Spain basketball team picture

[Bull's-eye]

Poking fun at the chinese.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/aug/10/olympics2008.olympicsbasketball

[popcorn screen]

Surely someone knew this was going to offend others. Poor choice:doh:

[hawkfan]

Originally posted by popcorn screen
Surely someone knew this was going to offend others. Poor choice:doh:

I'm thinking that other countries are not as crazy about political correctness as in the US.

[IHStangFan]

Originally posted by hawkfan
I'm thinking that other countries are not as crazy about political correctness as in the US. bingo!

[BIG BLUE DEFENSIVE END]

I don't care what anyone thinks, that was funny.

[Old Tiger]

Originally posted by BIG BLUE DEFENSIVE END
I don't care what anyone thinks, that was funny.

[NewYorkYankee]

bad timing yea..but come on can any1 of yall say uve never done that

[JR2004]

Spain is a bit different when it comes to stuff like this. They don't live in a pc society like we do here.

[Ranger Mom]

So guess it isn't politically for me to do the "My mommy's Chinese, my daddy's Japanese, and look what happened to me" with my granddaughter's eyes??

[Old Tiger]

chinese
japanese
dirty knees
look at these


lol

[NewYorkYankee]

haha:D

[Ranger Mom]

Originally posted by Go Blue
chinese
japanese
dirty knees
look at these


lol

Never heard it that way before!!!

[NewYorkYankee]

i think it was dave chapelle that said this one

I got girls all over the world!!...I got

Chinese! Japanese! Indonese ! Ondeyknees!

[JR2004]

I'm willing to bet that Gasol will have to issue an apology upon returning to the US. The sheer amount of Chinese people that are Laker fans will lead to him apologizing. Not to mention that his newest NBA teammate plays for the Chinese Olympic team.

[slingshot]

Not brightest thing they ever did (having the pic taken doing it).

[Emerson1]

Don't see how it's racist if it's true.

[JR2004]

Originally posted by Emerson1
Don't see how it's racist if it's true.

It's the country that's doing it that makes it look bad. They had a soccer player over there 3 years ago that left the field because he was being pelted with bananas while being called every derogatory name in the book. I'm sure you can guess what color the player was. Personally I'm not bothered by what they did, but then again I'm not Asian and I'm not from China.

[scrub c]

Originally posted by Go Blue
chinese
japanese
dirty knees
look at these


lol

ching kow sim chong !!!
(thats funny)

[JR2004]

Here's the apology. Well sort of an apology...

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/basketball/news?slug=ro-spain081308&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

By Martin Rogers, Yahoo! Sports
2 hours, 35 minutes ago

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.”

[JR2004]

Gasol and Calderon seem to be the only ones who understand why the photo didn't go over so well. That's probably because of the extended time both have spent in the US.

[DDBooger]

Spain has had a pretty bad attitude towards players of other teams that are black, obviously this situation deals with Chinese. That being said, JR2004, you were right about its more of WHERE it's coming from than the act. Spain has been pretty overzealous before.

[Phil C]

I am shocked, Shocked, SHOCKED!!!!!

:eek:

[Bull's-eye]

Just heard on the radio that the team was asked to take this picture for one of their sponsors. It was to be used in some kind of advertisement promoting a certain courier service. They were told to make their eyes slant for the picture.

[Sweetwater Red]

It'll be interesting to see how the "home" crowd acts
when the U.S. plays Spain next.

[slingshot]

Originally posted by Sweetwater Red
It'll be interesting to see how the "home" crowd acts
when the U.S. plays Spain next. Esp when Spain is getting spanked by about 40... :D