Mimo
Full Member
Posts: 303
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Post by Mimo on Aug 15, 2008 8:37:20 GMT -5
As non-white non-Spaniard living in Spain and living in probably one of the most right wing cities in Spain, I thought I'd give my point of view. Spain is a country that has received immigrants fairly recently and in a relatively short space of time and due to having been under a dictatorship it is still trying to catch up on what is seen as PC and non PC. I went to a fancy dress party maybe 3 months ago and a few people were "black faced" to dress up as Mr T or Diana Ross, this shocked my African American friend but he knew they weren't being racist and that the history or the connotations of blackening yourself isn't the same in Spain as it is in the US. Most Spaniards I know didn't know that the gesture portrayed in the ad campaign would be seen as racist and when they found out a lot were very very very embarassed. In fact maybe 9 years ago a department store called El Corte Ingles ran an ad promoting Chinese products showing a mother and son posing in a similar manner as the basketball team. Also Spain is very polarised politically due to the civil and the dictorship. A lot of people are very left or right wing. You get racist pricks and then you get the total opposite too...people that want to obliterate Spanishness so immigrants don't feel uncomfortable. So Racist? No. Racially and culturally ignorant and stupi? Yes Personally I've never received any racism from Spaniards. Although a Korean friend of mine had people say Ni Hao to her in the streets (is that racist?). Most racism in Spain seems to be directed towards south Americans and Africans. Spain has been a democracy since the 1970s. That's probably enough time to catch up on what's PC and what's not. Also, Spain does not seem to be such an insular society, given that it has already hosted the Olympic Games as far back as 1992. For a country that is bidding to host the 2016 Olympics, this show of ignorance (if not racism) certainly does not help their cause. As others have said, if the Spanish team now already knows that they have caused offense, why don't they all just simply apologize, instead of justifying themselves? So, you personally haven't been to football games in Spain where they throw bananas to or make monkey noises at black players? Do Spaniards know that those gestures are racist or will they plea cultural ignorance as well? Haven't they apologised already? If they haven't they should most definitely. Having hosted the games and living with minorities are two completely different things. Spaniards are still trying to cope with the large influx of immigrants, major immigration began around 17 years ago and now immigrants make up nearly 10% of the total population, in 1991 they made barely 1%. People are still learning about other cultures and how to be more racially sensitive. I personally would like to see 2016 in Rio de Janeiro. I compare the situation in Spain to what it was like in Britain post-war in the 1950s. Spain as a country on a whole is behind when it comes to racial sensitivity. I have been to several football matches and I am a season ticket holder with Real Madrid. Again, Real Madrid has the most right wing supporters in la liga. When the Ultras (the hooligan section) start with the fascist chants other members of the crowd will boo and whistle to try and cover that up. I have never seen people throwing peanuts or make monkey noises to players. It has happened and what happened is a shame and all the Spaniards I am friends with and work work are ashamed of it but since when do you judge a whole country by the actions of it's footballing fans. That makes every single country on this list racist en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_footballThings are getting better with the left wing government in power. They are implementing more educational and cultural programs in schools. If my Spanish friends read this, they'd find it hilarious that I'm attempting to put up a defense for Spain
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Post by betahat on Aug 15, 2008 10:47:08 GMT -5
Italy has many of the same issues. It is at least partly rooted in the history of fascism and ultra-nationalism in both countries and the smaller immigrant communities - look at the number of black faces playing for Italy or Spain versus England or France or Holland. Part of me thinks it's just an attempt to get under the skin of opposing players (albeit using a disgusting but plausibly effective tactic - the alternative might be to say whatever Materazzi said to Zidane), but then they probably do it to their own players as well. There is a black player on Spain - Marco Senna - and I wonder if he gets the same treatment, especially after winning the Euro cup (and making his PK).
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Post by juancarlos on Aug 16, 2008 3:11:50 GMT -5
Mimo, It is one thing when a small section of a stadium erupts in racist chants or insults. It is another matter when an entire stadium does so, which of course has happened in Spain during football matches. And again, this comes from a country bidding to host the 2016 Olympics! Realmente, es una gran lastima!!! www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901060403-1176955,00.html Do people really need to get educated culturally that mocking someone because of their skin color is racist? I mean isn't that simply common sense? JC
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Post by Ajeno on Aug 16, 2008 9:02:06 GMT -5
Do people really need to get educated culturally that mocking someone because of their skin color is racist? I mean isn't that simply common sense? JC Yeah im not buying that whole cultural-ignorance thing at all. I think the majority of them know what theyre doing.
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Post by dannyd on Aug 16, 2008 19:53:35 GMT -5
Thanks Mimo, and Ethel for another perspective. I must admit I have a negative view of racism in Spain due to witnessing certain events on televised Spanish soccer matches, domestically and when they played England, Aragones and Henry, Lewis Hamilton etc etc. However I've never been to Spain and only really know one Spaniard. So your posts are handy in my thoughts on the whole drama.
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Post by ...austhai/... on Aug 17, 2008 15:43:40 GMT -5
They poked fun, it was publicized, and now they are apologizing. They are not happy about not diong it, but getting caught. Sure its racist but its just a picture.
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Post by davidbleo on Aug 17, 2008 18:23:24 GMT -5
Well, I would say that USA is the most race obsessed nation on earth. People are talking about race all the time. Race is very important in USA. They have lots of stereotypes like "talking white/black", "acting white/black", "white/black music". If you are black and talk proper english, you are "acting white". If you are white and listen to hip hop you are whigger - same thing with black listening to rock. Totally stupid. Maybe the US is race obsessed because of its history. It's not totally stupid. I think it's totally stupid when countries where there are like .05 visible minorities go on about how peaceful and non-race obsessed they are. I've heard that Japan and China are quite racist and these nations are pretty "mono-racial". But if you see Brazil, Cuba, or many other really diverse nations they don't see race as an important issue. In fact in those countries, the colour of the skin is just used to describe someone. In Brazil a black albino will be white or a black person with fairly clear skin will be just moreno. I think that the whole concept of race is totally stupid.
