MannyIsGod
07-15-2005, 10:51 AM
http://www.mysanantonio.com/salife/stories/MYSA071505.1P.stamp.controversy.6a0aa046.html
Memín Pinguín as postage icon draws a look at how two countries perceive blacks
Web Posted: 07/15/2005 12:00 AM CDT
Elaine Ayala
San Antonio Express-News
When does a comic book character born in the '40s and beloved by Mexican readers spark a firestorm in the United States, with activists accusing Mexicans of racism and insensitivity?
http://www.mysanantonio.com/salife/stories/D_IMAGE.1047004b7dd.93.88.fa.7c.a8ed2c0a.jpg
Memín Pinguín is a favorite comic book character in Mexico who debuted in the 1940s. The Mexican government issued five Pinguín stamps last month.
Answer: When he's a Jim Crow-era, Sambolike caricature put on a postage stamp. And when the rush by Mexican consumers makes U.S. news.
Now in its third week on broil, the controversy over Memín Pinguín is no closer to resolution and has triggered a broader discussion about race relations in Mexico, that country's unexamined African history and what some say is Mexico's deep denial of racism.
"It has always puzzled me that educated Mexicans can look you straight in the eye and say there's no racism in Mexico," says Trinity associate professor Robert Huesca. "Perhaps it's because indios like Benito Juárez have risen to great roles in society that they think racism doesn't exist," he says, or that indigenous people fought a revolution there.
On this side of the border, Memín Pinguín is almost universally viewed as stereotypical and racist. The National Council of La Raza, the NAACP and the White House have all expressed outrage that the Mexican postal service would honor the character, a mischievous black boy with the saucerlike lips and wide-open eyes. On the other side of the border, Memín is seen as sweet, or at least benign — views illustrating the gulf between the two countries on race.
During the last few weeks, the controversy has spurred news stories, protests and heated academic and political exchanges on Internet mailing list servers such as http://list serv.cyberlatina.net. Protesters have charged Mexicans with insensitivity and racism. Memín defenders say U.S. activists have quite the nerve to raise the race issue, given their country's brutal history of slavery and discrimination. They point to the Confederate flag still flown in parts of the United States and such characters as Speedy Gonzalez that are still part of mainstream U.S. culture.
Mexicans are also quick to counter criticism by noting that Mexico abolished slavery decades before the United States did, gave refuge to U.S. slaves and never restricted intermarriage.
Though a few Mexican black groups have protested the government's decision to put Memín Pinguín on a commemorative stamp, Mexico's attitude can be summed up as, "it's only a cartoon," says Carlos Muñoz, professor emeritus of the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, who researches Afro Mexican history. "They don't see the negativity of the stereotype he embodies."
Indeed, San Diego/Tijuana-based artist Victor Ochoa, who'll be in San Antonio soon to do a mural on the West Side, says he grew up drawing the character and understands both perspectives. "Even though he is in a slum area and speaks with slurry African/Cuban sounding words, he was a cool character, kind of like a Cantinflas," he says, referring to the late comedic actor beloved by Mexicans. "(Mimín) was always the smartest one in the story."
Some say the difference in perspectives can be attributed to the fact that the United States went through a civil rights movement and has an ethnically diverse population represented by advocacy groups. Mexico, on the other hand, has fewer Mexicans of African ancestry, fewer still that self-identify as black or African and thus fewer people involved in consciousness-raising groups standing in front of microphones.
"From 1800 to now, the average Mexican and the average intellectual ignore that Africans were part of their history," Muñoz says.
José Angel Hernández, a Fulbright scholar and San Antonio native doing research in Mexico, agrees. "The question of blackness in Mexico is only (now) gaining some currency."
Muñoz has heard blacks in Veracruz, one of the major ports where African slaves arrived, refer to themselves as Cuban.
Still one of the byproducts of the Mimín Pinguín controversy has been discussion of Mexico's African history, which goes further back than most might think.
"The first piece of evidence that there were Africans in Mexico was centuries ago, before Christ, before the emergence of an Egyptian civilization," Muñoz says. "They came before Columbus during the Olmeca civilization," from 1200 B.C. to 600 A.D. "They were from advanced African civilizations and navigated the seas very well."
Muñoz, who's teaching in Veracruz this summer, believes that Olmec stone sculptures are evidence of an African influence in Mesoamerica. "There's no doubt about it," he says, "it's the face of Africa."
