Xenophobia Rears its Ugly Head in All Sorts of Places

27 thoughts on Xenophobia Rears its Ugly Head in All Sorts of Places

1. I agree that its ridiculous for the LPGA to adopt this policy. However, I disagree with you on the origin of this stupidity, as well as your rant against the “PGA” and “NBA”

   The origin of the LPGA decision is greed, they arent “catering” to the golfing public, they are competing with other pro sports for corporate sponsorships. The LPGA is convinced that the players not speaking English will cause corporate sponsors to leave the tour and go elsewhere (read: male sports).

   Now I think that line of reasoning is faulty and NOT enough to justify an “english only” policy, but I disagree with your characterization that the LPGA leadership is only doing this because a racist golfing fan base is demanding it. Thats clearly not the case.

   As for your comments about the PGA/NBA, you do realize that hte PGA allows female golfers, correct? Michelle Wie and Annika Sorenstam among others have played in PGA tournaments. So its entirely correct to call themselves the PGA. The LPGA on the other hand, has a strict ban against male athletes.

   PGA is for the best golfers in the world, period, regardless of gender. The LPGA is strictly for women. If the PGA was banning female players and still calling themselves the PGA, then I would agree with your rant, but in this case they are entirely justified using that term.

2. While I agree that a policy stating such is kind of lame and has nothing to do with their ability to play the game, I think the content of the policy that players should attempt to speak a little English isn’t a bad thing at all. In tennis, for example, you’ll see most players from non-anglophone countries try to do interviews in English in countries who speak English, or countries whose language they don’t speak

   Rafael Nadal’s english is somewhat broken but has improved a lot over the years and he always tries. Likewise, when he’s in France, he gives a few lines in French. It’s mainly common courtesy for your host country. He has a heavy accent but I’ve never heard anyone anywhere say anything derogatory about it. Perhaps tennis fans are more cultured and tolerant than golf fans? I doubt it. I don’t even see where you get the fans-are-racist angle. Hell, if you could find some such fans upset with the non-english speakers, I bet you could equally find some who are disenchanted with Padraig Harrington’s irish accent or a heavily-accented Scot.

   Would anyone NOT be shocked if Tony Parker started kicking off an interview in French? He may belong to a “team” and live in the US, but that wasn’t always the case and he still learned to speak English knowing he wanted to play in the US.

   Worse for this seems to be American (and British + commonwealth) athletes, who no matter the foreign country rarely try to speak its language.

3. Apparently, the Ladies Professional Golf Association has decided that its members “must be conversant in English by 2009 or face suspension.”

   That’s a rule that should have been applied to Bush before he was selected president.

   Seriously though, I don’t get why you have to be fluent in english to play golf.

   “Being a U.S.-based tour, and with the majority of our fan base, pro-am contestants, sponsors and participants being English speaking, we think it is important for our players to effectively communicate in English.”

   The LPGA and the other professional golf tours, unlike professional team sports, are dependent on their relationships with corporate sponsors for their financial survival.

   Maybe I’m just ignorant about golf, but why does that matter? Do they send the ladies out on speaking tours and to conventions to sell corporate products? Do they get booked on the Jay Leno show, to promote their sport? I’ve never seen a lady golfer prominently featured in talk shows, television ads, or convention speaking slots.

4. You know, the more I think about this, the more I think there’s an element of classic american xenophobia and american arrogance at play.

   The whole “english only” thing is classic. Americans hate to learn second languages. When many of us travel overseas we make only the weakest of efforts to learn any of the native language. We expect people to conform to us, to converse with us in english, even when we’re in their country.

   I used to work for a multinational corp, and when americans from our country went to business meeting in germany or norway, the norwegians or germans would hold the meetings in english — for our comfort and benefit! On their soil! Few americans in that company I knew made even the most remedial effort to learn any norwegian or german.

   And in contrast, the norwegians and germans that came over to our country to work in the corporate cube world, were totally fluent in english.

5. Would anyone NOT be shocked if Tony Parker started kicking off an interview in French? He may belong to a “team” and live in the US, but that wasn’t always the case and he still learned to speak English knowing he wanted to play in the US.

