Claims that it's cool or commonplace to make fun of Asians in this way in Spain doesn't really seem to make it right, either (please explain if I've misunderstood this defense).
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Anybody who claims the Japanese aren't racist obviously has never lived there, but AFAIK that claim hasn't been made in this thread.
I look forward to the Spanish (and Argentinian) delegations to the 2010 World Cup doing the blackface routine to show their affection for the host nation of that event.