Later, during Mexico's colonial period (which started with the Aztec conquest in 1521 and was marked by Spanish rule), Africans arrived in slave ships and were used in mines, fields and cattle ranches, making Mexico a leading importer of slaves. Spaniards believed indigenous natives weren't built for hard labor, Muñoz adds. During the 1500s, there were more Africans than Spaniards in Mexico. The majority of the population was indigenous. Afro Mexicans were among its revolutionary heroes, and President Vicente Guerrero, elected in 1829, was an Afro Mestizo. But such history is not widely known in Mexico, scholars say.
Today, Mexico's black population is considered extremely small. The Mexican census does not ask citizens if they are black or of African ancestry. Many Afro mestizos have blended into the indigenous population and some self-identify as Mexican or mestizo. The largest black populations live in or near Mexico's major ports off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
Hernández thinks Memín Pinguín doesn't raise eyebrows in Mexico because the country has no culture of political correctness.
Carol Schliesinger, an Argentinean who lives in San Antonio, says Latin Americans may be more tolerant of such images. "In Argentina, the number of blacks was practically zero. There was no awareness that you could offend somebody," noting that a popular flour product carries a depiction of a Mammylike figure that would offend U.S. sensibilities. "It has to do with awareness" and the lack of it, she says.
Rafael Rebollar, an independent filmmaker in Mexico who runs a Web site about Afro Mexican issues (www.afro mexico.org), says comics everywhere are stereotypical. Superman and Spider-Man, for example, represent a white superiority. Memín is viewed "practically as a hero who always comes out ahead," Rebollar writes in an e-mail interview in Spanish.
Rebollar, who is Afro Mexican, concedes that racism exists in Mexico, but argues that there are far more flagrant issues than a stamp to debate. Afro Mexicans, for example, aren't recognized as an ethnic group and the country's is generally ignorant of the Afro Mexican experience.
Indigenous groups are viewed as the most discriminated.
The controversy, however, couldn't have come at a better time for President Vicente Fox, who has rallied Mexicans against U.S. criticism, shifting attention from a far more burning political issue, Hernández says — the Zapatista movement in Chiapas that went on red alert recently for the first time since the mid-'90s.
U.S. activists aren't letting up, though. "You know what the problem is?" says T.C. Calvert, an African American activist and San Antonio community leader. "They just don't get it," reiterating requests to stop printing the stamps.
Meanwhile, the series has sold out and is going for $150 on eBay.
--------------------------------------------------
Thoughts?
The only thing that comes to mind for me is the Southpark Episode with the flag Chef wanted changed. We would all be better off if Trey Parker was our leader.
Memín Pinguín as postage icon draws a look at how two countries perceive blacks
Web Posted: 07/15/2005 12:00 AM CDT
Elaine Ayala
San Antonio Express-News
When does a comic book character born in the '40s and beloved by Mexican readers spark a firestorm in the United States, with activists accusing Mexicans of racism and insensitivity?
http://www.mysanantonio.com/salife/stories/D_IMAGE.1047004b7dd.93.88.fa.7c.a8ed2c0a.jpg
Memín Pinguín is a favorite comic book character in Mexico who debuted in the 1940s. The Mexican government issued five Pinguín stamps last month.
Answer: When he's a Jim Crow-era, Sambolike caricature put on a postage stamp. And when the rush by Mexican consumers makes U.S. news.
Now in its third week on broil, the controversy over Memín Pinguín is no closer to resolution and has triggered a broader discussion about race relations in Mexico, that country's unexamined African history and what some say is Mexico's deep denial of racism.
"It has always puzzled me that educated Mexicans can look you straight in the eye and say there's no racism in Mexico," says Trinity associate professor Robert Huesca. "Perhaps it's because indios like Benito Juárez have risen to great roles in society that they think racism doesn't exist," he says, or that indigenous people fought a revolution there.
On this side of the border, Memín Pinguín is almost universally viewed as stereotypical and racist. The National Council of La Raza, the NAACP and the White House have all expressed outrage that the Mexican postal service would honor the character, a mischievous black boy with the saucerlike lips and wide-open eyes. On the other side of the border, Memín is seen as sweet, or at least benign — views illustrating the gulf between the two countries on race.
During the last few weeks, the controversy has spurred news stories, protests and heated academic and political exchanges on Internet mailing list servers such as http://list serv.cyberlatina.net. Protesters have charged Mexicans with insensitivity and racism. Memín defenders say U.S. activists have quite the nerve to raise the race issue, given their country's brutal history of slavery and discrimination. They point to the Confederate flag still flown in parts of the United States and such characters as Speedy Gonzalez that are still part of mainstream U.S. culture.
Mexicans are also quick to counter criticism by noting that Mexico abolished slavery decades before the United States did, gave refuge to U.S. slaves and never restricted intermarriage.
