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Any publicity is good publicity.
(And a stamp series going for $150 US when each stamp in it is six and a half pesos is ing wild.)
http://www.mysanantonio.com/salife/s....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?
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.
Memín Pinguín is a favorite comic book character in Mexico who debuted in the 1940s. The Mexican government issued five Pinguín stamps last month.
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 at ude 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.
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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.
Any publicity is good publicity.
(And a stamp series going for $150 US when each stamp in it is six and a half pesos is ing wild.)
Speaking of stamps, I seem to have inherited quite a collection....anyone know much about them?
They are used to pay for postage when mailing items.
thats pretty interesting. I think US citizens are just begging to show the world how pompous and arrogant they are, by thinking they can have a serious say-so about another country's STAMP.
Also pretty funny how the mexican opinion is "its only a cartoon"
hahahaha
If you put LSD on them and put them in your mouth you'll get ED up!
They pay my bills.....So keep on buying them
Blotter acid was the .
No, seriously....I have some that are apparently worth a lot of money. It was my mom's collection.
A serious over-reaction about the stamp. I think that little character is cute, but racial differences is also by far not the first thing that pops into my head when I see things like that.
look at the mom, her doo rag
remember when they made Aunt Jemima change, because she used to wear a doorag, now she just has a mini-fro
When I was a kid I went through a stamp collecting phase. If you are seeking info on US stamps (such as current values) then the USPS used to put out a price guide for all US stamps.
EDIT: I guess the Postal Service has discontinued that, but I was able to find one from 2003 on Amazon.com.
Have you done any research on them...ie, google or ebay??? What are the denominations??
Thanks!
I don't know the specifics yet on what's in there ... but I know she liked to brag about them.
It's just me, but shouldn't we ask blacks if they're offended by it? Stop telling me what I should and shouldn't be offended by. If I want to know if somebody is offended by something, I'll ask them.
Effing racist Mexicans, damn them.
I wouldn't use them but they are a must have for stamp collectors.
im not sure how to feel about this...one things for sure savvy collectors are gonna snatch them up by the truck load. im sure they'll be shown on antuiqes road show some day. where can i get one?
actually, I believe this started with blacks in Mexico and the U.S. being offended. I don't blame them. And beyond it being insensitive to depict blacks in this manner, it was an irresponsible choice of the Mexican government to do this at a time when there is quite a lot of tension in Southern California between blacks and hispanics. Add to that Vicente Fox's asshole statement about Mexicans taking jobs not even blacks want.
I don't think Mexicans would like it if we released stamps depicting Mexican picking beans or swimming the Rio Grande.
I was just in Mexico and my mom bought like four or five of those damn comic books
That stamp may be offensive, or it may not be, I don't really know. What I do know is that the US has no business telling other countries what to print or not to print on their stamps! That's plain ludicrious! Furthermore the Mexican government should not be worried about some tension between blacks and hispanics in the US, that's the US problem. If Mexico doesn't find the stamp offensive, then the US is just going to have to live with it. However, just like in so many cases before, the US probably is going to have the last word about it, even though it is completely wrong.
I'm sorry, but you are being extremely paranoic about the U.S. on this one. Maybe it's all the talk in the Political Forum, but you should consider this: How would you feel if a country decides to print Argentinians in a negative way? Would you say "Oh, it's not our business, if no one is offended in the country where they were printed it's ok"?
If a country is going to intervene against another to try to eliminate racism, I belive we should applaud that at ude, this has nothing to do with Iraq, Al-Qaeda, Imperialism, or wars.
I don't believe it's our business to try to dictate these things to other countries either. But it is reasonable for the U.S. government on behalf of the rightfully offended African Americans to put pressure on the Mexican government over this issue. After all, isn't Vicente Fox trying to pressure our government to loosen its immigration policies on behalf of migrant Mexicans?
Both countries can choose to consider or ignore such pressure (and, in the end, both countries will likely ignore).
As far as the problems in SoCal, particularly Los Angeles, a lot of the racial tensions go beyond simple "tensions" ... right now, racial hatred in some areas has escalated to the point where latinos - many of whom are actually Mexican citizens- are targeting and shooting blacks for fun on the highway.
Since Vicente Fox is such an outspoken proponent of Mexican immigration to the U.S., he should be just as concerned about the serious racial problems that are developing between Mexican immigrants and black Americans.
No, I think you're wrong. First of all, we're not talking about a stamp that depicts Americans in a bad way. If Mexican people, which includes black Mexican people by the way (they are not mutually exclusive), don't find this stamp to be demeaning, then the US is just going to have to live with that fact. IMO this has more to do with how the American black person wants to be portrayed, rather than how Mexican black people look at themselves. Now I'm not saying this stamp isn't demeaning, the point I'm making is that it doesn't seem to be demeaning to Mexicans, which is where the stamp got printed. Americans have absolutely nothing to do witht he issue.
Perhaps you're right. Vicente Fox does openly support Mexican immigration to the US, so its only fair he should share the burden of the problems that creates. I agree. I was not looking at it from that perspective.
Have any of the posts in this thread been by someone that is black? I would like to see a black person's perspective on this.
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