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Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 1885
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, July 02, 2005 - 01:37 am: | 
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These depictions are clearly
supposed to liken black people to
Monkeys.
Here's what Earl Ofari Hutchison
had to say--followed by what the President
of MEXICO had to say.
EARL OFARI HUTCHISON:
The Mexican government's sale of the racially offensive cartoon character Memin Pinguin as a commemorative stamp is an outrageous sign that top Mexican officials still refuse to deal with the country's racism. But it's just that a sign. Racism goes much deeper in the country. Even while Mexican writers and politicians rail in articles against American racism, many Mexicans are quick to boast of differences in skin color among their own family members.
A few years ago, a Mexican-American friend made me acutely aware of the rigid race differences in the country. When I told him that I'd be traveling extensively in Mexico, he urged me to pay close attention to the workers doing the hardest and dirtiest work in restaurants and hotels, and who the beggars and peddlers on the streets were. They were overwhelmingly dark, and in most cases with pronounced Indian or African features.
Many Mexicans refer to dark skinned persons, both Mexican, and non-Mexican, as negritos or little black people. This is not seen as racially offensive, but rather as a term of affection even endearment. A popular afternoon telenovela has a comedian in blackface chasing madly after light complexioned actresses in skimpy outfits. Ads have featured blacks in Afros, black face, and distorted features. The most popular screen stars in film and on TV, and the models featured on magazines and billboards, are white or fair skinned with sandy or blond hair. That's the standard of beauty, culture, and sophistication that's held up as the penultimate standard to emulate, and that standard is unabashedly commercialized, and peddled as top commodities in Mexico and other Latin American countries.
Mexican President Vicente Fox and most of Mexico's past presidents, top officials, business leaders, educators, and government leaders, for instance, are light skinned or Castellan Spanish. They routinely boast that they can trace their bloodlines to Spain (Fox's mother is from Spain).
During one of my stays in Mexico, I lived with a well-to-do Mexican family. Family members routinely asked if my son was into gangs and drugs (He was a university senior at the time). I chalked their insensitivity in part up to the one-dimensional depiction of blacks in the global media world, and in part to negative racial attitudes in the country.
And Blacks in Mexico suffer from those attitudes. They make up about two percent of the population, and that's only a rough estimate. The Mexican government propagates the myth of a color-blind society and has never designated any racial categories. There is no formal ban in Mexico on employment discrimination. Classified ads in magazine and newspapers are filled with requests for job applicants who are young and beautiful, and though its unstated, the lighter and more fair skinned the better.
In recent years, the guerrilla war in Chiapas, and land battles between Indian groups and government officials in other parts of the country have drawn national and international attention. This has forced the government to make minimal reforms to deal with the economic and racial ill treatment of the Indians. But the government has not shown the same level of sensitivity and enlightenment toward its black population. They remain invisible, and the lowest of the low on the country's social and economic totem pole. They are crammed into enclaves in the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Veracruz, where the schools are underserved, the roads and public services are poor, and they are subject to harassment by police.
Then there's Pinguin. An entire generation of Mexican school children (and many adults) has grown up delighting in the zany frolics of the popular comic hero. Pinguin has grossly distorted monkey like features, a baldhead and big ears. His mother is a grotesquely fat, bandanna-wearing mammy. The black mammy domestic was the stock racist image of black women in countless 1930s and 1940s American movies. But Pinguin's mother isn't a domestic. She routinely wears her bandanna around their house, and it's a ramshackle house in a poor barrio.
The Pinguin series ran in Mexican newspapers and magazines during the 1960s and 1970s. It was created by Sixto Valencia Burgos, one of Mexico's top creative artists. In 1998, Burgos became president of the Mexican National Association of Comic Artists. The Pinguin series is so popular that decades after Burgos discontinued the series, fan clubs still sprout up on both sides of the border. The comic books are still wildly popular collector's items in Mexico, and other parts of Latin America, and continue to be much discussed and much read.
Gilberto Rincon, President of the National Council to Prevent Discrimination, noted that a report on racism in Mexico was released prior to Fox's racially loaded quip in May about blacks and immigrant jobs. That was a small sign that top Mexican officials grudgingly realize that race does matter in Mexican affairs. Now Mexican officials can take another small step and dump the Pinguin stamp. Then they can take the bigger step and fully come clean on the country's racism and do something about it.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a columnist for BlackNews.com, an author and political analyst.
______________________
Mexico stands firm in stamp row
Mexico's President Vicente Fox has said that a set of commemorative postage stamps featuring a black Mexican cartoon character are not racist.
