Spanish NT in Racist Advertisement?

[robbe2]

I know the sensitiveness on this topic very well from the country I own a passport of due to the obvious historic reasons and a more and more multicultural society these days. It (the sensitiveness, which I would call over-sensitiveness) is nothing to be proud of. Make no mistake, I hate racism more than anything else and it is more than necessary to take action against it. But to cry out loud every single time a black basketball player is called a good leaper while a white player is described as being "smart", and to complain about such things as a basketball team doing such an advertising is only degrading the term "racism" to a rather laughable level, so it has no value whatsoever when the term is indeed appropriate. What is next? Should I complain every time a German is presented as a blond, strong, stupid robot in a Hollywood movie? It would be only appropriate for Mr.Columnist to take a close look. But I have the suspicion he's applying double standards. For me, that's playing with the clichees. That might not be funny in most cases, but let's not make too big a deal out of it. And too big means too big.

It should have crossed columnists mind however, that Europe is a continent with many different countries and cultures. There is no one united "European" country, society, way of thinking, way of handling things or whatever. Is it really that hard to get?

I heard of what Aragones said about Thierry Henry and I wasn't happy with the rather laughable fine by the Spanish federation. I also read that there were spectators in Germany, Italy and Spain (and probably any other European country, if I would do some research) racially abusing black football players in the arenas, I sat right next to a guy who racially abused Manu Ginobili when I was in Phoenix and the Suns were hosting the Spurs. I heard the president of the Greek basketball federation called the NBA "a league of monkeys that can only jump". I read here about problems in Lithuania, England and a lot of other places, experienced racism in Germany(towards Turcs and Ethiopians) and Arizona, USA(towards Mexicans). And, of course, history is full of it. All these things tell me that racism is a big problem all over the world. But do they allow me to conclude things I only know fractions of? Does it allow me to judge over a country and its people? What does Columnist Nr.4 know about Spain? Much less than I do, probably.

For me, the advertisement may have been stupid, but all the fuss about it is just a very poor attempt of building up some artificial tension before the clash of the two reputed favourites of the tournament. And all the posters who are now thankfully taking the bait and pointing their fingers at the Gasols and Navarros should rethink whether or not it's really in their interest that the term "racism" is misused in that way if their behaviour in truth isn't a huge offence towards those who really fell victim of racism.

 

[Ilya2]

I know the sensitiveness on this topic very well from the country I own a passport of due to the obvious historic reasons and a more and more multicultural society these days. It (the sensitiveness, which I would call over-sensitiveness) is nothing to be proud of. Make no mistake, I hate racism more than anything else and it is more than necessary to take action against it. But to cry out loud every single time a black basketball player is called a good leaper while a white player is described as being "smart", and to complain about such things as a basketball team doing such an advertising is only degrading the term "racism" to a rather laughable level, so it has no value whatsoever when the term is indeed appropriate. What is next? Should I complain every time a German is presented as a blond, strong, stupid robot in a Hollywood movie? It would be only appropriate for Mr.Columnist to take a close look. But I have the suspicion he's applying double standards. For me, that's playing with the clichees. That might not be funny in most cases, but let's not make too big a deal out of it. And too big means too big.

It should have crossed columnists mind however, that Europe is a continent with many different countries and cultures. There is no one united "European" country, society, way of thinking, way of handling things or whatever. Is it really that hard to get?

I heard of what Aragones said about Thierry Henry and I wasn't happy with the rather laughable fine by the Spanish federation. I also read that there were spectators in Germany, Italy and Spain (and probably any other European country, if I would do some research) racially abusing black football players in the arenas, I sat right next to a guy who racially abused Manu Ginobili when I was in Phoenix and the Suns were hosting the Spurs. I heard the president of the Greek basketball federation called the NBA "a league of monkeys that can only jump". I read here about problems in Lithuania, England and a lot of other places, experienced racism in Germany(towards Turcs and Ethiopians) and Arizona, USA(towards Mexicans). And, of course, history is full of it. All these things tell me that racism is a big problem all over the world. But do they allow me to conclude things I only know fractions of? Does it allow me to judge over a country and its people? What does Columnist Nr.4 know about Spain? Much less than I do, probably.

