Argentina's Olympic Women's Soccer Team Gets on the Hate Bandwagon

Tue19Aug2008

Argentina's Olympic Women's Soccer Team Gets on the Hate Bandwagon

11:32 H | Topics: Argentina - Beijing Summer Olympics - China - Race - Sports

When the Spanish sports teams did their offensive eye posing, it was easy to dismiss the racism as coming from Europeans with their own history of conquest. But now the women's Olympic soccer team from Argentina has been caught doing the same exact "slant-eye" pose, we have to wonder just what the hell is going on that makes people think that this is ok?

Besides the gesture being obviously offensive, there is the dismissal that all three teams have made: that they didn't mean to offend. Which begs the question, what exactly did they intend? To make us laugh with their antics? To get us excited about China? To reveal a deep desire to be Chinese that they all have? To show us how stupid they are?

In this case payback is a bitch, as they say because Argentina's women lost 2-0 to China. In fact, they lost all three of their matches.

Via / Who Ate All the Pie

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Maegan la Mala

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1. Jennifer Woodard Maderazo ~ Tuesday, Aug 19 2008 | 17:21H:

I was on Twitter talking about the Spanish incident with someone the other day and they compared it to the way in Mexico the whole Memin thing went unchallenged for so many years. People in Spain and Latin America don't seem to get why this may be offensive. In fact, when you bring it up they are like "are you serious? I never thought about it that way."

2. Mario ~ Wednesday, Aug 20 2008 | 00:59H:

mala, but you're forgetting. there is no such thing as argentine... they're italian. so you're correct in your assessment, they're european!

3. Julia ~ Friday, Aug 22 2008 | 14:59H:

Well mi esposo is Peruvian & he certainly finds it offensive, can't believe the excuses made by people who do this (the Peruvian under-21 footballers, Spain's 2 teams, now this....) or how awful the Memin thing is....

Thinking "it's ok, this is funny?" MIGHT come from ignorance, but the responses of the teams "out" their racism, I think. Dismissing and telling others to "lighten up" not only bullies the receiver of the "joke", it reveals a sense of "this can't touch me, it's not real...."they're" not real". Which can be uglier than outright name-calling because it's more smug.

Just my thoughts....I so hope this stops (the "gesture incidents").

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