Well that's great, since you aren't a European. You're an American, right?
Posted on 07/01/2005 12:55:21 PM PDT by Wiz
MEXICO CITY - President Vicente Fox's spokesman said Friday that publicity-seeking activists in the United States were trying "to take advantage" of a dispute over a Mexican postage stamp depicting a Jim Crow-era black cartoon character.
Mexico not only refuses to withdraw the stamps, as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and others have demanded, but views the criticism as expressions of ignorance and disrespect for Mexican culture, spokesman Ruben Aguilar said.
"The government of Mexico emphatically rejects these complaints, which are the products of lack of knowledge or people seeking publicity," Aguilar said.
"By no means is Mexico considering the possibility" of withdrawing the stamp, he said, accusing critics of being "people who want to take advantage of this ... to seek publicity within American society."
Fox has been criticized by black activists in the United States before. In May, Jackson demanded that Fox apologize for saying Mexicans take U.S. jobs that "not even" blacks want. Fox responded by defending his commitment to minorities.
The country's postal service this week released a series of five stamps depicting "Memin Pinguin," a child's character from a comic book started in the 1945 that is still published in Mexico.
Dark-skinned with an over-shaped head and lanky limbs, Memin Pinguin is drawn with thick lips, a round nose and wide-open eyes. His appearance, speech and mannerisms are the brunt of jokes from white characters in the comic book.
Memin Pinguin's name combines a monicker or "Guillermo," or "William," and a slang form of an adjective meaning "mischievous." On the stamps, which sell for a bit more than 60 cents each, he is seen primping in a tuxedo and top-hat, marching off to school and hawking comic books.
In Washington, the White House objected, saying "racial stereotypes are offensive no matter what their origin." Jackson branded the stamp "an insult" and asked Mexico to withdraw it from the market.
But Aguilar said Friday critics have "a lack of knowledge about Mexican culture and about Mexican comics. This comic helped this country become less racist and made the population more sympathetic to people of color."
Even figures on Mexico's left have defended the comic book, which many read as children.
Novelist Elena Poniatowska, a noted supporter of leftist causes, was quoted in the newspaper La Jornada as calling the criticisms "absurd."
"In our country, the image of black people is one of enormous goodwill, which is reflected not only in characters like Memin Pinguin, but in popular songs ... like 'Little Black Watermelon,'" a song about an unruly little black boy.
Some of the defense appeared to be founded on a relative lack of knowledge about Mexico's tiny black community, which numbers about 60,000 to 100,000 people, largely concentrated in a few rural communities on the southern Pacific coast.
"It's the United States, not Mexico, that has a history of slavery," wrote columnist Sergio Sarmiento in the newspaper Reforma. In fact, Mexico had hundreds of thousands of slaves during the colonial period, though it banned slavery before the United States did.
Mexico did not practice formal segregation in the 20th century as did much of the United States. But it also never experienced a major civil rights movement focused on rooting out racism.
anynody have an xlation for "Memin Pinguin"
Well that's great, since you aren't a European. You're an American, right?
Are you old enough to remember "Song of the South"? I remember it well and loved it as a child. Uncle Remus stories were my favorite. Now they say it's racist and you can only get it thru the black market.
He's an exaggerated white person. A darned ugly one at that.
I would be willing to bet that if someone were to take a Howdy Doody doll and paint him black and put black hair on him that someone would say it was obviously racist.
European Americans - obviously.
Good point, thanks for wasting bits on it.
It's not obvious, since I've never met you.
Now which is it? Are you a European or an American?
What's with some freepers desperation to appear so unPC that'd they defend this crap?
You can buy "Song of the South" on eBay.
Howdy Doody was ALSO from a much different time.
Vincente the Rat figures that if American liberals can get away with it like they did with the racist caricatures of Condi Rice then so can he.
And there you go.
Yes.
And the congregation said, "Amen." I tip my hat to you for a wonderful post.
What shape is an over? Inquiring minds want to know.
Tia,
I think you just posted a pretty darn good working definition of "white trash." I have known a few here in the People's Democratic State of Maryland whose attitude seems to be "I may be s**t, but at least I ain't a n****r." Pitiful.
Happy Independence Day (just a little bit early)!
Reb
Wow, as of just a minute ago, a set of five went for $202.50! (eBay auction # 5594574589 ) But the winning "bidder" was a newbie, had zero feedback, and there are Buy It Now auctions of a set of the stamps for thirty bucks.( 5594816313 )
Either somebody is really stupid about how eBay works, or liberals are making fake bids (like people did with the Virgin Mary cheese sandwich) in order to frustrate someone who would profit off this.
Well, even right here on FR it is acceptable to caracaturize "rednecks". Pictures of toothless white hillbillies are posted quite often. What do you think would happen to a Freeper if they posted caracatures of blacks?
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