A photo showing four members of Argentina’s Olympic women’s football team making “slit-eyed” gestures has emerged on the internet, just days after two Spanish sports teams were criticised for pulling similar poses. The image shows players Maria Potassa, Eva Gonzalez, Fabiana Vallejos and Andrea Ojeda smiling broadly as they pull back the skin on the side of their eyes, in a crude impersonation of Chinese people. There is no suggestion that the four footballers intended to cause offence. The photo was published – without provoking controversy – in the Argentine sports newspaper Ole on Aug 5, to accompany a preview of the team’s first match of the tournament against Canada. It was taken more than a week before adverts featuring the Spanish men’s and women’s basketball teams in similar poses sparked international criticism. Last Thursday a photo emerged of members of Spain’s Olympic women’s tennis team pulling the same face earlier this year, in anticipation of an upcoming match against China.
The rows sparked by the photos have highlighted how standards about the acceptability of racial stereotyping vary widely between countries, even in the West. Much of the criticism of the Spanish teams has come from the English-speaking blogosphere, prompting some complaints from Spain about alleged Anglo-Saxon hostility to Madrid’s 2016 Olympic bid. The players involved in the photos have expressed their shock that others may find them offensive. Pau Gasol, one of the Spanish basketballers, said it was “absurd” to consider the gesture racist.
Nice. I wonder what the Chinese do to make fun of us “round eyes”.
#30 xr, I think my comparison is quite valid, not weird at all. My uncle is sensitive about his limp, just as some Asians are quite sensitive about their eyes. Emphasizing it when it serves no USEFUL purpose (such as the biographic movie you mentioned) merely looks like an attempt to make fun of it.
It seems like the strongest argument to be made is that we can’t be absolutely sure the athletes were making fun of this different-looking racial characteristic. I already gave them the benefit of that tiny bit of doubt when I originally said “It just looks like they’re making fun…” However, I’m still hard-pressed to find an alternate explanation for the gesture besides mockery.
Racism is in the eyes of the beholder.
#33 Fábio, that’s sometimes true, but I think we could pretty much agree that racism existed much more in the evil hearts of the lynch mob than the eye of the lynch victim, so your clever phrase is far from a universal truth.
Have you thought of any alternate explanations for the “pulling back the eyes” gesture other than mockery?
#34–Gary==you are about to have your picture taken before going to the Olympics. Someone says “Show us you are going to China!” What would you do?
So, racism and mockery are the only two explanations huh?
Human beings are genetically gifted with the nature, ability, tendency to spot similarities and differences. Its how we learn to tell ourselves from the rest of the universe. It is the basis of the scientific method. When you look at a person with different skin color, eye shape or whatever====IT IS NOTICED! That is the essence of being a human being. What happens after that is cultural.
I’m from Argentina, and I can tell you I completely agree with the Spaniards. There’s no way in our culture that this can be considered offensive or racist. It’s just an innocent joke.
We don’t have any kind of racial problems in our country. Although the majority of the population is white/european we never had any problem with minorities.
I think it’s just because US people are very racists, that you tend to think that the rest of us are the same way. WRONG!!!!
I guess taking a picture in Disney World wearing a Mickey Mouse hat would be considered by Us standards a Mockery to Walt Disney???
#32 – Dangerous One
>>just as some Asians are quite sensitive about
>>their eyes
They are? I’ve never met any who were. There are billions of ’em, why on earth should the be “sensitive” about one of the most predominant physical features on earth.
Better I should be sensitive about my round eyes. Boo hoo!
And to equate features of Asians’ eyes to a physical deformity (e.g. a limp) seems to be the height of racism (eye-wise) and condescending, to say the least.
#31, peedro,
24 said: “And finally: being equal does not equate to being the same!”
…errrrr yes, it does.
Aaaahh, no it doesn’t.
Equal means “the same as” which does not mean “the same”. “Equal” is a value or measure while “same” is an identity.
