Spanish Olympic Team Apoligizes for Offense

The men’s Spanish Olympic basketball team is apologizing for posing for a photo last week in which they used their fingers to squint their eyes as part of an Olympic promo shot.  The players say that it was done at the request of the photographer and wasn’t meant to be racist.

“This was clearly inappropriate, but we understand the Spanish team intended no offense and has apologized,” Emmanuelle Moreau, a spokeswoman for the International Olympic Committee, said in an e-mail. “The matter rests there as far as the IOC is concerned.”

The OCA, an organization representing Asian-Pacific Americans, also found the photo disturbing. “It is unfortunate that this type of imagery would rear its head at a time that is supposed to be about world unity,” George Wu, the group’s deputy director, said in a statement.

The Spanish women’s basketball team also posed for a photo doing the same thing, and four members of Argentina’s women’s Olympic soccer team were shown making similar faces in a photograph published last week.  Source

What is wroooooooooooooonng with people? Can they all be that insensitive and ignorant that no one, not one of them said, “Hey, this isn’t such a good idea”?  I’m not going to be naïve enough to believe that racism doesn’t happen but this isn’t just racism…its plain stupid.  I don’t think they should get off by simply saying, “Oops, my bad.”

 

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