Is making a slitty-eyed gesture racist?

[almostwitty]

To recap, the Spanish basketball team pose for a pre-Olympic-Games advert making slit-eyed gestures in one of Spain's major newspapers. Freelance Madrid-based journalist Sid Lowe points this out in the Guardian, spreading the story everywhere else with predictable outrage in English-speaking media.

To which the Spanish wonder what the fuss is about. The Spanish-language paper El Mundo debates whether the advert was racist, and accuses the British press of trying to smear Spain's good name. One Spanish basketballer apologises, saying "It's wrong to interpret it as racist.", while the head coach says "I don't think it was offensive".

Now, brilliantly, the original journalist who filed the report has filed a piece defending himself against accusations that he had a hidden agenda, pointing out that he never said it was racist. Of course, if you see someone carrying an umbrella, you don't wonder if it's raining or not.

Oh, and here's the Spanish tennis team making a similar gesture. Interestingly, a random sampling of Chinese people in Beijing suggests they aren't that bothered - but then they don't have the history of racial harassment.

Comments

[anivair.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I think it would bother me either. But then I'm not asian and if i were, I might have had a very different experience.

But, dude, the spanish basketball team is so sad that they have to get their jollies where they can. Not only are they the second least popular sport in spain (right before fecalball, which is like basketball, but the ball is replaced with human excrement) but they are shitty even for an unpopular sports team. it's basically Cool Runnings.