   If I’m understanding your point correctly – that Tony Parker speaks in English in interviews because people would be bothered if he spoke in French – then I have to say you’re either highly disingenuous or simply ignorant. I doubt you’ll find a baseball or basketball locker room without a translator these days. Sammy Sosa’s varying degrees of English fluency was a running joke for years.

6. The joke, let me clarify, was not that Sosa had problems with English, but that his problems with English seemed to intensify whenever there might be difficult-to-answer questions on their way, such as those about corked bats.

7. “Rafael Nadal’s english is somewhat broken but has improved a lot over the years and he always tries”

   And I wonder how many Anglophone tennis players even try to speak Spanish when they play in Barcelona….let alone Catalan? Fuck that: how many of them do you suppose are even aware that the language of Barcelona IS Catalan?

   I’m sick of the idea that it’s always the rest of the world who has to bow to English-speakers. Even when those English-speakers are in non-Anglophone territories. The sort of situation described above by Peter occurs in any number of places.

8. And btw, what Anna said about precious water supplies going to sustain golf courses: while I was living in Catalunya, there were few things that pissed me off more during a drought than seeing the sprinklers going to keep the courses green while the rest of the country dried up and caught fire.

9. There’s something severely wrong with this ruling. If one of your more popular players doesn’t speak English, then hire a damn translator.

10. “Being a U.S.-based tour, and with the majority of our fan base, pro-am contestants, sponsors and participants being English speaking, we think it is important for our players to effectively communicate in English.”

    I’d bet the ranch that the major complaints came from the sponsors and the pro-am contestants, who are often the same people. The LPGA can’t survive on TV money alone, so sponsoring companies play a significant role in the tour’s financial plan. These sponsors expect some schmooze time with the players for the dough, so having a pro that can’t speak English in your pro-am group may not seem like money well spent. I don’t know whether the LPGA is as strict, but the men’s tour will disqualify players for the week if they try to get out of playing in the pro-am, and the acceptable list of valid excuses is very, very limited. If the big sponsors and pro-am high rollers didn’t complain, this would be a non-issue.

    The shame of all this is that the LPGA players are well-known to be amongst the most accessible, decent people in all of sport. They also encompass a diversity in terms of ethnic make-up and sexual orientation that other sports can’t touch, or won’t admit to. It’s a shame that the LPGA and its major sponsors regard that diversity as solely negative.

11. “If I’m understanding your point correctly – that Tony Parker speaks in English in interviews because people would be bothered if he spoke in French – then I have to say you’re either highly disingenuous or simply ignorant. I doubt you’ll find a baseball or basketball locker room without a translator these days.”

    This is a non sequitur. What does a translator in sports’ locker rooms have to do with me being “highly disingenuous or simply ignorant”? You haven’t explained why I am, or why my point as you highlighted it is wrong.

    “And I wonder how many Anglophone tennis players even try to speak Spanish when they play in Barcelona….let alone Catalan? Fuck that: how many of them do you suppose are even aware that the language of Barcelona IS Catalan?”

    Which is why I said anglophones are the worst for not speaking another country’s language. I’m not saying they shouldn’t. In fact, I’m saying the opposite is more respectful. English is my native language, but I live in France and am fluent in French and have a little bit of spanish, so I’m keenly sensitive to language issues and people’s resistance to other languages. And while I no doubt agree there’s anti-immigrant sentiment expressed in the ‘English only’ crowd, I don’t see that here. Looks more to me like corporations wanting to use the players to market their products, and they have to have some kind of personality to put out there to do so, and speaking English is at the base of such a public persona. See for example Roger Federer or Maria Sharapova in commercials — if they didn’t speak english, they wouldn’t be in those corporate advertisements.

    “I’m sick of the idea that it’s always the rest of the world who has to bow to English-speakers. Even when those English-speakers are in non-Anglophone territories. The sort of situation described above by Peter occurs in any number of places.”

    I don’t disagree at all, but English is the universal language for business and tech especially. It’s been that way because of silicon valley and the world economy revolving around the english-speaking business world. America’s biggest export is culture, and because of that the world listens to english music and watches english films. It’s not an english conspiracy, it’s just how it’s happened out.