For me, the advertisement may have been stupid, but all the fuss about it is just a very poor attempt of building up some artificial tension before the clash of the two reputed favourites of the tournament. And all the posters who are now thankfully taking the bait and pointing their fingers at the Gasols and Navarros should rethink whether or not it's really in their interest that the term "racism" is misused in that way if their behaviour in truth isn't a huge offence towards those who really fell victim of racism.

Unbelievably on the spot post.

 

[c_fish2]

I think the photo is funny not racist.As for Kidd's "double standards" how would he describe the antidoping control tests the USA bball team didn't want to take or else they wouldn't play on Athens 2004

 

[J-Mart2]

blown Out Of Proportion!

 

[christodoulou762]

First of all, hello to all. It's some time since I follow this forum, but today I just felt like saying something here.

Just to sum it up:

1. The controversial photo is for an advertisment.

2. The company paying for the ads is A CHINESE COMPANY (Li-Ning`s T-Shirt).

3. The GUYS FROM THE CHINESE COMPANY decided that it was the correct advertisment (it was probably THEIR idea).

4. Since every single guy in the Spanish team is spanish (huh), it's not unlikely that none of them could think of the gesture being racist. In Spain (a country where nothing is ever taken seriously, and where no offense is ever taken -or almost-) almost noone would see that gesture as offensive.

5. Even if two or three players had thought "hey, this might be offensive to chinese people" (which is VERY improbable), the fact that it was all the idea of a Chinese company obviously convinced them of the contrary.

6. If a third party (a quite over-reacting third party, as a matter of fact - English meida) comes into this two-sided game and starts messing it up with their own stuff, they are to be blamed.

7. No offense intended (and apparently no offense taken from the guys in the Chinese company). No mocking intended. Absolutely no sign of "racial superiority". NO RACISM whatsoever.

8. If a word or a gesture or any issue is considered offensive or sensitive in a a certain country, it doesn't mean every single country in the world should avoid it in their own territory (where ir may have completely different significance or background).

In fact, there's a gesture (the "horns" with the fingers) which Americans may understand as "man, this rocks", whilst in Spain it means "fu(k you" or even "you're an idiot whose wife constantly fu(ks another men". Do we get annoyed wen an American (o any other) uses that gesture in their own "scenery"? No. I mean, we know that's the way it works.

From the point of view of a Spaniard, the only way to see "Racism" in all this is to have a race-based mindset at first. It is said that the ones claiming "racism!" are too often the very first ones to be racist.
Please better look at yourself before judging the others, especially if you don't know it all (but who knows anyway?)

Actually, as this article makes clear, the advertisement was created by a Spanish courier company, Seur, and not the Chinese company on the Spanish teams' jerseys. So the argument that this was orchestrated by a Chinese company is bogus.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/8445380/Gasol-defends-pic:-It-was-'supposed-to-be-funny'

 

[Mae West2]

Actually, as this article makes clear, the advertisement was created by a Spanish courier company, Seur, and not the Chinese company on the Spanish teams' jerseys. So the argument that this was orchestrated by a Chinese company is bogus.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/8445380/Gasol-defends-pic:-It-was-'supposed-to-be-funny'

I don't know if foxsports is a "perfect" source. I have not seen the ad myself.

Still, the bottom line in this is a different matter. It is the fact that the actions which take place in a country cannot be judged by the standards used in countries with a rather different mindset.

Just an example:

The word "mulato/a", in Spanish, is applied to someone who is half white/half black. Its use in Spain is stricly "descriptive" and seldom derogatory. As a matter of fact, it can be used in a possitive way.

In Cuba (where half the population or more has some Sub-Saharian-African ancestor), the word mulata has even more possitive connotations. It's even a compliment, a flirting cliche. It's a charming word which quite often implies appreciation or love.

