What’s Spanish for schadenfreude? The squirming, role reversal and irony backstory all contained in the Mexican stamp imbroglio have been a delight to watch. Tone-deaf Mexican elites are still flopping around like trout in a boat, insisting that their Sambo-esque postage stamps (see the set here) are actually charming reflections of Mexican culture.

You might have thought that Mexicans would make an effort not to insult black Americans after el Presidente Fox’s bonehead remark a few weeks back that Mexicans do work not even blacks will do. Not a chance.

American blacks have responded in anger to the obnoxious stamps, which are based on a decades-old comic character, and the rainbow vision of black and brown people united to overpower whitey is looking increasingly gray.

But NAACP Interim President Dennis Courtland Hayes countered that “laughing at the expense of hardworking African Americans or African Mexicans is no joke and it should end at once.” [...]

Ben Vinson, a black professor of Latin American history at Penn State University, said he has been called “Memin Pinguin” by some people in Mexico. He also noted that the character’s mother is drawn to look like an old version of the U.S. advertising character Aunt Jemima. [ Mexico issues stamp of black cartoon character weeks after racial flap]

Jesse Jackson, however, appears to be angling for a job as the top token on the Hispanic gravy train, judging by his call for a Black-Hispanic coalition. Typically, when Mexicans have felt insulted they squawk loud and long. For example, Mario Obledo and other La Raza types had a tizzy a few years back over the Taco Bell chihuahua, calling it offensive and racist. (Will someone please explain how a dog can be racist?)

And before the Taco Bell chihuahua, there was the Frito Bandito, condemned by the Raza crowd as anti-Mexican. Another was the Warner Brothers cartoon character Speedy Gonzalez, yanked from the Cartoon Network in the service of political correctness, despite being a rather appealing rodent as rats go.

Okay then, let’s have a Mexican scientist character; that’ll be realistic.

(For extra credit, see “Whatever Happened to Speedy Gonzalez?” for a PG-13 animated fantasy where Speedy meets Snidely Whiplash in the Scarface style.)

A sidebar curiosity in the dust-up is how the LA Times included uncharacteristic
honesty about the issue of race in Mexican Postage Stamp Pushes Racial Envelope:

“Mexican society is fundamentally racist and classist,” said Guadalupe Loaeza, a newspaper columnist. “The color of your skin is a key that either opens or shuts doors. The lighter your skin, the more doors open to you.”

Racism extends to political preferences, she added. Many upper-middle-class Mexicans are expected to vote against front-running presidential candidate and Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party because he is partly indigenous and brown-skinned, Loaeza said. That group of voters might tend to support Santiago Creel of the National Action Party because he has light skin and blue eyes, she said.

Racism is one of the many forms of discrimination practiced in Mexico, according to a survey published last month by the federal secretary of social development. It said 80% of Mexicans, among them women, children, indigenous and disabled people and the elderly, suffered discrimination in some way.

In addition, Mexican comic books — one sees them being widely read in Mexico by adults — also include vicious anti-white sexism.

All the while, paleface Mexican elites continue to export indigenous and mestizo people to America.

In Georgiafornia, the joke starts out:

“The one-room grocery Narciso Vazquez owns on Hancock Avenue is packed. Produce bins sport papayas, mangos and cilantro. Shelves brim with cereals, canned goods and boxes of Spanish- labeled cookies.

A bright, glass-covered counter at the back showcases rows of meat.

There’s even a chunky-looking cow’s foot. Vazquez said you cook it with cow’s stomach, which he also sells, to make tasty soup called menudo.” Cultures bring color to Hall, By Rick Lavender, Gainesville Times

…..So the American says;

“If they had to obey the rules and regulations like we do,”….” I don’t care if they are here, if they pay their way.”

The real, legal immigrant adds:

“I don’t know why you should be allowed to live here and have a job and buy property … if you’re not a legal resident,” she said.

And the illegal alien from Mexico replies

” As for others who want to emigrate from Mexico, source of nearly 84 percent of Hall’s Latinos in 2000, Ruiz said she has no problem with them coming without the government’s OK.

The local paper observes:

“Signs along Atlanta Highway, dubbed Gainesville’s “Little Mexico,” sell beer and cars in Spanish.”

“While other immigrant-based groups escape scrutiny, the size and predominant language of Latinos are lightning rods of attention, and strong winds for change.”

And the other American goes on:

Rhonda admits to mixed feelings. She’s also not sure if she would have bought their current home if the purchase occurred after a suspected member of a Latino youth gang spray-painted the SUR 13 moniker on nearby drives, a sign and a fence two streets down a week ago.

Rhonda used to own a house in the Chicopee community. On returning to Gainesville after a few years away, she said she was shocked at how the area had changed.

On Hillside, her efforts to reach out to her new Latino neighbors have been met with silence. She sounded unsettled by the whole issue.

“I like to know my neighbors,” she said.

Meanwhile…

“The undocumented East Hall resident charged with the murder of a 4-year-old girl may have re-entered the country illegally after being deported in 2003, immigration officials said Monday.”

And President Bush grins:

Pretty funny huh?