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…It was apparently taken after the team defeated Italy in the quarter-finals of the competition - the premier team contest for women tennis players - in February. Wine glasses are visible on the table in front of the party…
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”.
(The Spaniards won against China in the Fed Cup en route to the finals which have yet to take place).
Meanwhile, this article notes how several Beijing citizens reacted to the offending basquet team photo. None had previously seen the image due to local media controls and most where not offended by the photo. (The piece was via NBC who holds the broadcast rights to the Olympics. Is it any coincidence that the Chinese reaction wouldn’t be outrage in the article?)
Image- The Telegraph
Sources- The Telegraph, MSNBC, Gawker, The Latin Americanist
5 comments:
Can't wait to see what they come up with for their football team at the World Cup in South Africa. My money is on the whole team blacking up and dressing as Black and White Minstrels complete with banjos and prosthetic rubber lips. What a disgrace. Racism is racism. If this kind of thing was directed at other groups than the Chinese there would be an international outcry. Anyone for double standards?
The photos may be in bad taste, and I don't mean to defend them... but I for one don't believe that "racism is racism" applies here.
For one, when you are dealing with 50 different cultures on the world's stage at once, cultural snafus are inevitable. The line between acceptable and offensive is a sliding scale based on individual countries' (if not regions' therein) norms. Our hyper-sensitive US gauge of "racism" is not always applicable.
More importantly, however: assuming that the Spanish teams were being racist (on purpose or otherwise), a cursory glance at the world press coverage suggests that besides the UK and France, the US is pretty much only country outraged by the incident. My guess is that this is because we know we might well have been caught doing the same thing - and so reacting with indignance is our chance to say to the world "See? It wasn't us this time! (sure, it could have been... but it wasn't!!!)
My hunch is that with the past 8 years under our belt, it be a long time coming before we will have much credibility for decrying racist slurs halfway across the world.
”…The line between acceptable and offensive is a sliding scale based on individual countries' (if not regions' therein) norms. Our hyper-sensitive US gauge of "racism" is not always applicable.”
Miguel,
I would like to believe that the reaction is only the hypersensitivity that we have here in the U.S. to anything that looks like racism… but as it happens, this is not the first time that something like this happens involving Spain and sports.
First it was football fans hurling racist abuse at black British players during a “friendly” match between their countries teams (that was in 2004). The we have Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton being called “puto” and “negro” at a race in Barcelona, where others fans painted their faces black and wore t-shirts saying “Hamilton’s Family”.
One of the fans involved later went on to say that he didn’t mean to be offensive and he “dressed up to celebrate carnival”. Yes, I do agree that because political correctness in the U.S. sometimes people are offended for comments or actions that are not meant to be.
But I think Spaniards need to look themselves in the mirror and find out why they have this propensity to pick on other people’s race.
I am a british chinese and I am deeply offended by those pictures. This is the type of ignorant behavior that I experienced as a child in the school playground and no I didn't like it as a child and I definitely am disgusted by it as an adult. If spain are in any way defending this behavior publicly then I would hate to think what example this is setting to the rest of the country. I would not want my child to be living in a country where they think this is ok so that at school they will have to put up with that sort of racism. Maybe the spaniards should ask themselves that if they are doing something that is causing offense to a particular nation then it is inappropriate rather than the arrogant behavior they are adopting now of being totally insensitive to how others feel and saying it is not an issue.
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