For some time, I'm told, the word "mulato" has been used in some parts of the US the same way as "nigg€r" or "negr0"; that is, with an offensive intention.

Now if an american (not pointing at them, it is just that they fit this particular example) comes and tell me that I cannot go to Cuba and call a cuban girl "mulata" because in your country (a third party who has no bussiness in this two-sided "game") it is considered racist, then he DOES HAVE A REAL PROBLEM understanding how his place in the World works.

Can't think of anything else to add.

 

[Fedfan2]

damn these freaking americans have too many insults!!

I fullyagree Mae West-and I love your avatar.

 

[porompompero2]

I couldn't find a better example, Mae, totally agree

 

[christodoulou762]

I don't know if foxsports is a "perfect" source. I have not seen the ad myself.

Still, the bottom line in this is a different matter. It is the fact that the actions which take place in a country cannot be judged by the standards used in countries with a rather different mindset.

Just an example:

The word "mulato/a", in Spanish, is applied to someone who is half white/half black. Its use in Spain is stricly "descriptive" and seldom derogatory. As a matter of fact, it can be used in a possitive way.

In Cuba (where half the population or more has some Sub-Saharian-African ancestor), the word mulata has even more possitive connotations. It's even a compliment, a flirting cliche. It's a charming word which quite often implies appreciation or love.

For some time, I'm told, the word "mulato" has been used in some parts of the US the same way as "nigg€r" or "negr0"; that is, with an offensive intention.

Now if an american (not pointing at them, it is just that they fit this particular example) comes and tell me that I cannot go to Cuba and call a cuban girl "mulata" because in your country (a third party who has no bussiness in this two-sided "game") it is considered racist, then he DOES HAVE A REAL PROBLEM understanding how his place in the World works.

Can't think of anything else to add.

My comment concerned points #2 and #3 in your post. I was trying to clarify that, no more and no less. Why would you respond to my clarification with another point entirely? I have no interest in getting into an argument about mulatoes with you. I just want the facts of the case to be clear on this forum. The ad was created by a Spanish company. If this was not an important issue in the first place, why devote two points to it in your initial post?

 

[Mae West2]

My comment concerned points #2 and #3 in your post. I was trying to clarify that, no more and no less. Why would you respond to my clarification with another point entirely? I have no interest in getting into an argument about mulatoes with you. I just want the facts of the case to be clear on this forum. The ad was created by a Spanish company. If this was not an important issue in the first place, why devote two points to it in your initial post?

I've told you that I'm not sure about Seur being the paying company. If I wrote points 2 and 3 in my first post it was because it was the information I got. Fox-web says the contrary, but funny thing is I still didn't find a Spanish (from Spain) article saying it was Seur and not the T-shirt brand.

I have also seen that most Asians (Asians from Asia, and not foreign-breed guys who happen to have Asian ancestors but a completely different miindset) don't give a damn about the Ad.

That said, after reading some other people here and there, I also felt like adding some ideas I had not written in my first post, and which IMO happen to make sense even if the nacionality of the paying company is not that clear (not to me, at least).

There's nothing wrong with adding new ideas... there is?

 

[Lietuvis2]

Actually, as this article makes clear, the advertisement was created by a Spanish courier company, Seur, and not the Chinese company on the Spanish teams' jerseys. So the argument that this was orchestrated by a Chinese company is bogus.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/8445380/Gasol-defends-pic:-It-was-'supposed-to-be-funny'

FOX reporting is a lot more than what you see on the surface and is more about what "they" want you to think and stir such trouble. I really want to know who the real "they" are!!!

http://www.outfoxed.org/

 

[Czarkazem132]

I really don't see what the fuss is all about. My guess is the specific gesture was meant either as a symbol of "when in rome look like a Roman", either as simply humouristic. I don't understand why anyone would get insulted by it, unless they wanted to be insulted. By the way, I don't think there is more racism in Spain than in any other country, and I honestly don't believe racism is a matter of a people as a whole, it basically has to do with individuals, at least in this time and age.