I am not identical to my wife yet I fully know, understand, and see her as my equal.
#35 bobbo, quite honestly, this gesture is about the last thing I’d do if some idiot photographer said, “Show us you are going to China!” My bad — I guess I forgot to specify the “logical” filter in my request for an alternate explanation.
Noticing different skin color or eye shape is natural, but drawing special attention to it by imitating it with no useful purpose runs a very high risk of causing offense.
Imagine the one physical characteristic you’re most sensitive about, and then imagine someone imitating that characteristic, reinforcing your worst fear that it really is your most noticeable attribute, and maybe even the thing that most defines you in their eyes.
For instance, if you had teeth that you considered quite unattractive, wouldn’t you be a little offended if one of your office mates drew black marks on their teeth in an attempt to imitate you? Would you see that as a form of mockery, or would you just brush it off as a perfectly natural scientific observation? I’m trying to draw a difference between observation and mockery that you seem to be trying to avoid.
#38 Mister Mustard, as I’ve noted before, I consider many Asians to be very attractive, but I’m also aware that some of them are so sensitive about their eye shape that they have surgery (blepharoplasty) to change it to a more European look. In a world where European standards of beauty seem to predominate and promote economic success, members of other races will sometimes surgically adopt physical standards that are not most natural within their own race.
Would Halle Berry be as successful if she were the epitome of classic African beauty? I really doubt it. Instead, her features are much more traditionally European, and her life is completely different as a result. The fact that people considered beautiful by European standards tend to have greater economic success has not gone unnoticed in the world.
BTW, in making drawing the parallel to my uncle’s limp, I only intended the comparison of features about which people may have special sensitivity, as some Asians have with their eyes. I didn’t mean to imply that they have any reason for that sensitivity, since I find it an attractive feature. The problem is, photos like the one of the Argentinians will likely not decrease any such sensitivity about their eye shape.
#41 pedro wrote “And where’s the linching [sic] taking place here? Point for #33.”
I used the example of lynching to handily rebut his assertion that “Racism is in the eyes of the beholder.” It’s a good thing you weren’t an Olympic judge, pedro, because I deserved that point 😉
#40–gary==its racist to think the Chinese are concerned at all about their epicanthal fold.
I am reminded of James Clavells “Shogun” wherein the English Ship Captain marries the beautiful chinese gal. They have a kid who is hated by everybody==the whites because he is chinese, the chinese because he is white. The kid complains to his mother. She thinks he is a whiney little bastard: “At least he is half chinese, thats better than most.”
Insults not clear and express should be ignored.
Since I started it:
@ #42: Pedro, you should start reading the full entries :).
Example:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/equal
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/same
If you’re the same as your fellow citizens you live in a nation clones; but you can perfectly well be equal to them. That’s the point I wanted to make.
I haven’t read the definitions, “but” seems to me that if you are “the same” you are equal to in all respects but if you are equal to someone it is only in “some” respects otherwise the word “same” would be used. That baseline understanding/assumption has gone unstated for so long, it is now causing confusion?
Everyone is equally entitled to run a race, only one will be the fastest and not the same as nor equal to the others.
@ #47
thank you…
#34
I’m Brazilian, so I don’t see racism, they are just taking the typical turist photo.
I’m sorry if the Brits and Americans are ashamed of the way they treated Asians in the past, but that’s not the way we conducted our immigration here in South America.
That picture was taken by Argentinians, not by Brits. If that was the cause maybe then it COULD be considered racism.
I just hope people keep pulling stunts like this until the whole PC crowd has coronaries and die.
Would be a great service to mankind.
Argentines, Spanish, whatever. To the chinese we all look the same to them.
This stupid article is more offensive than the pose ” crude impersonation of chinese people ” hmmm i’m pretty sure all East Asians have this distincitve bone structure.
I wish I was a white european fuck gooks and chinkys 8======D :O
U MAD??