Memin Pinguin
By Callimachus | Related entries in CartoonsThe LA Times piously applauds Vicente Fox because Mexico, without fanfare, has decided to not rint a second run of the controversial
(at least in the U.S.) Memin Pinguin stamps.
“To be sure,” the Times sniffs, “it would have been better had Fox been more forthcoming about his change of heart, and maybe even expressed regret for his earlier insensitivity.”
Ah, an apology would make everything all right. We just love a good apology these days! We’d like to teach the world to apologize in perfect harmony.
Even if at the same time you bow and mumble and promise to never do it again, you’re assuring that the first edition of the stamps will skyrocket in value for all the savvy Mexicans who scarfed them up at the post office windows, seeing the prices they were fetching on e-Bay.
Memin Pinguin is an interesting relic. He dates to the 1940s. Though his direct inspiration was said to be black street waifs Mexican cartoonist Yolanda Carlos Dulche saw on a trip to Cuba, stylistically, his lineage is American; he from a long line of black comic caricatures who have long since been laid to rest in the United States.
Great American cartoonists like Will Eisner drew such characters. Joel Chandler Harris wrote them in animal form. They served as sidekicks to Captain Marvel and Mandrake the Magician and — in flesh and blood — Jack Benny, Mae West, and Scarlett O’Hara.
And if you remember any of these American Memin Pinguins, you’ll recall that, though in subordinate social positions, they were admirable characters, imbued with wit, kindness, strength or a combination of all. America jettisoned these characters from its pop culture as the price of peaceful integration. However beloved they were among whites, the leaders of the black community told us they offended, and hurt the cause of brotherhood. So they were sent packing.
Among Memin Pinguin’s lost cousins was the star of “The Story of Little Black Sambo,” the enormously popular children’s book by Scottish writer Helen Bannerman, which actually is about an East Indian child. Sambo was neither black nor American, and though it’s condescending, the whole story is a tale of his just reward for triumphing over the tigers who want to eat him. It didn’t matter. Sambo had to go.
This was as absurd as the infamous 1999 incident in which the mayor of Washington, D.C., forced out an official who was “accused of using a racial slur” because he uttered the adverb “niggardly” in conversation. [It's a Middle English word, probably from Viking Norse and related to German genau "precise, exact"]
White America had such an awful case of racism that it had to be purged even down to the cartoon characters? And with ruthless disregard for collateral damage like “niggardly?” Very well, but by what right do we dictate rules to another country what is unacceptable in its own pop culture? Why, this smacks of unilateral Yankee cartoon imperialism, is what it smacks of. Pious moralizing, Big Brotherism, cultural hegemony, exceptionalism, paternalism — all those other wicked American -isms.
But is a racist stereotype ever right if it rankles? If it was indefensible north of the Rio Grande, how can it be defended on the south bank? Or is it impossible to export tolerance?
Oh, dear, where to we even begin to apologize for this?
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 12th, 2005 and is filed under Cartoons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 12th, 2005 at 9:50 am
The pious applause you link to comes from dailynews.com. The LA Times actually has an editorial that says much the same thing you do. That “…one must be careful to consider race issues in Mexico in context, and not try to transplant them into the American experience.”
July 12th, 2005 at 10:59 am
Good catch! Thanks
July 12th, 2005 at 12:51 pm
But the LA Times column (which is individual commentary, not an official newspaper editorial position) has ethical problems of its own:
Can you imagine how hard the LAT would have slammed Bush & Co. if the White House had said, “sure, it’s fine, there’s no problem here.”
Which hardly explains the “Little Black Sambo” situation, or the ongoing efforts to yank Huck Finn off the school library shelves. So it’s intention that matters in an image?
Or is it that some cultures are allowed to trade in racist stereotypes and others aren’t? In which case, a recent Japanese immigrant to America can hang up a big Aunt Jemima poster on the front of his house or hose a Stepin Fetchit appreciation film festival?
Sort of like the crazy old white man who got arrested and fined in my town recently for walking down the street muttering the “N” word that I hear blaring from stereos and shouted conversations in houses and cars in my mostly-black neighborhood all night.
I think this is one of those places where Marx would say the inherent and irreconcilable contradictions in our system stand exposed.
July 12th, 2005 at 12:57 pm
Oh, and this, from the LAT column, was precious:
So Mexico doesn’t have a race problem because its racist caricature cartoon is used to point out fictionalized racism in the United States. Talk about projection!
There’s no date given for this issue, but I bet it’s modern (Dallas hosted the world cup in, what was it, 1994?). Was there really a pervasive problem in the American South in that day and age with blacks being refused service in public restaurants?
January 24th, 2009 at 9:29 am
Calimachus, you wear your ignorance on your shoulder. NO black person in Mexico would say it is any type of melting pot. It’s stil Jim Crow down there. They never had a civil right movement (I’m sure you just wet your diapers with glee at that) so they don’t have a tradition of standing agaisnt racism. Instead they accept it.
What a shame blacks in the US won’t allow you to indulge your racism without fighting back. What’s next? Will the niggras demand the vote? Oh, what is this world coming to?
A place where bigoted morons like you will have to learn to grow up or shut up. Since I see no chance of the former at the VERY least do us the favor of exercising the latter!
“America jettisoned these characters from its pop culture as the price of peaceful integration. ”
Please point out to me who exactly said there would be no peaceful integration until thes racist caricatures were “laid to rest?” Your rant drips of the angry white male who has become the “whiner-class” of America. People demand civility and respect, and fight to make it a reality. Do you applaud that? No. Instead you say, “What about free speech?”
Free speech is a two way street dumbo! You say something stupid I can demand that your book, radio show or blog be shut down. And if I feel strongly enough about it I can cause your publisher, retail store or ISP pure hell until they get rid of you.
You CLEARLY have a problem with the idea that blacks can demand redress and –HORROR of HORRORS!!– actually affect a change. What’s the matter? You didn’t get offended so you feel nobody had a right to say anything?
You know I went through your archives to see if you ever defended Chris Rock, or Paul Mooney, Al Sharpton. How many times did you tell people that Louis Farrakhan hasn’t hurt anyone and that it’s childish whining for whites to demand nobody voice black grievance as the price of peaceful integration? What a surprise! Not even once!
Take your own advice. Few people like an apologist for racism and NOBODY likes an hypocrite.
In you we have both!