Forget it was an add for China. Just taking this down to the basics. Seeing nonAsians making a gesture slanting their eyes to look like Asian's eyes has a long history of being racist. It is for this matter that people will see it as racist.

It is one thing to say you don't find it racist, it is another to actually state, "I don't understand why anyone would get insulted by it," unless you have NO IDEA of the history of this gesture. Which I would find hard to believe, though possible.

This is an issue of perception. For instance in the U.S. there is an add by John McCain against Barack Obama. In the add he compares Obama's popularity to that of Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton. Now besides the fact that Paris' parents are supporters of McCain (BTW, the Paris retort is hilarious), but some saw the add as racist.

Puting Obama, a mixed but perceived as black presidential candidate, with white women in the add conjures up - let's say - certain feelings amongst certain people. Some saw the "Tower of Piza" (in Germany no less, friggin' Americans and geography - BTW it is NO coincidence that they didn't air footage of Israelis cheering Obama) and the Washington Monument as phallic symbols in an add with a "black" man and two white women.

Now there is a history of racist adds like this, but that doesn't mean that the intent of this add was to be racist. It may have just been them thinking of two "airhead" divas and got these two.

It's all about perception.

 

[Czarkazem132]

Black people in the US claim Cleopatra was black, and Egyptians claim she was Egyptian. Of course it is written she had blond hair and was Greek, from one of the general tribes of Alexander.

Generalized comment. Not all blacks believe that. Of course Afrocentrics believe that the original Egyptians [Kemet] were black. As far as Cleo (and there were many) most likely her dad was Macedonian, but mother may have been a black Egyptian according to many sources

"Aryans" are said to be "a white race"......Iranians are in fact Aryans.

Blame the NAZIs. Just like the Swastika they stole too.

We have terms like Hispanic and Latino. What is unreal is that in the US 90 percent of people don't even know that SPANISH people are not Mexican or that it's not even the same race.

Also Mexicans themselves and surely most Americans don't even seem to know what the Mexican race even is.

90%, where do you live? Spanish is just used as a general - and wrong - term for Latinos/Hispanics. Just call Americans 'English' and see how quick they react.

IGNORANCE and that ad was pure IGNORANCE

...and blissful.

I don't care if that's racist or not but it surely is IGNORANT and there's a sickening display of it all around these days in regards to other cultures. I had to shake my head just not too long ago when a girl I was dating kept calling Chinese people in a movie Japanese. I had to explain to her the difference and she was like "how the hell can you tell the difference? They all look alike to me."

It does seem that all Asians in the U.S. are perceived as Chinese (well except in the 80s when the Japanese were used as scapegoats for buying up all of our stuff (Germans were worse, but "round eyes" are ok).

 

[Czarkazem132]

...they miss the point. Whether the picture was made in good fun is irrelevant. It was a ridiculous idea that was bound to upset a lot of people.

Hmmm....

 

[Czarkazem132]

Dear Lord, I haven't seen anyone from China complaining, have you? Give me a break with this political correctness thing, when no insult is meant, none should be taken. It's like me complaining for being called a woman.

Hum...how?


BTW, I think it's funny at how many people are mad at Kidd for being upset at a picture he (and many others) considers racist. Also, ya'll keep complaining about his double standard and say it doesn't exist because of other double standards...what?

That just means there are a lot of double standards - it's called life.

 

[Mae West2]

Forget it was an add for China. Just taking this down to the basics. Seeing nonAsians making a gesture slanting their eyes to look like Asian's eyes has a long history of being racist. It is for this matter that people will see it as racist.
.

How so?

It might be (I presume) a long history of being racist in the USA.

It has no racist history in Spain (and in Europe, I'd dare to say), and apparently it does not in China either.

If the guys doing a gesture do no think of it as something offensive, and the guys supposedly offended take no offense, where's the issue? Do we have to pay attention to the meaning and history which that gesture has in a country that has no bussiness in this particular matter?

