This year’s men’s Spanish Olympic basketball team needs a reminder of how to distinguish between a joke and plain disrespect: If both sides involved aren’t laughing, it’s probably not funny.
In an ad for the Spanish courier company Seur, a sponsor of the team, the players posed for a picture by slanting their eyes. They were in the middle of a Chinese basketball court with a dragon emblem on it. Despite the smiling faces of the players in the photo, not only is their behavior not amusing, but it also exudes an image of bold disrespect and bad sportsmanship.
By making “Asian eyes,” the Spanish team added to racist stereotypes about Asian people. Instead of behaving in the spirit of the Olympics, where sports function to bring the world’s nations together in light of the turmoil and international issues associated with race, the Spanish players tainted the meaning of the games and undermined the essence of peace that the Olympics stand for.
Moreover, athletes serve as ambassadors of their nations and representatives of their country’s culture when they participate in international events. Especially in today’s world, where every comment, action, or image is immediately linked to political correctness ““ or in this case, incorrectness, the players should be sensitive and considerate with respect to how they choose to portray themselves.
Thus, by demonstrating a lack of consideration for the equality and respect that are due to fellow athletes, the Spanish team’s photo did more to speak poorly on behalf of the Spanish players than it did to create a funny picture. The prejudiced action displayed in ridiculing an Asian physical appearance seems to support the idea that how one looks makes one inferior and amusing enough to be used as a mechanism for advertising.
Perhaps the Spanish team may not have wanted to appear racist or did not mean to offend anyone. Pau Gasol of the Spanish team told reporters, “If anybody feels offended by it we totally apologize for it. We never meant anything offensive by it.” Quite ironically, Gasol just attended a class at the Beijing Language and Culture University, where people from all over the world came together to learn Mandarin as a sign of their support for cultural understanding.
To come to the home of the Chinese, who spent four years preparing their nation to properly and hospitably welcome all the Olympians of the world, and then to mock them, demonstrates just how little of an understanding the Spanish team has of the Chinese culture. More importantly, it reveals how little the Spanish team values the relationship between a guest and its host.
I am sure the Spanish team would take offense at a similar action taken by another culture against one of their attributes. In a greater context, the Spanish players did not only ridicule the Chinese but also all Asian races that possess the same facial features mocked in the photo.
Furthermore, the Spanish team appears to lack an understanding of the true meaning of sportsmanship. If they had a grasp of what sportsmanship entails, they would also have displayed qualities of strong leadership. Had one of the players on the team simply refused to pose like that, the rest of the team might have followed suit.
Additionally, if they posed as they did to simply please a sponsor, why did they not also consider pleasing Li Ning, the former Chinese Olympian who lit the torch at the opening ceremonies and who also sponsors the team’s athletic shoe apparel?
Perhaps the team can learn the definition of sportsmanship from athletes such as the United States’ Dara Torres, who took the lead in informing an official before the women’s 50-meter freestyle semifinals that the swimsuit of a competitor had ripped, and that she would not begin the race until the other player was ready.
Good sportsmanship isn’t just a sentimental catchphrase: It actually functions as an unwritten rule of proper athletic etiquette.