Educational Mexican comic now banned
We read:
"A comic-book character popular in Mexico for generations has run into a cultural barrier at the border, where Americans see him as a racist caricature. For more than 60 years Mexicans have followed the adventures of "Memin Pinguin." But the dark-skinned Memin's exaggerated features in "Memin for President" came as a shock to Houston, Texas, Wal-Mart shopper Shawnedria McGinty. "I was like, OK, is that a monkey or a boy?" McGinty said. "To me it was an insult."
McGinty and Houston community activist Quannel X want the comic books removed from the stores. "This is absolutely insensitive toward race, in particular the African-American culture, and also people of color," Quannel X said. "This is poking fun at the physical features of an entire people."
But Mexican readers who grew up following the shenanigans of Memin say critics need to look beyond the cover and understand the stories. "They will bring a smile to their face because we're so fond of that character," said Javier Salas, a Spanish-language talk show host on Chicago radio station WRTO. "We respect him, we love him. And that's why it's so absurd for us to hear complaints from people who don't know, don't understand Memin."
Memin is a poor Cuban-Mexican kid with bug eyes, thick lips and protruding ears. The mischievous and caring boy helps his mother by selling newspapers and shining shoes. "We grew up reading, learning and educating ourselves with a lot of the topics they always touched on, which was honesty, justice, tolerance. He was a very unique character," Salas said.
Wal-Mart spokesman Lorenzo Lopez said the retailer has instructed stores to remove the books from shelves and discontinue sales.
Source
There was an upheaval about this in 2005 as well. It seems that Mexico is actually more tolerant than the USA.
6 comments:
Odd that Shawnedria and Quannel X can't seem to tell the difference between a monkey and their fellow blacks, a problem that most people have! I wonder if these two cretins have noticed that many Mexicans are darker than they are, which makes them people of color also, doesn't it. So what's really behind this complaint? What else, a SHAKEDOWN! ($$$$$)
BTW, where do they ever come up with these names?... G. Wallace
Happened to be watching some God-awful talk show a few years ago, dunno quite why now.
Anyway, among the guests was a teen mother named (and spelled) Lazanya. I suspect there was NO Italian blood involved !!!!
I also ran across somebody named Latrina at one point (insert obvious reference to "full of **it", here) .
We have a Latrina here at work.. We just call her Trina though, for obvious reasons.. The thing about that is that no one in the hood knows what a "latrine" is anyway, so the name Latrina has no negative connotation. Although, she did say her brother told her what it was when he went into the Army.
"BTW, where do they ever come up with these names?... G. Wallace"
Heck, the best name I heard of was when I was living in North Carolina a number of years ago. A young girl filled out an application for job training and her last name was (is): HOLE but was pronounced HOLEY.
Yup. You guessed it her first name was (is)ASHLEY but her friends called her ASH And she didn't mind.
If you weren't from the area how would you pronounce: ASH HOLE?
Go figure!
In my mom's office back in the 60s there was a girl named Maureen engaged to a guy named Ron, and they intended to name their new house "Maurron" - how apt!
Couldn't Walmart just put a plain cover over the Memin books to keep the picture out of sight if they are afraid it will cause offense? Customers who are seeking Memin out would still be able to find and buy the book they want. Or the Walmart stores could keep them out of sight and still sell them to those who ask for them.
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