It's Spain. Not a country known for its racial sensitivity, as many a Black English football player could tell you about.
You can't expect Europeans to be as worldly and culturally sensitive as Americans.
Let's be honest. Europeans are savages.
"What happened was that during a photo session where the Spanish national team was unveiled, one of our sponsors asked as to pose with a 'wink' to our participation in Beijing and we made an oriental expression with our eyes," he wrote on his website.
"It seemed to us to be something appropriate and that it would always be interpreted as an affectionate gesture. However some European media did not see it as such.
"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."
To be fair, some European media are very inscrutable. You never know how they'll respond to things.
re: 1
Or black French player, for that matter.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/4055395.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/4317033.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2007/sep/12/newsstory.sport10
"What happened was that during a photo session where the Spanish national team was unveiled, one of our sponsors asked as to pose with a 'wink' to our participation in Beijing and we made an oriental expression with our eyes," he wrote on his website.
I see now. Makes perfect sense. Now if the Olympics were in Africa or something, it would have been weird.
I saw that earlier today. WTF?! was indeed my response. And people wonder why I get angry at "chinky eyes" jokes in our post-racial world.
Tell me that guy did not pull out the "some of my best friends" line.
Oh yes he did.
8: I understand that some of his best friends don't even own televisions manufactured in China, so it's cool, right?
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Wolves in the Throne Room are pretty awesome.
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Spain is pretty crazy-ass racist. You see that kind of thing in ads all the time. Also, blackface: totally socially acceptable. Nobody seems to see anything off about that.
Watching some diving (I think) on Sunday morning, my 5 year old announced, "I hate the Chinese. They look weird and I hate them." Cue liberal family fainting in horror.
It is ridiculous. Everyone knows that dragons are almost always round-eyes.
Maybe I should send her to Spain where she won't offend anyone. Unless she tells them they're all idiots because they don't speak English. She's an obnoxious brat at times, she really is. (She's also taken to wearing a cowboy hat and reminds me of Bo Duke.)
What the hell is the black thing on her shoulder in this photo?
re: 15
Just looks like fabric tape. For an injury.
Damn, I was thinking it was an alien symbiote, like Venom.
Also, this is a pretty good parody of March of the Penguins. The narrator sounds just like Morgan Freeman.
I still don't understand how beach volleyball gets to be an Olympic sport. I'm hoping to see French cricket in London 2012. Still, Georgia v. Russia has to be the current definition of grudge match.
I've been advocating for French cricket as an olympic sport for ages. I even drafted some rules once: Teams of 4: 2F, 2M; at least one member of each team over 60, one under 12; there shall be an excitable spaniel with no traceable owner; etc.
18: Since the 90's, I think. Newt Gingrich helped, and introduced one of the instigators at the 1996 RNC, saying, "A mere 40 years ago, beach volleyball was just beginning. No bureaucrat would have invented it, and that's what freedom is all about."
Molly Ivins commented at the time that considering the IOC, Gingrich was apparently fine with bureaucracy as long as it wasn't government bureaucracy.
I'm not prepared to defend my reaction, but I found the ad pretty harmless. That Belle took offense does cause me to second-guess myself, but I didn't viscerally grok the outrage.
but I didn't viscerally grok the outrage.
Would it have upset you more if the Olympics had been in Johannesburg (as they should) and they'd blacked up?
Unless she tells them they're all idiots because they don't speak English.
This is a teachable moment. In order to do that properly she has to learn Spanish. You have a motivator.
My nieces from Fargo were afraid of Chinese when they visited Portland at ages 8 or 10 or so. They were also afraid of the Mississippi VFW contingent which was conventioning at their hotel. Fargo is homogeneous.
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The native semen lobby was just too powerful.
Via Kevin Drum, of all people.
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24. Racist! Equal wanking rights for Fijian peasants.
Maybe the Norse Kurds will start sneaking into the pool.
Probably I should have put that one on the slow food thread. The slow semen movement only accepts semen from donors who have lived within 50 miles of the uterus for at least five years.
Initially I thought that this was a perfect Unfogged story, but I'm starting to think that it's too easy, and that we've become so trendy that we're starting to attract copycats and poseurs like Drum.