Though a few Mexican black groups have protested the government's decision to put Memín Pinguín on a commemorative stamp, Mexico's attitude can be summed up as, "it's only a cartoon," says Carlos Muñoz, professor emeritus of the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, who researches Afro Mexican history. "They don't see the negativity of the stereotype he embodies."
Indeed, San Diego/Tijuana-based artist Victor Ochoa, who'll be in San Antonio soon to do a mural on the West Side, says he grew up drawing the character and understands both perspectives. "Even though he is in a slum area and speaks with slurry African/Cuban sounding words, he was a cool character, kind of like a Cantinflas," he says, referring to the late comedic actor beloved by Mexicans. "(Mimín) was always the smartest one in the story."
Some say the difference in perspectives can be attributed to the fact that the United States went through a civil rights movement and has an ethnically diverse population represented by advocacy groups. Mexico, on the other hand, has fewer Mexicans of African ancestry, fewer still that self-identify as black or African and thus fewer people involved in consciousness-raising groups standing in front of microphones.
"From 1800 to now, the average Mexican and the average intellectual ignore that Africans were part of their history," Muñoz says.
José Angel Hernández, a Fulbright scholar and San Antonio native doing research in Mexico, agrees. "The question of blackness in Mexico is only (now) gaining some currency."
Muñoz has heard blacks in Veracruz, one of the major ports where African slaves arrived, refer to themselves as Cuban.
Still one of the byproducts of the Mimín Pinguín controversy has been discussion of Mexico's African history, which goes further back than most might think.
"The first piece of evidence that there were Africans in Mexico was centuries ago, before Christ, before the emergence of an Egyptian civilization," Muñoz says. "They came before Columbus during the Olmeca civilization," from 1200 B.C. to 600 A.D. "They were from advanced African civilizations and navigated the seas very well."
Muñoz, who's teaching in Veracruz this summer, believes that Olmec stone sculptures are evidence of an African influence in Mesoamerica. "There's no doubt about it," he says, "it's the face of Africa."
Later, during Mexico's colonial period (which started with the Aztec conquest in 1521 and was marked by Spanish rule), Africans arrived in slave ships and were used in mines, fields and cattle ranches, making Mexico a leading importer of slaves. Spaniards believed indigenous natives weren't built for hard labor, Muñoz adds. During the 1500s, there were more Africans than Spaniards in Mexico. The majority of the population was indigenous. Afro Mexicans were among its revolutionary heroes, and President Vicente Guerrero, elected in 1829, was an Afro Mestizo. But such history is not widely known in Mexico, scholars say.
Today, Mexico's black population is considered extremely small. The Mexican census does not ask citizens if they are black or of African ancestry. Many Afro mestizos have blended into the indigenous population and some self-identify as Mexican or mestizo. The largest black populations live in or near Mexico's major ports off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
Hernández thinks Memín Pinguín doesn't raise eyebrows in Mexico because the country has no culture of political correctness.
Carol Schliesinger, an Argentinean who lives in San Antonio, says Latin Americans may be more tolerant of such images. "In Argentina, the number of blacks was practically zero. There was no awareness that you could offend somebody," noting that a popular flour product carries a depiction of a Mammylike figure that would offend U.S. sensibilities. "It has to do with awareness" and the lack of it, she says.
Rafael Rebollar, an independent filmmaker in Mexico who runs a Web site about Afro Mexican issues (www.afro mexico.org), says comics everywhere are stereotypical. Superman and Spider-Man, for example, represent a white superiority. Memín is viewed "practically as a hero who always comes out ahead," Rebollar writes in an e-mail interview in Spanish.
Rebollar, who is Afro Mexican, concedes that racism exists in Mexico, but argues that there are far more flagrant issues than a stamp to debate. Afro Mexicans, for example, aren't recognized as an ethnic group and the country's is generally ignorant of the Afro Mexican experience.
Indigenous groups are viewed as the most discriminated.
The controversy, however, couldn't have come at a better time for President Vicente Fox, who has rallied Mexicans against U.S. criticism, shifting attention from a far more burning political issue, Hernández says — the Zapatista movement in Chiapas that went on red alert recently for the first time since the mid-'90s.
U.S. activists aren't letting up, though. "You know what the problem is?" says T.C. Calvert, an African American activist and San Antonio community leader. "They just don't get it," reiterating requests to stop printing the stamps.
Meanwhile, the series has sold out and is going for $150 on eBay.
--------------------------------------------------
Thoughts?
The only thing that comes to mind for me is the Southpark Episode with the flag Chef wanted changed. We would all be better off if Trey Parker was our leader.