Thursday, August 05, 2010

Spain: Not Racist Today -- Limited Time Offer™

Spain has, helpfully, suspended its inherent racism to accommodate Michelle Obama's visit.
The Obama administration faced an embarrassing diplomatic blunder today after it was forced to pull a warning about racism in Spain - just as the First Lady arrived in the country for a summer holiday.
Staff at the U.S. State Department removed the contentious advice to travellers, which included the phrase 'racist prejudices could lead to the arrest of Afro-Americans who travel to Spain,' from its website on Monday.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1300240/Michelle-Obama-goes-walkabout-Marbella-racist-Spaniards-gaff.html#ixzz0vjxL0OfG

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How long had the advisory been in place?

How strong was the evidence supporting the advisory?

I know that many Spanish have prejudices against North Africans (Arabs/Berbers) dating back to the Reconquista (and complicated feelings about Spain's Moorish architectural heritage). I had not heard that they had any significant prejudice about Sub-Saharan (i.e. black) Africans.

Anonymous said...

It appears that the answers to my question are (i) 15 months & (ii) a single, apparently isolated, incident.

I think that it would probably be a more intelligent question to ask whether the advisory should have been put up in the first place, particularly given the US's less than spotless race relations history.

"... nothing intellectually compelling or challenging.. bald assertions coupled to superstition... woefully pathetic"