Why is there so much racism/ignorance in Spain?
Posted in News, Sports on August 12th, 2008 by Hyphen
On Sunday, the Guardian reported on the image above, which features the Spanish men’s national basketball team in an advertisement for the Beijing Olympics. The dragon in the center circle? Clumsy, but admissable. The fingers pulling back the skin around their eyes in an attempt to mimic asian features? Yeaaaaaah, I’m going to go ahead and hit you with the:
You’d think that the European country closest to Africa (separated by only 8 miles at the Strait of Gibraltar) might be the most racially tolerant member of the E.U., but unfortunately, you’d be dead wrong. Spain has a long history of racism, and in recent years, it’s repeatedly reared its ugly head in their sporting events. From the abuse Lewis Hamilton received earlier this year, to Luis Aragones’ moronic comments about Thierry Henry, it seems like a new incident pops up every few months. We also can’t forget about when Samuel Eto’o almost left the pitch a few years back:
And now the Spanish basketball team, one of the best squads in the world, has again demonstrated the ignorance and racism that appears so prevalent in their culture. It’s shocking enough that this actually made it’s way into an officially sanctioned advertisement (apparently involving the female team in the same pose on the opposite page), but how could players who’ve spent time here in the NBA agree to this? You’re telling me Pau and Marc Gasol, Rudy Fernandez, Juan Carlos Navarro, Jose Calderon, and Jorge Garbajosa didn’t know any better? Wow.
I don’t want to sound too high and mighty, because we clearly have lots of race issues here (cough, cough, cough), but it’s time for Spain to get a grip on this. If they’re going continue campaigning for Madrid to host the 2016 or 2020 Olympics, they have to get serious about this problem.