U.S. State Department lifts warning to African Americans about 'racist' Spaniards... just as Miche

U.S. State Department lifts warning to African Americans about 'racist' Spaniards... just as Michelle Obama jets into Marbella

www.dailymail.co.uk[/ur l]

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.

They cited an incident last year in which police detained two US

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Related News Links:
[url=http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_1764.html]travel.state.gov

So the US State Department issues a travel warning regarding Spain because two US government officials were detained without sufficient cause?

Now because the First Lady is going there the warning is lifted? Why - is it now safe? Was it never unsafe - I doubt it.

Below you will find a link to the current State Department list of nations with travel warnings. Most of them are pretty easy to guess. None are obviously in Western Europe.

travel.state.gov...

By what criteria are these warnings issued and why was a warning issued because only two people encounter an issue.

I've been to Spain and have Spanish friends. That the US government would suggest that it is unsafe for blacks to travel to Spain is outrageous and insulting.

(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 4-8-2010 by dolphinfan]

Wow, after Arizona, my next vacation may be to Spain. I like indications that a place isn't stifled by political correctness.

But I don't want to go to the Marbella. Couldn't afford it, and don't want to go the same place the power couple (mother and 1 daughter!) went.

That's a pretty good list of the world's crapholes and/or dangerous locales.

I think it's a good call to leave off North Korea and Venezuela as they did, and as for the Spanish incident I would imagine it to be a little US arm twisting for some minor institutional racism. It wasn't all that long ago that they declared the UK to be a potentially dangerous location based on all the street violence that country seems to suffer, another warning that was quickly removed when the Brits started asking for some cheese with their whine.

Spain is notoriously intolerant of North Africans (from first hand personal observation on the island of Lanzarote) and likely treated the 2 African Americans accordingly, at least until their identities had been confirmed.