I mean, I don't give a damn about foreigners beside me doing that "This rocks, man" gesture with their fingers, even though in Spanish tradition and culture such gesture means they're mocking me asince I'm an idiot whose wife/girlfriend fu(ks another men ( "cornuto", en italiano). I mean, they have different codes and I know it. Why such common sense does not apply to you over-reacting knights-errand?

 

[Mae West2]

Hum...how?


BTW, I think it's funny at how many people are mad at Kidd for being upset at a picture he (and many others) considers racist. Also, ya'll keep complaining about his double standard and say it doesn't exist because of other double standards...what?

That just means there are a lot of double standards - it's called life.

Still, lots of us prefer not to judge cultural issues we have no clue about.

Of course I'm noone to tell you to do so, but please read my previous post about the word "mulato". After that, feel free to think whatever you decide, but still you have to understand the world does not work with your Only and True bunch codes.

And yes... Why not play the other way around?

 

[Czarkazem132]

How so?

Hum, because it does.

It might be (I presume) a long history of being racist in the USA.

Yes, and other nations too. Usually ones more diverse and have Asian populations

It has no racist history in Spain (and in Europe, I'd dare to say), and apparently it does not in China either.

Won't argue about Spain. I also wouldn't put all of Europe in the same boat. As far as China, well it isn't a diverse nation either. However, this was an international spot in a ever so increasingly smaller planet (globalization baby). However, when U.S. and European powers were basically invading China, this gesture wasn't exactly not known.

BTW, it seems Pau Gasol didn't really think it was right either.

If the guys doing a gesture do no think of it as something offensive, and the guys supposedly offended take no offense, where's the issue? Do we have to pay attention to the meaning and history which that gesture has in a country that has no bussiness in this particular matter?

Yes. If a klansman and a NAZI make jokes about Jews or blacks (yes this is an extreme example) and neither finds it offensive, but lets say - for some odd reason - Jews and blacks get offended. Are they now in the wrong?

Also, once again, you are making this a U.S. issue. Let's see, a Spanish paper debated this issue, a British paper was - I beleive - the first to make this an issue; yep, damn Americans.

I mean, I don't give a damn about foreigners beside me doing that "This rocks, man" gesture with their fingers, even though in Spanish tradition and culture such gesture means they're mocking me asince I'm an idiot whose wife/girlfriend fu(ks another men ( "cornuto", en italiano). I mean, they have different codes and I know it. Why such common sense does not apply to you over-reacting knights-errand?

Hum...what? The Spanish mock you because you are an idiot??? Can they tell by looking at you or wait till you open your mouth? Is being an idiot mean you are a part of an ethnic group? I'm confused...

 

[Czarkazem132]

Still, lots of us prefer not to judge cultural issues we have no clue about.

Define "lots."

Of course I'm noone to tell you to do so, but please read my previous post about the word "mulato". After that, feel free to think whatever you decide, but still you have to understand the world does not work with your Only and True bunch codes.

And yes... Why not play the other way around?

Mulatto...ok, where?

Please understand that you may be missing the point. I only base that on you posting, "you have to understand the world does not work with your Only and True bunch codes." Didn't know I have codes...

 

[SergioRodriguez2]

So imitating the slanted eyes is a racist gesture in the USA.
That's fine.
But it doesn't mean it is a racist act in Europe. It isn't certainly in Spain, and reading this forums it seems it isn't either in the rest of Europe.
Today a writer from the Los Angeles Post has written he demands Pau Gasol to formally apologize for that pic.
He end the article saying "Let the Spanish act racist in his little own country"
Anyway, Americans need to know America is one country of the planet Earth, not the planet Earth itself.
If Asian people is offended by the picture, then Spanish Basketball Federation has to make a formal apologize.
What American (like that clown from the Los Angeles Post, not Asian descendent) people think about that ad doesn't matter one bit.