Associated Press photos
Mexicans stand in line in Mexico City today to buy the Mexican government's new postage stamps, pictured above.
Al Sharpton is on the next plane to Mexico
Yikes.
Not long after Mexican President Vicente Fox was criticized (unfairly, I think) for saying that Mexican nationals will do work in the United States that even black Americans won't do (it's not mean -- or racist -- if it's true), the Mexican government on Wednesday released the postage stamps shown above.
The stamps depict a black cartoon character named Memin Pinguin. The cartoon character was created in Mexico in the 1940s and is still popular, according to the Associated Press.
OK, I can't defend Mexico or any of its governmental leaders on this one. Memin Pinguin looks more like Curious George than a human being, and I have a problem with that.
The Mexican government might have pondered for a just a moment as to whether a cartoon character created in the racist 1940s is appropriate for 2005.
The Associated Press reports:
President Vicente Fox said [today] that U.S. activists who have condemned a new Mexican postage stamp as racist should read the beloved comic book on which it is based before they make judgments.
"They don't have information, frankly," Fox said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.
U.S. black activists and the White House [yesterday] criticized the stamp featuring Memin Pinguin, a sort of Jim Crow-era image of a black child that has been a cartoon character since the 1940s. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton and leaders of other black and Latino organizations have urged that the stamp be withdrawn.
The stamp is recognition of "character very loved in Mexico and that has absolutely nothing discriminatory about it," said Fox, adding that he himself has been fond of the comic book since childhood.
"And it appears to me that it has provoked a great national unity, because those who are making opinions from outside don't have information."
He said White House spokesman Scott McClellan should have known more before objecting to it [yesterday] as an example of racial stereotyping.
"Frankly, I don't understand the reaction," Fox said. "Let's hope they inform themselves ... and later form an opinion."
Fox spokesman Ruben Aguilar said the government "emphatically rejects these complaints, which are the products of lack of knowledge or people who want publicity."
"By no means is Mexico considering the possibility" of withdrawing the stamp, Aguilar said, accusing critics of being "people who want to take advantage of this ... to seek publicity within American society."
The stamps were being offered on eBay for more than $200 for a full sheet. Hundreds of people lined up at Mexico City's main post office to buy them for 6.50 pesos, or about 60 cents, when they went on sale [today].
Commentators in Mexico's press also expressed incomprehension at the complaints.
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 black boy.
Some of their defense appeared to be founded what they see as a relative lack of knowledge about the history of blacks in Mexico.
"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 have formal legal segregation nor did it experience a large-scale civil rights movement that focused on rooting out racism.
I wholeheartedly agree that the United States, with its ugly history of slavery and racism and civil-rights abuses, can't cast stones at Mexico, and I agree that the likes of Al Sharpton use such things as the Memin Pinguin stamps mainly for self-aggrandizement.
And it's apparent that there are cultural differences between the United States and Mexico as to what constitutes an acceptable depiction of blacks. And I agree with Fox that Americans should at least try to put such things as the Memin Pinguin stamps within their cultural context before they open their mouths.
But the Memin Pinguin character bothers me on a visceral level. It just isn't right -- it is dehumanizing -- to depict someone as simian. (Unless perhaps that someone is George W. Bush, in which case we'd owe the simians an apology.)
If any black American should go trotting down to Mexico to lecture Fox on black cartoon characters, it should be "Boondocks" creator Aaron McGruder, who knows how to depict a black kid:
1:30:02 PM 
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