With the Olympics in Beijing being watched the world over, I was astonished to see the advertisement featuring the Spanish men's basketball team: It shows all of them carefully posed and pulling their eyes backward in the slant gesture long used to denigrate all Asian peoples, including Asian Americans. Given that several of the players portrayed are stars in the United States, their response to the international outcry is troubling. They have brushed it off by arguing that they were being affectionate.

I don't doubt that Asians in Asia are affected much less by this type of mockery. After all, they are the dominant majority and take for granted that they belong to their societies. They may be bothered a bit by negative portrayals, but for them it's the relationship among nations that is at stake.

My concern is about Asian Americans and Asians who have made their home, permanently and hopefully as true members of their society, throughout the world. For many Asian immigrants and their native-born children, life is a struggle to assimilate to an impossible norm always beyond reach. For them, this is personal.

Almost all Asian Americans are familiar with the mockery of the eyes pulled back, accompanied by the chant, "Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, what are these?" It is part and parcel with slurs thatlead to worse forms of discrimination and violence. For me the lingering power of the childhood cruelties of teasing and taunting are more painful than any physical trauma I can recall. The teachers who counseled back then to retort, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me," like those who complain about political correctness now, have a point. We should stand up and speak out. It would be in keeping with the great American tradition of free speech.

Yet that is what is so surprising. For when Asian Americans do show they are real Americans, ready to assert their rights, they are met with even greater backlash about being less sensitive and taking a joke, not being politically correct or playing the race card. After all, the argument goes, the people using racial images and slurs at best mean no harm and at worst are merely ignorant. It is tempting to accept these excuses. Few who regard themselves as members of the mainstream understand what it is like to be ashamed of one's parents, to be constantly striving to be just like everyone else without ever being able to fit in.

So even if we assume that the intent is wholly innocent, the perpetrators presumably would welcome being informed of the effects of their gestures. Their hostility to educational efforts belies any notion of color-blindness. Sometimes, when I encounter this type of racial assault, I'm tempted to explain I'm offended - not as an Asian American, but as someone who indeed has a sense of humor. I want to say, "If you're going to dis me, at least get some new material. I've seen this one before. You're not even any good at it."

Perhaps in the end, the casual defamation of this most recent slight can be laughed off. It is too trivial to keep us from succeeding. The trouble is what it represents, the pattern it reveals and confirms. Multiplied out again and again, without being meaningfully counteracted, the Spanish advertisement is no different than any other stereotype in its dangerous effect. It violates our shared ideals.