Is the Spanish basketball team all racists? You decide

[Tenigma]

This is an ADVERTISEMENT for a courier company in Spain. These men are the Spanish Olympic basketball team. [See more photos in this article here.]

The New York Times, which I guess has too much taste to republish the photos (and probably doesn't want to give anymore face time to the advertiser) wrote:

“It seemed to us to be something appropriate and that it would always be interpreted as an affectionate gesture,” José Calderon, the point guard who plays professionally in the N.B.A. for Toronto, wrote on an Internet site. “I want to express that we have great respect for the Orient and its people.”

He signed off with a line that — based on the interpretive values of the typical American audience, at least — might have been better off stricken.

“Some of my best friends are of Chinese origin,” he wrote.

They will probably still be his friends but they may have to wonder how Calderon and the Spaniards could actually believe that mimicking a people’s physical characteristics could be intended as a show of solidarity and respect. These players are citizens of the global basketball community, which now stretches East to West. They should know better.

Pshhhyeah, that's right, "some of my friends are Black."

I mean, PLEASE. This is just downright insulting.

PS: It's "ASIA" you doofus. "The Orient" is straight out of the 1930s because it is a comparison to the Occidental part of the world (The West for us modernites). Oriental furniture = OK. Orientals = not OK. ASIANS.