Anti-racism campaigners and White House officials had condemned the stamps, based on the Memin Pinguin cartoon, as the character has large eyes and lips.
Mr Fox said he did not understand the hostile reaction in the US, and urged Americans to read the original comics.
Many Mexicans appeared to back Mr Fox, queuing for hours to buy the stamps.
In an interview with the Associated Press news agency, Mr Fox said the Memin Pinguin character is "an image in a comic I have known since infancy".
"It is cherished here in Mexico," the president added.
He urged Americans to read the comics before rushing to judgement.
Mr Fox provoked another row in May, when he complained that Mexicans in the US were forced into taking jobs that "even blacks" don't want.
'Brothers'
In Mexico City, hundreds flocked to post offices to try and get their own copies of the stamps.
Many took exception to comments by White House spokesman Scott McClellan that the stamps "have no place in today's world".
"We are not racists. We are not offending anyone. He is a very sweet character," shopper Teresa Montalvo said.
"People's colour is all the same to us, we are all brothers."
Businessman Cesar Alonso Alvarado accused the US of discriminating against Mexico, a country without a significant black community and little understanding of political correctness.
"They're the racists. They're worse than we are, but they just want to belittle us, like always," he said.
But there was criticism of the Mr Fox in Mexico's newspapers
"The capacity of Fox's government for provoking international scandals through predictable or avoidable details is incredible," La Jornada wrote.
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Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 1886
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, July 02, 2005 - 01:39 am: |
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These Mexicans are fulla shit.
All I can do is shake my head, as a black woman who lives in 60% MEXICAN California.
While these fuckers grin in your face--they're no different than white people.
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Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 1887
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, July 02, 2005 - 01:46 am: |
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I keep telling you.
Don't fall for this "diaspora" bullshit.
People who aren't visibly black and who do not have to live DAILY with the realities of being African stock---are the first ones to stab you in the back and call it love.
These same Mexicans will break into tears if a child is born too dark. I agree with HUTCHISON on that, because I've seen it too many times.
They don't like color---but for political gain and convenience sake call themselves "people of color".
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 3761
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, July 02, 2005 - 02:18 am: |
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Kola,
Honestly, I don't give a fuck with dumbass Mexicans do in MEXICO. Now if one of them bring any of that shit to my face, that's one well-whipped Mexican ass.
It might, however, prove entertaining to ask Mexicans what right do their illegally immigrating asses have to lampoon Blacks. |
Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 1889
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, July 02, 2005 - 03:19 am: |
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ABM---
I get so sick of these Black Politicians and Media Figures talking about our brown brothers and sisters---and trying to envoke some kind of SOLIDARITY based on "color" with Latinos. Constantly ignoring the fact that Asians, Latinos, Indians---all the "colored" motherfuckers in this country, including the Upper Class Bi-racials, refer to BLACK people as "niggers" and pay lip service to black issues/causes---but overwhelming support and protect the DOMINANT WHITE CULTURE.
So it does matter, because Black people need to wake up from their delusions.
I used to have this fight with YUKIO, don't you remember?
I don't want to be grouped with Non-Black colored people. I just don't see it as a good thing or as strategically intelligent. To me, it HINDERS black people.
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 3765
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, July 02, 2005 - 03:33 am: |
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Kola,
I agree we should disabuse ourselves of some faulty beliefs about non-existent solidarity with anyone, including Mexicans. So, if calling attention to this stamp crap engenders the truth...okay.
But it's difficult for me to get too worked up over this stamp flap. Hell. It's not like I have to see and buy the crazyass things. |
Nadine Holden
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, July 02, 2005 - 01:43 pm: |
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ABM, we've been replaced as the nation's leading minority group by the Latino-Americans, mostly Mexicans. How more in your face do you want them? My husband says they are becoming honorary whites and I think he's right. At this moment, they receive funding for minority loans and scholarships that were created for blacks through legislation that we fought and died for, yet it seems part of their being American is their inferior view of blacks, so are we ignoring the warning signs?
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 3771
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, July 02, 2005 - 02:10 pm: |
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Nadine,
Respectfully, SO WHAT?
So we've got MORE 'White' foks with funny accents trynah manipulate, deceive and belittle us. We've been here before.
First there were Irish, then Jewish, then Italian, then the Polish, then on an on who've come into this country and have casually usurped Black people rightful claim to it
What the Mexicans are (allegedly) doing here is about as predictable as rain in Seatle.
It's like ALL our other issues/problems we African Americans have faced: If Blacks don't posse-up and ride (HARD) together, there will ALWAYS be another hombre to stroll along who arrogantly attempts to boot us off our range. |
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