Frankly, the US isn't concerned about La India Maria because the US doesn't know about La India Maria. Even if they did, the stereotypes you describe her as embodying correspond with many US stereotypes, so it would take some time and effort to get people excited about it. For that matter, the only reason there's even this much attention being paid to the racist stamp is that it was published in the moment of attention created by Fox's earlier statements. That doesn't necessarily make for hypocrisy on the part of the US, nor does that make these images any less stereotypical.
In case you never watched the cartoon, Speedy was always running across the boarder and stole cheese to give to the other poor Mexican rats. He was also a womanizer, which isn't really that bad. Slowpoke is a stereotype of a lazy Mexican. The Taco Bell Dog was a stereotype that Mexicans always eat tacos.
And talk funny and have comical brown eyes and ... I actually conversed once with a guy who had something to do with making it, and was perplexed by how many folks thought it was bigoted...
So are you saying that there isn't part of the afro-mexican population that is hurt by the stamp? It's my understanding that afro-mexicans in Mexico, numbering half a million or so are considered to be under-represented in Mexico and are among the poorest with the least resources available in Mexico. Sure things are different in the U.S. but it doesn't take a genius to see that Mexico has issues with race that go pretty deeply. Just turn on the TV, and you'd think that 90% of mexicans looked european. It's apparent that if you have brown skin in mexico you're more likely to marginalized. Hell, how many mexican presidents have there been who aren't white looking? Vicente Fox's comments awhile back about 'mexicans doing jobs even blacks won't do' really don't put Mexico in a good light.
You will always have people offended for something. But in 1942 when that comic came out, it wasnt a problem for the Blacks in Mexico living or working in Mexico. Make no mistake about this, the treatment of the afro-mexican is fueled by American interest to discredit Mexican human right activist. First off, there was never an actual count of the black population in Mexico up until recently and even that one is not legit. No legal document in Mexico ever asked you to state your race or ethnicity. In Mexico, you are either a Mexican, a legal resident, or a tourist. That is it. But these UCLA and other studies point out the lack of funds in these communities. I dont deny that. It is a shame. But I dont appreciate that the studies werent put into perspective. Did they ever go to the indigenous communities and see that thier communities were lacking more funding? They come back to the US, stated that the afro-mexican communities lacked funding and all o a sudden, Mexico is a racist country that overlooks the afromexican. But nothing was ever said about the 55% of the other population that lived in poverty. I have never read of a case where the government has confiscated (either legally or illegal) land from a black community. There were fishermen and farmers and paid little taxes to work undeveloped land. The percent of Afro-Mexicans immigrating to the US had alays been low because of the treatment they recieved in the US. Dont take it from me....do your own research and read what books you want.. but even back in the 1940s 1950s 1960s when the Bracero programs were in full force, the black communities were also notified from the mexican government that there would be work in the states... what happened when they reached the border??? they did not let them cross the border. I have read many articles regarding that and have seen interviews from them. That isnt entirely true. You are getting select programming from Mexico. Go to Mexico and watch Mexican programming and you will see the difference In Mexico, you wont get denied a job because of it. You wont be turned away from a school because of your skin color. Has the US ever had a non white protestant president? Yes, but he was still white and he was catholic (and that was a stretch as well). Mexico has had a full blooded indigenous president from back in the mid 1800s. Benito Juarez, Lazaro Cardenas, etc were either mestizo or full blooded and are regarded as Mexico's best presidents. Mexico has had them and will have them in key positions.
What basis do you have for saying it wasn't a problem for Blacks in Mexico at that time or any other? I ask because it's typical for those who are not members of the population being stereotyped to dismiss the problematic nature of the stereotype based on their own neutral response and then to assume everybody feels the same way they do, including members of the stereotyped group. My guess is this is what you're doing now. This is preposterous. Even if it was in the interest of someone in America to discredit Mexican human rights activists (uh, why?), how would pointing out that a stamp perpetuates a racial stereotype further that end? While Mexico has had a racially stratified society, based largely on its heritage as a Spanish colony, I'd be the last one here to argue that the history of racial and ethnic relations in Mexico is worse than that in the United States, if only because the institutionalized racism in the US reached a much more massive scale. Saying that does nothing to undercut the argument that the images in the stamps are derogatory racial stereotypes and that the Mexican government's issuing those images as stamps provides implicit approval of those stereotypes, however unintentional that implicit approval might be.
