"Spain basketball team pictured in controversial pose"
Way to show your true colors on the international scene, boys.
And whoever approved this pose and photo oughta be bitch slapped.
Updated 8/13/08:
More on the Spanish team's photo ...
"Spanish player defends controversial photo"
Point guard Jose Manuel Calderon said the team was responding to a request from the photographer.
"We felt it was something appropriate, and that it would be interpreted as an affectionate gesture," Calderon, who plays for NBA's Toronto Raptors, wrote on his ElMundo.es blog."
"The Spanish women's basketball team also posed for photo doing the same thing, and four members of Argentina's women's Olympic football team were shown making similar faces in a photograph published last week."
You can see the photo of the women's team here (and check out the black player in the center, smiling as big as the rest of them).
The basketball federation had just signed a four-year contract extension with Chinese clothing brand Li Ning shortly after arriving in the Chinese capital for the games.
"We have great respect for the far East and its people, some of my best friends in Toronto are originally Chinese, including one of our sponsors, the brand Li Ning," Calderon wrote. "Whoever wants to interpret it differently is completely confusing it."
Frank Zhang, Li Ning's director of government and public affairs, played down the incident.
"We don't think this is an insulting gesture to the Chinese," Zhang said. "In fact, the gesture shows that the Spanish team is so humorous, relaxing and cute. They sat around a dragon pattern, which we think showed respect to the Chinese.
Cute?! No. Ignorant, insensitive, and racist? Yes.
I'm glad to see the AP covering this story, and my local TV station mentioned this photo in its late-night broadcast last night. But nothing will probably happen as a result. You can bet that if the team had made some racist comment about African-American players or other black athletes, we'd be hearing more. Instead, we hear how "cute" and "humorous" the team is. The ones who are confused are these ignorant, clueless assholes.
And what is up with Zhang's comments? Guess the company would rather be insulted than lose a lucrative contract. Oh, that's right, it doesn't think the gesture was offensive.
Do the Chinese not find this as offensive as Asian Americans? Probably not since they didn't grow up in white communities with other kids taunting and teasing them with that gesture.
