myPRfeed

It was discovered this past week that the Spanish basketball team at the Beijing Olympics had posed for an ad by holding their fingers to their face to make “slant eyes.”  The gesture, which is seen as extremely offensive especially to Asian Americans, drew widespread criticism from the American media.  Several members of the Spanish team have apologized to those offended, and have argued that they only had good intentions.  The Chinese, though, are largely unaware of the scandal, and even the Chinese shoe company sponsoring the Spanish couldn’t care less about what happened.  With the Spanish tennis team being implicated for the same thing in the past few days, the ability of the named athletes to deal with the crisis is an important issue.

Discussion Questions:

1.  Was the Spanish teams’ response to the crisis adequate?  What could have been better?

2.  Did the Spanish intend to be offensive?  If not, why does this help them in apologizing?  If not, why does the act still offend so many people?

3.  Why has this been a bigger issue in the United States than in China?