IOC calls Spanish basketball picture 'clearly inappropriate'
11:07 AM Wed, Aug 13, 2008 | Permalink
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By Pete Thamel BEIJING - A picture in a newspaper advertisement that a spokeswoman for the IOC called "clearly inappropriate" has left the Spanish basketball team apologizing for its contents. Click here to see the photo. The Spanish men's and women's basketball team posed for the picture pulling on the skin behind their eyes to make it look as if they are Asian. The pictures have run in an advertisement for the Spanish courier company, Seur, in the Spanish sports daily, Marca, for the last month. The Spanish coach and multiple team members, many of whom play in the NBA, said that the picture was taken out of context and they did so only after being implored to by Seur's representatives. "If anyone feels offended by it, we totally apologize for it," the Spanish star Pau Gasol said. "We never meant anything offensive by it." Emmanuelle Moreau, a spokeswoman for the International Olympic Committee, said in an e-mail message: "We understand that the Spanish team intended no offense and has apologized. The matter rests there as far as the IOC is concerned." Not everyone was as overtly apologetic as Gasol, who spoke Wednesday afternoon after practice at Beijing University of Language and Culture. Gasol plays in the NBA for the Lakers and could communicate more clearly with American reporters because he speaks English better than most of the teammates and coach. The Spanish coach, Aito Garcma Reneses, declined to apologize for the picture, which he said he had not seen. He did not appear in the picture. He said the intention was a joke. The Spanish Olympic Committee declined comment and a spokesman for the Spanish Basketball Federation said that its president, Jose Luis Saez, would comment after Spain's game on Thursday. "All of the Spanish people are close to the Chinese people mentally," Reneses said. "We have a very good relationship." Reneses compared the intent of the picture to the Spanish team going to play a taller team and taking a picture on their tip toes. He said the intent was not offensive. Gasol gave the context behind the photo, saying that the team spent three hours on the morning of July 1 posing for 100 or 200 different photos for about 10 sponsors. The pose for the Seur ad was simply one of a litany poses that day. "Some of us didn't feel comfortable doing it," Gasol said. "To me it was little clownish for our part to be doing that. The sponsor insisted and insisted. They pushed because they're the people that pay the money. It was just a bad idea to do that. It was never intended to be offensive or racist against anybody." The strongest reaction came on the Internet, as a global debate in comments sections have varied from Chinese being offended to wondering if people are being too politically correct. The NBA, the Chinese Olympic Committee and an editor at Marca did not respond to requests for comment. The Spanish guard Jose Calderon said that it was his understanding that the intention of the picture was for the sponsor to reach out to Asians. He became annoyed with questions about the photo, especially because news media reports mixed in with other recent moments of sporting insensitivity in Spain. Those low moments have included racial taunts at soccer matches, an a coach who used an offensive word to describe the soccer star Thierry Henry and racial taunts aimed at the Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton earlier this year in Barcelona. "I think it's too much," Calderon said. "I think some people want to mix that with things that have happened in Spain before. Spain is one of the most multicultural counties in the world." Gasol added that it was met with mixed reaction by the team - some of the players in the picture were not making the gesture. "I didn't find it very funny," Gasol said. "I didn't find it offensive either. Some guys didn't mind. I don't want to be that way, I guess, doing that stuff." 
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Obviously… we can all laugh about it when it’s not about your race.
Yo! Round-eyes, the doctor must have jammed his thumb up your ass pretty hard right after delivery to get you breathing(hence the round-eyes), and I guessed you must have like it.
As Pau Gosol puts it “If anyone feels offended by it, we totally apologize for it, We never meant anything offensive by it.” as well…
You joke, I joke, you laugh, I laugh… ok..let's start your mama joke now.
Let’s keep it up, morons!!
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pau gasol and his idiotic teammates should be kicked out of beijing olympics. how can you insult people of china when you there playing basketball? obviously he's just a complete idiot and an ignorant racist ! as a long time lakers fan, i would ask GM Mitch K to trade him, we do NOT need another racist in wonderful city of LA ! Asians made up of 30% of population in LA, that last thing we need is a Spanish racist playing for the Lakers.
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When I saw the photograph of the Spanish basketball team slanting their eyes, I felt extremely hurt and saddened. As a Chinese-America growing up in Georgia and in Pennsylvania, I remember painful moments during childhood when classmates tormented me with this very gesture. They pulled at the corners of their eyes and said, "Me Chinese, me play joke, me put pee pee in your Coke!" I always went right to the bathroom to cry secretly in the stalls, and would do so again later at night before going to sleep. I remember feeling different, less worthy, less good-looking, and certainly like I did not belong. I fully understand and credit that the players were not attempting to offend, insult, or injure, but as we all know, what we think we are saying or intending does not always reflect what others are receiving. The Olympics is supposed to build bridges between cultures and nations, not tear them down. This gesture highlights differences between the Caucasian and Asian races, rather than trying to unify us as a human race.
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If I ever see any of those basketball players I am going to pound their faces in. They are several inches taller than me (Im about 6 foot) but I think I am a little faster and stronger. They will be able to beat me up but not before I stab them or do some form of permanent damage to them. They think it is a joke? How about I kill them by blowing a hole threw their chest or shooting a few shotgun shells through their skull?
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I'm chinese and I don't get why caucasions think this picture is racist. I interpreted the picture to mean they wanted to be like the chinese and I can't speak for every chinese but the picture wasn't offensive. Maybe the people who thinks its racist are racist themselves?
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I'm white and I don't get why im racist. I am ignorant but i do what i want and things are ok cuz i can come up with excuses..:) go other dumbasses!
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How come is that sign racist when exactly that same sign is the word used in British Sign Language for "Chinese" and in American Sign Language there is one variation of the sign with only one hand pointing to the eye in the same way to indicate the different eye shape to mean "Chinese" or "Asian"?
And the Brits and Americans didn't notice until today? So, they are using a racist and offensive sign in their sign language? Are they going to ban it? Is the Guardian or the New York Times going to write an article about the racist content of the British and American Sign Language?
Come on, this is ridiculous.
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