In other news, Jacques Chirac demands an aplogoy from the US for the cartoon character Pepe le Pew and the branding of Frenchmen as womanizing rapists.... c'est epouvantable!
What basis do I have? Aside from living in Mexico, being raised in Mexico, understanding Mexican popular culture, living many years in the State and understanding their popular culture, ... i have met many encountered many blacks in Mexico (mostly Cuban). And I have also seen and read many interviews about the issue. http://www2.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impreso/web_histo_deportes.despliega?var=62796&var_sub_actual=b&var_fecha=24-FEB-04 Pardon the quick translations If you can read spanish, i suggest you read it. It is preposterous from where you are standing. The Hispanic in the United States is becoming (ive read that is has surpassed the black) the biggest "minority" group in the US. That is a threat to the Black leaders and communities. Immigrants come, take jobs at a cheaper wage, and once they get settled in (legal papers, etc) can apply for minority programs and funding. You dont think that is a problem? Why was Mexico regarded by many Africans and other Blacks (whether Latin or not) as a great place from the turn of the 20th century up until the 1970s? The hispanics and the blacks have never been close in the US. Black civil right leaders and supporters lashed out at the hispanic communties during those times because they didnt unite. Both communties had thier battles to fight, but there is no point as to go into details. But those leaders that were part of the movements in the 60s and 70s are now in power. Why do they bunch up American Mexicans with Mexicans. There are many differences between a Mexican and Mexican American. The point is that those cartoons were not created in hate nor did they have racist intentions. Have you ever read one of those comics? You can not fault another country's popular culture. Is Mexico wrong because we use the words Gordo, Chino, Negro, etc loosely?
Once again, slowly this time: Your arguments about Jim Crow and the history of racism in the US do nothing, not one thing, to undercut the position that the stamps in question portray a racist stereotype. Neither does the fact, which I've accepted from the outset (a point you avoided in your response to my last post) that the history of race relations in Mexico is probably more laudable than the history of race relations in the US. The comments you've translated don't surprise me at all, nor do they support your contention that the cartoon is not racist. Nevertheless, you insist on arguing "Mexico's history is less racist than U.S. history" implying that, because of this, it must be the case that images that portray blacks as subhumans must be okay because they were done by a Mexican. You aren't arguing that Mexicans are incapable of racism, are you? Finally, your brief history of African American vs Mexican American conflicts does nothing to support your assertion that complaints about the stamp are attempts to discredit Mexican human rights activists because a) criticisms of a racist stamp produced by the Mexican government do not reflect on Mexican civil rights activists--it just doesn't make sense, b) there are far more real areas of conflict between Mexican Americans and African Americans (competition for jobs in US urban centers like Los Angeles, for example): what goes on in Mexico doesn't matter. c) you don't offer anything remotely like direct evidence to support your claim, just speculation based on your take on relations between African- and Mexican Americans. When you get a quote from an African American saying "I told you they were racist and that's why more blacks should be getting day jobs in L.A." then come back to me. Until then, the argument that people are calling a picture that makes blacks look like monkeys a racial stereotype not because it IS a racial stereotype but instead because African Americans and Mexican Americans don't get along, is still preposterous.
And once again, very s l o w l y.. you have to look at it from a historical context in Mexico (not the US) rather than a racial one. Your susceptibility to race (i dont know about you personally, but the majority of Americans) is very sensitive and an issue that people try to avoid at all cost. So, then if it is more commendable, why do you insist on criticizing us without knowing the subject, the context, not the history of it? And your arrgument holds little bcause you are applying one countries norms onto another. No, but what i am saying is that we are not scared of the racial issue. Finally, your brief history of African American vs Mexican American conflicts does nothing to support your assertion that complaints about the stamp are attempts to discredit Mexican human rights activists because To the black in this country, the Mexican American and the Mexican are not any different. They think we are all lowriders Like it or not, the ties to Mexico are still close. The Mexican American can still watch and is exposed to Mexican popular culture of som sort and it is safe to say that not all of it would be acceptble by US standards (i.e. news clips of the weekends bullfights, skimpy outfits on daytime TV, etc) I dont need to do a sociology report between both communities. I have seen it, I have lived it, and i read upon it to know it. And when you look at the comic from our point of view, then come back to me, but DO NOT JUDGE US USING YOUR STANDARDS Preposterous from your point of view (which if offset because the fail to see it from both sides) You never answered the question... have you ever read that comic book? And have you ever encountered a black mexican?
