The Sambo Factor

A postage stamp depicting a popular black comic book character in disparaging manner has caused the Bush Administration to issue a rare critique of the Mexican government.

Evidently, the White House is more concerned about politically incorrect cartoon characters with exaggerated Negro features, reminiscent of our own Aunt Jemima and Little Black Sambo, than a southern border flowing with illegal aliens and potential terrorists, or a Mexican government hopelessly mired in corruption and drug cartel control at the highest levels. Considering President Bush's chummy personal relationship with Vicente Fox, and his inexplicable embrace of uneducated, unskilled invaders who invariably drain away precious public funds, it is hard to believe he mustered enough gumption to be critical of Mexico, about anything.

If he wished, Bush would not have to look very hard to find fault with Mexican behavior, and a racially stereotypical cartoon on an official Mexican postage stamp is not even close to the most disconcerting. Almost every aspect of our relationship with this country, beyond some questionable economic benefit, is tainted with dangerous implications for our own. Most blatantly, President Bush has been an ardent supporter of various schemes to bring illegals into mainstream status. Of course, many Mexicans, and many radical nativist organizations like La Raza, believe that there is no such thing as an illegal Mexican alien, because the United States stole the border states from Mexico in the first place. In fact, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has been linked to La Raza. Apparently, Bush is not uncomfortable being associated with an organization that calls for completely open borders, and the establishment of a new Mexican controlled region called Atzlan, where California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and Texas now exist. Hundreds of documented illegal incursions by the Mexican Army across our border indicates that at least a few Mexican military officials see the border as tenuous, at best.

Ironically, another ominous example of border vulnerability emerged yesterday, when two Iraqi men were arrested by Mexican police just as they were about to enter the United States. Certainly, the state of corruption and ineptitude of Mexican police agencies bought off with drug money does not inspire confidence that such apprehensions are, or will become, common-place, or that a few thousand pesos would not have resulted in the men being allowed to cross with Federale assistance. While Mexico's own southern border is aggressively controlled like a police state to keep out the Central American riff-raff, Vicente Fox and his government call for open borders with the United States. Of course, the flow of poor migrants who will ultimately become a border to society in innumerable ways will be a one-way street. It is hard to imagine an American welfare family in, say, San Diego, uprooting to go live the good life in Tijuana.

Although Mexico should be a rich oil country, it continues to languish as a third world nation because of gross corruption and mismanagement, and Fox and his upper-class supporters are happy to see their own huddled masses, mostly those of mestizo Indian origin, leave and become someone else's problem, in turn benefiting from billions of American dollars flowing back to Mexico's economy. Until there is a Mexican George Washington, able to inspire his people to freedom and liberty, that country will continue to rot from within. George Bush, usually a sincere advocate of free and just societies, does no favors for the people of Mexico by remaining silent in the face of such staggering injustices, simply because many of his business supporters wish to use illegal aliens like indentured servants.

A thick-lipped, frizzy-haired, flat-nosed cartoon character on a Mexican postage stamp has done what decades of corrupt governments, millions of illegal aliens, disregard for national sovereignty, and mini-military invasions were not able to do: agitate this administration into critical action against Mexico.

Sadly, we are not likely to see it again.

sadly we are not likely to see it again.

OUCH, that left a mark.

sadly we are not likely to see it again.

You lost me.

I think he meant that further protests from the administration are unlikely to be forthcoming unless they deal with topics that are politically incorrect.

Thanks, Mark, for your essay.

Evidently, the White House is more concerned about politically incorrect cartoon characters with exaggerated Negro features, reminiscent of our own Aunt Jemima and Little Black Sambo

Isn't Little Black Sambo an Asiatic Indian?

i'm pretty sure i ment that moutlands post and final sentence equates to the truth hurts.

Rev's Sharpton and Jackson have some redeeming qualities, grandstanding to stir the feelings of their partisans is not one of them. If you want to see goofy images of blacks, look at BET's gangsta' rappers and west coast/east coast fools. Talk about an insult to blacks--don't have to go south of the border for plenty of laughs.

You are technically correct, as Little Black Sambo by author Helen Bannerman is apparently set in India. However if you go to on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia and search for the book's title you will see a very revealing depiction of the 1898 book cover. Also, www.newdeal.feri.org has pictures of 1930's American Sambo dolls. In the US, Sambo has generally been depicted as a stereotypical African looking person, with the major exception of a now-defunct pancake restaurant chain called "Sambos" that depicted Little Sambo as a relatively light-skinned individual, with very generalized features. Finally, the term "Sambo" has often been used as a racial slur towards blacks.