12. Here in the Basque Country, northern Spain, people tell me emphatically that “English is the international language,” as if it were a property of the language itself.

    I worked for a while as an English teacher and came to understand how poorly suited English is to be a lingua franca, mainly because of its inconsistent, non-phoenetic pronunciation, but also because of the huge number of words with almost identical meanings.

    It seems very clear to me that English is the international language because the US controls the world, for the time being. When anglophones complain that people in other countries don’t speak English, I don’t think they’re being xenophobic: just arrogantly aware of their power. They are in a position to insist that everybody speaks their language.

    Leopold’s comment that America’s biggest export is culture is a bit simplistic. There’s a word here, “Americanada”, for a crappy, big-budget film with lots of violence and a lousy script. The US can afford to produce this stuff in enormous quantities and dump it on the rest of the world like so much subsidised farm produce. US culture is not the reason all those young Germans and Norwegians and Dutch speak fluent English (although I agree that it makes the English language more attractive to pop-culture consumers). US money and power is the reason.

13. I have to admit, my 1st reaction to hearing this was that (hypothetically, of course) if I was a non-English speaking pro-golfer I would become fluent in English, and then refuse to speak it whenever I played in the U.S.
    And then I remembered what a lot of people have already pointed out, that a lot (not all) of American athletes either don’t bother to or just refuse to learn the languages of other countries they play in. I think Katarina’s right, it’s extreme arrogance relating to this country’s money and power.

14. I read this yesterday with utter disbelief. What a bunch of bull. I don’t see them applying this policy to professional baseball where some of the multimillion dollar star players speak only Spanish and Japanese. And that is a team sport where you need to communicate.

15. To be fair to the US, the “lingua franca” (which, ironically, means French language, in Latin… both of them having been international languages before English) became English because of the British Empire, not because of us.

    That being said, America’s size and insularity do make us much more reluctant as a culture to learn foreign language than the British, who are right next door to the myriad languages of Europe, are.

16. “English is the universal language for business and tech especially. It’s been that way because of silicon valley and the world economy revolving around the english-speaking business world”

    Well, it’s the international language for those reasons plus a lot more having to do with imposition, military power and, as Alara Rogers pointed out, empire. But just because it “is” does not make that fact unproblematic. Sexism, racism, ableism, et al. also “are” but I’m damned if I’m going to lie down and accept it. Bigotry and privilege ought to be challenged wherever they crop up and the above is a clear-cut case of both. Bigotry, for assuming that other languages are somehow more dispensible, less useful, in some way off-putting to English speakers and so on. Privilege because they’re making it sound as if the rule is reasonable when they aren’t having to accept reciprocal rules in other territories.

    And seriously, WTF, even in the UK, they manage to come up with translators or interpreters for athletes/celebs/politicians who don’t speak English.

    Also, I’d like to point out that the fact that English rules is not etched in stone forever more. As Alara mentioned, just look at Latin & French.

17. Damn, I missed katarina’s comment before making the above reply. Yes, yes, and yes again to her comments on culture. I’d like to add, just because other countries are forced to take on US cultural products (because for the most part, they can’t afford to produce enough of their own), that doesn’t mean that they accept them uncritically, or that they wouldn’t rejoice at being able to see more either from their own or other countries (though having said that, when I was living in Barcelona, it was far, far easier to see films and hear music from more corners of the earth than it is in the UK). And yes, a film or TV show that’s described as “americà/na” usually means something embarrassingly soppy, overblown, underscripted and basically crap.

18. In many ways, this policy is quite unAmerican as the US currently does not have an official language along with the OP’s point that one’s English skills has no bearing on being a great golfer.

    Moreover, given their attitude and the current global trends….that golfing association may want to consider investing in some Mandarin Chinese lessons…..

    when I was living in Barcelona, it was far, far easier to see films and hear music from more corners of the earth than it is in the UK).

    When I was in China in the late ’90s….television stations were still showing old Maoist era movies, Chinese history period films, and music videos of the People’s Liberation Army’s Song and Dance troupe like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvU6I3go4uU&feature=related

    Though I listened to a lot of Chinese music on the radio during that summer, the vast majority of the music being played was their equivalent of the Top-40 Mandarin pop music from Mainland China, Hong Kong, and the ROC(Taiwan). In fact, I’ve only heard one Western song during my entire stay: Ace of Base’s “It’s a Beautiful Life”.