I sense a business opportunity. If you were a well-muscled Nordic PhD, would you prefer to jerk off in some drab clinic in the Scandinavian winter, or in a hotel in sunny Boca Raton or South Beach? That's right, some entrepreneur needs to offer expenses-paid vacations in Florida to carefully selected sperm donors. There, they will be treated to champagne, plates of icy fresh Gulf of Mexico oysters, and unlimited pay-per-view porn, all in exchange for filling a couple of specimen cups per day. With an end-customer price of $3,000-$5,000 per squirt, I'm sure you could make it profitable.
28 - A couple of cups?! Are you a horse?
I'm using the word "fill" loosely.
I don't know whether the quality control procedures specify that donor sperm has to be from the first ejaculation of the day or something. That could adversely affect the economics of my business plan. OTOH, you could take inspiration from the viniculture industry and dilute the good stuff with the thinner stuff from subsequent ejaculations.
On the internets, nobody knows you're a horse.
Inflatable dog turd escapes museum, wreaks havoc.
Hey Knecht, you were wondering how to email me? Show your address, and I'll contact you.
Let's be honest. Europeans are savages.
Once again, Walt gets to the nub of the matter.
The second ejaculation is more efficaceous, they say. Apparently the ones standing in line get stale or something.
That is, the ones standing at the head of the line.
JMo: It's firstname underscore lastname at yahoo.com, where "firstname" is "knecht"
It doesn't surprise me that the players would do this. If you watch The Year of the Yao you'll see plenty of examples of players doing things like that.
The surprising thing is that nobody in PR killed the ad before it was printed.
I found the ad pretty harmless
Apparently in Knecht's elementary school, white kids didn't make slanty eyes and say, "Me Chinese."
Belle, do you actually hear people use "chink" these days? In what class/education/social/politicial circles? I continue to be surprised when I hear that people still use words like that, especially in a "harmless" kind of way and in mixed company. Not surprised by the racism, but by the lack of knowing that that's off limits. I know, I'm naive.
Last time I heard the word was from a Punjabi MBA student. I was really taken aback, because I thought I knew him well (and I really liked what I knew).
To clarify a bit further: he wasn't in an overtly racist rage or anything; he just tossed it out casually as a descriptive term. The context made it pretty clear that he had no idea just how offensive he was being.
Tell me that guy did not pull out the "some of my best friends" line.
Oh yes he did.
To be fair, I get the sense that basketball players do say offensive and insulting things to their friends all the time.
"One thing I did learn was that in addition to not having one ounce of athletic ability, being white, and having no vertical, and only being able to dribble right handed, I couldn't play in the NBA because about 43 times last night I heard things being said that would have made me swing at someone. These guys talk MAJOR trash on the floor, and the great part is that most of the times I've seen it the guy on the receiving end usually doesn't respond much, if at all, and just plays the game, schooling the guy who feels like he needs to talk to make his game better."
He wasn't in an overtly racist rage or anything; he just tossed it out casually as a descriptive term. The context made it pretty clear that he had no idea just how offensive he was being.
I'll bet he didn't understand what the abbreviation pejor. in his Punjabi-English dictionary means.
Possibly, but this was a very fluent English-speaker, someone who had been studying and using English for twenty years.
I dislike faux offense but even I can see the offense here. It is racism, pure and simple.
I recall when the HS in Perkin Illinois had a team name of the Pekin Chinks and saw no problem with that. I figure it is a genetic thing and the US South got populated with much of the riff-raff from Scotland and Ireland and we all know what they are like. Probably have red hair or something.
Oh, and the tape on the volleball players shoulder is some new kind of medical tape to compress the lymph nodes and swollen muscles and supposedly work as well as ibuprofen. I dunno. I think they are trying to sell it like they did with those worthless nasal strips.
One of those captivatingly Latvian volleyballists was wearing weird medical tape too. But it was flesh-colored.
I still don't understand how beach volleyball gets to be an Olympic sport. I'm hoping to see French cricket in London 2012. Still, Georgia v. Russia has to be the current definition of grudge match.
Colleague, yesterday: "It's like the softcore version of Rocky IV!"
On topic, one thing that always catches the British reader by surprise is that Americans will happily refer to Pakistanis as "Pakis" - I've read serious articles referring to "the Paki army", etc - while in the UK this is an insult on the same level as "nigger".