“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!

One episode in Memin’s fictional life is worth mentioning. He and the rest of the gang travel to Dallas to play a soccer tournament, and they all go to a diner where the waitress refuses to serve blacks and Mexicans. Memin refuses to be discriminated against and creates such a ruckus that he lands in jail. When he’s released, the team goes on to beat the U.S. in the finals.

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?

As might have been expected, the Rev. Jesse Jackson led the charge, demanding an apology from Mexican President Vicente Fox for the “Sambo-like” stamps and asking that they be taken off the market immediately. Less expected and more worrisome was the reaction from White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who said smugly that Memin had “no place in today’s world,” and left many Mexicans wondering who granted him the authority to decide whether Memin belongs in Mexico or not.

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.”

Had the stamp been printed in the U.S., where racism was institutionalized until recent times and images of African Americans were drawn to mock, disrespect and humiliate, then even a latecomer to the U.S. like me would have joined the chorus demanding it be taken out of circulation. That is not the case with Memin, who belongs in a particular historical and cultural context.

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.