September 10, 2008
For those of you who do not follow golf nor sporting news, LPGA leaders recently decided to require their non-English-speaking members, many of whom have been on the LPGA Tour for two years or more, to be proficient in English before they are allowed to participate in LPGA-sanctioned events. In other words, the LPGA is asking its card-holding members who participate in the golf tournament circuit to be able to pass an exam in English or face suspension from LPGA play. Well, the last time I checked, the LPGA is an organization that has sponsors based in the U.S. and other countries. Its membership is truly international and includes 121 golfers from outside of the U.S., representing more than two dozen countries. And, while the LPGA has its roots in the Western Hemisphere, it has benefited heavily from the growing interest in golf in a number of major industrialized countries as well as developing countries around the world -- including nations in Asia, Latin America and the Pacific Rim. Requiring that its members and players be proficient in English makes no sense. And the thought of suspending members who aren't proficient in English seems unnecessarily harsh and, even worse, discriminatory and unlawful. The LPGA should be ashamed of itself.
Asian American voters were treated this morning by a surprise visit by Barack Obama's half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng, during the Asian American Pacific Islander caucus at the Democratic National Convention. She gave a rousing speech that fired up the people in the room. ...
Super Cr3w, the Las Vegas-based group of b-boys that includes Asian Americans, has won the top honors for the second season of producer Randy Jackson wildly popular show, "America's Best Dance Crew," on MTV. Congrats to the six-man group.
We took a break from incessant Olympics viewing to watch the live MTV season finale program last night, and were holding our breath. An astounding 39 million votes were cast for these two finalists, a reflection of how huge the hip-hop dance culture has become.
We wanted the other finalists, SoReal Cru from Houston, because they're all Asian Americans, two of the members are women, and one of the members said poignantly during the season premiere that their parents expected them to be lawyers and doctors but they wanted to pursue their passion for dancing.
OK, I had to post these two photos, in which Spanish athletes mock Chinese by pulling back their eyes to make them slanty -- ha ha ha.
The first is a posed shot of of the Spanish Olympic basketball team. It was used in an ad in a Spanish newspaper, which calls into question not only the photographer, athletes and team management's judgment, but also the national newspaper's staff and management. The second photo is of the Spanish tennis team, celebrating after defeating the Chinese to go on to the Fed Cup finals earlier this year.
Man, I haven't seen that done since I was in grade school -- in the mid-1960s, when the expression was "enhanced" by the person sticking out his (or her, apparently) buck teeth and speaking in a heavy, phony Asian accent, saying crap like "ah-so!" and "herro, I solly, no tickee no laundoree."
You'd think we'd moved past that kind of third-grade cruelty by now, but nope. Not in Spain, anyway.
What were they thinking? Are racial mocking stereotypes acceptable in Spain where they're frowned upon here? Do Chinese athletes go around finding ways to mock Spanish athletes?
These photos disgust me.