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Post by davidbleo on Aug 17, 2008 18:27:29 GMT -5
Apparentley Spanish people are very racist in general... As a generalisation... Don't crucify me. :-\ As a generalization, yes... specially many football fans. But as in many other european countries, you can find a lot of skinheads and neo-nazis in football matches. And the negative generalizations are always the ones to stay in people's minds, like the Unitedstatians being narrow minded morons. It's just a silly generalization. Or the mexicans being lazy.
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Post by davidbleo on Aug 17, 2008 23:55:46 GMT -5
Mmmh... I think that if there's no bad intention then there's no reason for political correctness. After all we're talkin' about something really taken out of proportions and there's people gettin' angry and askin' to educate the Spaniards and so on... Now, what happens when this same attitude comes into a true sensitive issue. You see statues being removed from Spanish churches and squares 'cause Muslims in Spain can get a lil' bit angry. European schools being ordered not to celebrate Xmas 'cause some people is not christian (even when modern Xmas has practically nothing to do with any christian tradition)... and so on... all in the name of "political correctness".
EDIT: Here you see TV ads with some guy with his eyes almost closed watching TV and the narrator sayin' "Not 'cause the Olympics are being held in China, you have to see the games like that"... then he opened his eyes and appears a huge LCD screen... After readin' this thread I went to my favourite chinese restaurant to ask to the chef (a friend of mine from Tainan, Taiwan) what he think about that kind of publicity... he said that he doesn't care... and I couldn't agree more. To get angry at that is really silly...
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Excalibur76
Full Member
1/2 British 1/2 Korean
Posts: 519
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Post by Excalibur76 on Aug 18, 2008 0:04:00 GMT -5
time for the tennis players to get in on the act --------- Another Spanish team discovered making eye-slant gesture By Chris Chase A picture recently discovered on the website of the Spanish Tennis Federation shows the nation's Federation Cup team making an eye-slant gesture, according to a report in London's Telegraph. The shot was apparently snapped in February, prior to Spain's Federation Cup match with China. sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/Another-Spanish-team-discovered-making-eye-slant?urn=oly,100968 As others have said, if the Spanish team now already knows that they have caused offense, why don't they all just simply apologize, instead of justifying themselves? So, you personally haven't been to football games in Spain where they throw bananas to or make monkey noises at black players? Do Spaniards know that those gestures are racist or will they plea cultural ignorance as well? Haven't they apologised already? If they haven't they should most definitely. Aragones never apologized for telling Reyes he`s better than that `black $hit` Henry The Spanish FA did say they would `pledge to get tough on racism` after the whole monkey chants yet not long later the same things happened at matches involving Atletico Madrid news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/4350771.stmGetafe news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/africa/4417512.stmZaragoza (Etoo twice in 2 seasons) www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/26/sports/soccer.phpMalaga news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/4347523.stmThe Spanish FA`s response? Give the clubs a slap on the wrist and a fine of 600 euros......cuz that`s gonna hit them where it hurts
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Post by davidbleo on Aug 18, 2008 0:09:30 GMT -5
That's becouse in Spain like in many European countries skinheads and neo-nazis are usually soccer fans. So if... I dunno... 10% of the Spanish population is racist as a whole... in a football match you'll find that around 25%, maybe more, are racist.... and the issue in Spain with the black players and the Spanish basketball team are totally different, even if in both cases Spain the centre of the issue.
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Post by davidbleo on Aug 18, 2008 0:26:25 GMT -5
Why worry about some piece of sh*t place that don't matter at all in the world? When was the last time they were relevent in the world? 500 years ago? Ha ha ha I didn't know that the relevance in the world of a certain nation was so important during the Olympics... obviously the greek ideal is lost...
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Post by davidbleo on Aug 18, 2008 0:52:03 GMT -5
They weren't desrespecful to anyone, just tasteless... and all this "political correctness" is silly as I wrote above.
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Post by hapalicious on Aug 18, 2008 1:05:47 GMT -5
yes they were tasteless. and yes PCness can go too far sometimes that it becomes silly. but still. don t want to quote myself but read my last post.
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Post by dannyd on Aug 18, 2008 7:49:10 GMT -5
mmmh....with my previous post on the topic i didn t mind that people be politically incorrect if there s no malicious intention but come to think of it now, i think political correctness has a point and despite it going a little too far at times, there s a reason why it exists and it s in order not to hurt others...so as i said before, the person behind the concept is a complete moron. i don t know why but the kids i m babysitting right now are being overly politically incorrect towards asians at this moment and for some reason today some of the things they said really hurt me and i wish their parents would teach them PCness because some things were in fact blatant racism. i ve put up with the finger pointing and "Asian!" exclamations, the slanted eyes imitations and whatever else is not PC but the more i m subjected to these, the more i find it hard to draw the line between not being politically correct and being racist. i drew the line at the point where some kids said i should "go back to my chinky country." after that remark, i think i won t be as tolerant when it comes to political incorectness. in fact i m really pissed right now and i can t believe someone working in publicity/advertisement would be idiotic enough to think of this gesture as PC or acceptable to Asians. Damn Marie.... get out of that s***hole..... Kids often don't put alot of thought into what they say, but it's their parents that bring them up.
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