Not quite. Americans don’t avoid race, in fact they have a greater tendency to classify by race than do many other cultures (European cultures have had a greater tendency to think in terms of class, first, for example). The difference you’re referring to is that in the US the idea of race is more highly politicized, having been charged by among other things the long institution of slavery and, more importantly, by the African American response to it in the 20th Century. Mexico uses a racial taxonomy that is at once more fluid and less politicized, but it is there. There is a wider array of racial categories used and people tend to use them more comfortably. The problem with your argument is that you are attempting to make the relative difference in the cultural history of race in Mexico work as an absolute, much like white Americans in the 1960’s and ‘70’s living in the northern US states who were convinced there was no racism where they lived simply because it wasn’t as obvious as that in the South. You are arguing that since Mexico didn’t have anything like Jim Crow laws in the 1940’s, it’s not possible that the stamp images could have derived from a racial stereotype. This argument is not only logically incoherent, it glosses over the reality of race relations in Mexico by buying into the popular myth of a color-blind country. A myth that’s managed to flourish under the cover from the far more obvious problems of its neighbor to the north. While Mexico’s history of race relations might be less troubling than that of the US, it’s only slightly so. And if Mexico’s cultural taxonomy of race is more fluid and somewhat less politicized than that of the US, it’s still a racial taxonomy and it still has its origins in oppression, going back at least as far as the Spanish colonial period, in which the Spaniards employed a racially based caste system. The other big difference between US and Mexican racial constructs is that the central story of race in Mexico has been Whiteness vs Indians, as opposed to Whiteness vs Blackness in the US. But there is no question that race constructs in Mexico have persisted to this day and have had deleterious effects, the wide acceptance of Pinguin as “harmless” by Mexicans who are not the target of that stereotype not withstanding. This doesn’t mean you should feel free to honor racist images by issuing them as stamps. And how do you know this? Why do you feel free to speak for both black Mexicans, who in your opinion have no problem with being depicted as subhuman, and black Americans, who in your opinion all have the same idea about Mexicans? You have no basis for doing so. The life you’ve lived doesn’t entitle you to speak with authority about anyone else’s perceptions, especially when it’s clear you haven’t trouble yourself to think carefully about your own. What's bothering you now is that the people who are targeted by the images in the stamps--which includes all blacks, not just Mexicans--are objecting to it and this is forcing you to question something that you've never bothered to question before. It's uncomfortable, sure, but it's nothing to get so huffy about. The cultural boundary between Mexico and the US is indeed porous and more things have filtered through than Mexican TV. For example, Burgos borrowed the racist image of the black mammy he used for Pinguin’s mother from the US. For that matter, Pinguin looks a lot like the racist image of the so-called pickaninny that showed up in many cartoons from the American south. Once again, I doubt very much that your standards take into account the reaction black Mexicans have to this image. The fact that there has not been much outcry about it until now is almost certainly due to the fact that the segment of the population targeted by the image is the smallest and poorest in the country, lacks the political capital to their point of view across, and has bigger problems to deal with. Additionally, the argument that the only possible valid interpretation of this image can come from a (non-black) Mexican is nonsense. Mexico chose to present this image of itself to the world and therefore it cannot complain about the consequences of doing so. For example, here's a new column echoing some of my points: http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20050702/cm_huffpost/003552/nc:742
Memin Pinguin is the tale of a goodhearted black kid that studies in a public school in Mexico, and he gets a lot of friends once they get to know him. He cares much of his mother and friends and the story give a good message of friendship..... Im so ashamed for so insulting stereotype. My apologies to all blac.... i mean african-mexican-americans. We should stick with big hat-border-crossing-thiefs rats from now.
Why are you this defensive? If the US released a something like this, I would be furious and would hope to have international support for banning the stamp. If the literary content isn't racist, then perhaps the solution is to change the imagery. As a comics fan, I can assure you that most characters evolve visually over the years.
Yeah, that Elmer Fudd seemed to hit the Stairmaster a few years into his career, didn't he? On the one hand, that Tecate commercial does pretty accurately describe the way that I speak Spanish. But what if Budweiser ran a commercial that made fun of the way that Latinos speak English? The Budweiser executive responsible for it and everyone at their ad agency would be publicly executed.