good post from Vidya (friendster)

[casunkissdmc]

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (Reuters) -- Mexico's tiny black community demanded Monday that President Vicente Fox apologize for a set of stamps featuring a black comic book figure that U.S. civil rights groups have slammed as racist. > >The Asociacion Mexico Negro, which represents some 50,000 blacks living on >the Pacific coast, said in a letter to Fox that Memin Pinguin, a 1940s >comic book character drawn with thick lips and a flat nose, was >stereotypical and racist. > >"Memin Pinguin rewards, celebrates, typifies and cements the distorted, >mocking, stereotypical and limited vision of black people in general," said >the letter signed by leaders of the association. > >The letter marks the first official complaint from a Mexican group over the >stamps, which went on sale last week and provoked a storm of controversy in >the United States. U.S. civil rights groups said they should be withdrawn. > >Fox has said the stamps are not racist and ignored calls to pull them from >circulation. His Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez said the affair was >exaggerated by "specific groups in the United States who make a living from >this kind of scandal." > >"They look more ridiculous than we do," he said in a radio interview. > >Political correctness is barely existent in Mexico, where there are few >black immigrants, Caucasians are commonly addressed as "Guero" ("Whitey") >and dark-skinned locals are nicknamed "Morenito" or "Negro" without causing >offense. > >Generations of Mexicans grew up reading the cartoon strip escapades of >Memin Pinguin, a mischievous black boy whose looks and monkey-like antics >are endearing but embody outdated ideas about blacks, like many comic books >of the time. > >"The stamps are 101 percent offensive, there is no doubt about it," said >Rev. Glyn Jemmott, a Catholic priest in the 98 percent black village of El >Ciruelo in Guerrero state, and one of the signatories of the letter. > >"What is evident is the level of tolerance of racism that exists in the >country. We are accustomed to racism to the point where anyone who dares >question it runs the risk of being considered unpatriotic," he told Reuters >by telephone. > >Rejecting the U.S. criticism and insisting they are not racist, Mexicans >have been lining up to buy the stamps. One state has rationed sales because >of high demand, and the stamps have been bid as high as $200 per sheet in >Internet auctions. > >Mexicans are often accused of discrimination against Indians, who often >live hand to mouth in poor communities. > >Their lack of sensitivity to racism against blacks may be worse because >Mexicans so rarely see black people. > >Jemmott lives in one of a cluster of tight-knit black communities along the >Pacific coast, south of Acapulco, that are home to thousands of descendants >of slaves. Many Mexicans are unaware the communities exist. > >In May, U.S. civil rights groups were outraged when Fox remarked that >Mexican immigrants in the United States did jobs "not even blacks" would >do. Check out the stamps here: http://www.lambiek.net/artists/burgos_sv/burgos_memin-stamps.jpg

****along the same lines, anyone see the film, bamboozled? pretty intense. and people, bookmark this website - it's incredible news. stuff you def. won't see in the traditional newspapers, tabloids, mags, etc. www.baystatebanner.com