    Though American movies were popular among students and young adults, they co-existed with the popularity of Hong Kong, ROC (Taiwan) cinema, and Mainland Chinese films. Over the last few years, there has also been a rise in popularity in movies, tv shows, and pop music from South Korea.

19. “That being said, America’s size and insularity do make us much more reluctant as a culture to learn foreign language than the British, who are right next door to the myriad languages of Europe, are.”

    Have you been to Britain/do you know many British? They are just as bad if not worse in reputation than Americans for learning languages and traveling to foreign countries. See the British’s reputation in Spain for coming to their vacation home there and making no attempt to speak Spanish to any of their neighbors. I see the same thing in France all the time. Wandering around Paris asking where’s the Marks & Spencer’s… heh.

20. That being said, America’s size and insularity do make us much more reluctant as a culture to learn foreign language than the British, who are right next door to the myriad languages of Europe, are.

    I’m not so sure about this. If you think about it there are a good lot of languages fairly close to us: Cajun French and Quebequois, the different Latin American versions of Spanish, Italian, Polish, Ukranian, Hungarian, German, Russian, and other immigrant languages that many people’s grandparents and parents still speak fluently, and fairly large communities of Asian Americans that still speak their native laguages. Not to mention the strange little dialects that aren’t English but are indigenous to the US (Pennsylvania Dutch is the one that’s comming to mind, though that’s fairly specific to a certain religious group). If people wanted to learn a second language, there’s plenty of chance to do so. I mean, there’s not the added onus of “we’re in your country” but the chance is still there.

    I think the reason so many Americans don’t bother to learn a second language is definately more the (sometimes unconcious) privelege of just not having to, rather than having anything to do with being isolated away from languages we could learn.

21. i think that added onus pretty much explains it luzzleanne. I’m from Maine and spent a lot of time in Northern Maine, I learned a bit of Quebeqois but not a whole lot and I felt no need to, just as some of my friends friends felt no need to learn English as they didn’t have to. It is entirely different in Europe and I do think Europes history and geography determine a large part of it. If Russian was the language spoken by 95% of the people in New Hampshire, I probably would have learned it, or if 95% of the folks in Vermont had spoken German, same thing. Maine has the highest number per capita of French speakers in the nation but most Mainers dont learn more than words or phrases, just the way it is and will continue to be unless another language supplants English in the world.

    As far as this lpga policy, I see why they are formulating this policy, I don’t agree with it though. Heck I’m hoping for a day when the LPGA will be abolished but we’re a long way from seeing that happen.

22. Well, I hope the LPGA starts to take the reciprocal action of learning to pronounce players’ names correctly!

23. Well, I hope the LPGA starts to take the reciprocal action of learning to pronounce players’ names correctly!

    Touché.

24. Have you been to Britain/do you know many British? They are just as bad if not worse in reputation than Americans for learning languages and traveling to foreign countries.

    Learning other languages (and being arrogant about being English-speakers)? Hell yes. Travelling? Not so much. It’s pretty common for Britains to travel to France/other parts of Europe, and a lot of them make it over to New Zealand/Australia – it’s certainly pushed enough as a tourist destination.

    England is hideously insular and xenophobic but they’re certainly keen on travelling.

25. The yummy irony in the LPGA’s new policy is that South Korea might be the nation that spends the most per capita on English language education. Recently, the South Korean president proposed that all subjects in Korean public elementary and secondary schools be taught in English… by 2010. So if the LPGA is trying their own version of the poll tax in order to reduce Korean participation (dare I say, dominance?) on the tour, I suspect Koreans are better situated to respond than most.

26. I take it the LPGA would suspend deaf women as well?

27. I’d like to second what dana said. Brits may not be great at languages, but my god, do they travel. If you’re middle-class and twenty-something, taking off for a year or two around the world is not uncommon.

    Just one nit-pick: the switching from saying “Britain” to saying “England” as if they were synonymous. Those millions of Brits who aren’t from England would seriously disagree.

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