Respect for foreign cultures and their sometimes alien norms.
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.
Comic book character Memin Pinguin is “a disgrace,” an African-American activist says.
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.”
She’d never heard of “Memin Pinguin.” She bought a Spanish-English dictionary and tried translating but still didn’t like what she saw. [Video Watch what upset McGinty »]
“So I asked my boyfriend, does that look like a monkey to you?” she said. “And we went back and forth and he was like, no, that’s a black woman,” referring to the character’s Aunt Jemima-like mother.
McGinty and Houston community activist Quannel X want the comic books removed from the stores.
The article doesn’t mention the “race” of Shawnedria or Quannel. I’m sure that’s because it doesn’t make any difference.
Still, I’m glad folks like Quannel and Shawnedria are addressing the important problems:
HPD officials say that the City of Houston has recorded the fewest numbers of murders for the first quarter of this year since 2005.
The unofficial numbers show 78 murders were recorded through the first three months of this year.
Comment by ccoffer on 7/9 @ 6:35 pm #
Quannel X? Is that a monkey name? Like in a lab?
Comment by Ouroboros on 7/9 @ 6:39 pm #
So what does this mean for fat Albert and the Cosby Kids? (especially Mushmouth..)
Comment by Ouroboros on 7/9 @ 6:42 pm #
… and those characters with the big ole round, blue eyes in Japanese Manga.. They’re not Japanese at all, are they?! Theyre making fun of white people ! Racists!
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/9 @ 6:44 pm #
Also, Bob Herbert looks like a Klingon.
Comment by dre on 7/9 @ 6:47 pm #
“community activist Quannel X”
Quannel X you are no Community Organizer™
Comment by psycho... on 7/9 @ 7:00 pm #
Funny. Nowadays, it’s only in the very whitest of “white cultures” that such caricatures are uncommon (and such as Quannel X have arisen to take their place in the semiotic minstrelsy). Where upper-class white leftism is rare, the Jemimas roam free. And no one gives a fuck.
Memin’s not a Jemima-type, anyway, if I’m keeping my Mexican cartoons straight; he’s a monkey whose black-caricature bits are shorthand signifiers of coolness, just like they are on actual Mexicans. The “black=monkey” thing is pure Whitey thinking. Nice colonized mind you got there,
Aww shit! Sounds like somebody’s mama’s a crackerlover!
Comment by dre on 7/9 @ 7:03 pm #
Man where’s the big nose on the ‘toon?
Comment by happyfeet on 7/9 @ 7:09 pm #
This monkey guy gets dragged out periodically for this and that reason. Last time it was more just to point out that Mexicans had racial issues themselves so they shouldn’t point north and cry racism all the time. You think though maybe the media is sort of wanting to gin up some racism fodder just to sort of flavor the news in the run up to November? I’m thinking this is sort of a first in a series sort of thing. We’ll see, I guess.
Comment by raiderdav on 7/9 @ 7:41 pm #
Quannel is our local ex-con, Sharpton/Farrakhan wanna-be. For some unknown reason, local news outlets ask for his opinion. And I wouldn’t be too trusting the HPD reporting of murders. They like to under-report murders in order to look better in the national statistics: http://www.khou.com/news/defenders/investigate/stories/khou071119_tj_murdercount.1d78917e.html
Comment by cynn on 7/9 @ 7:49 pm #
This is sick. And demonstrative.
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/9 @ 7:51 pm #
A sphynx without secrets.
Comment by cynn on 7/9 @ 8:00 pm #
What is your point here, Dan? Egregious black caricatures might be questionable? Guessing peoples’ racial identities by their names and then dismissing their objections because they’re potential darkies? This must be a monumental joke. Edgy and Onion quality; I give it a 7.
Comment by McGehee on 7/9 @ 8:02 pm #
I have been living with the shame of the unkind caricatures of Scotsmen in old Warner Brothers and Disney cartoons.
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/9 @ 8:04 pm #
What is supposed to be sick? What is supposed to be demonstrative?
Comment by McGehee on 7/9 @ 8:07 pm #
And the distaff part of my heritage refused to ever buy me Lucky Charms® cereal. Because of the hatefulness.
Comment by McGehee on 7/9 @ 8:07 pm #
(…my mother and my dad’s mother being very, very Irish, y’see…)
Comment by cynn on 7/9 @ 8:08 pm #
So somehow the drop in Houston’s murder rates are somehow tied to slappin’ the blacks. Nice. This is putrid,
Comment by cynn on 7/9 @ 8:16 pm #
McGheehee: Don’t you think this might be taking ever nasty stereotypes a tad too far? After all, you craven drunks gave us the Kennedys and Saint Pat. Just look at that fucking picture. An abomination.
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/9 @ 8:19 pm #
You’re a nut, cynn, and you’re a cultural imperialist, to boot.
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/9 @ 8:22 pm #
Ooh, look how racist.
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/9 @ 8:24 pm #
Irish apes!
Comment by McGehee on 7/9 @ 8:26 pm #
I do believe I am about to be the first to present Cynn with a full-size, suitable-for-framing denunciation.
(ahem)
SOBRIETIST!
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/9 @ 8:27 pm #
BECAUSE OF THE HYPOCRISY!!!
Comment by cynn on 7/9 @ 8:27 pm #
Dan, I’m a nut for many reasons, but this has me perplexed. What do you mean by “cultural imperialst?” I completely agree with open expression; I don’t advocate supressing this disgusting cartoon. I also believe in spitting on it.
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/9 @ 8:31 pm #
Your suggestion that it is essentially–by its nature as a matter of ontological status–a racist image is cultural imperialism. You project your own standards of codification onto something produced in a completely different cultural milieu. You believe your values are universal.
In short, you are a cultural imperialist. You’re not saying, “I find this offensive.” You are saying, “This is offensive.”
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/9 @ 8:34 pm #
Memin Pinguin ought to be Keith Olbermann’s Worst Person in the World. I mean, compared to guys who murder their nieces whilst inducting them into child sex rings.
It’s just awful.
Comment by cynn on 7/9 @ 8:34 pm #
Well, I was never threatened by Fat Albert.
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/9 @ 8:36 pm #
Are you kidding? You’ve never felt his pimp hand, then.
Comment by cynn on 7/9 @ 8:41 pm #
So really, Dan, WHAT IS YOUR POINT?
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/9 @ 8:45 pm #
My point? People apt to take offense over a pretext so paltry are ninnies.
Comment by RTO Trainer on 7/9 @ 8:47 pm #
“Well, I was never threatened by Fat Albert.”
Obviously you never had to walk past him on a lonely poorly lit street at night.
(Can I get a denouncement?)
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/9 @ 8:48 pm #
Amen.
Comment by cynn on 7/9 @ 8:52 pm #
And therefore you think the complete reduction of a race or culture is A-OK. So the sombrero dudes lazing around is emblematic of Mexicans. The potbellied southern inbreds are still bootlegging. You know the drill; get me, I’m givin’ out wings.
Comment by B Moe on 7/9 @ 8:54 pm #
Or one of my favorites
http://www.cartoon-secrets.com/Photos/Hillbilly-Bears-cartoon.jpg
Comment by McGehee on 7/9 @ 8:57 pm #
Um, I think the reduction is being done by the people who insist on suppressing such things. After all, there’s such shame and humiliation in knowing that just because one’s skin is dark, one is obviously subhuman — right?
Comment by McGehee on 7/9 @ 8:57 pm #
I used to love Scrooge McDuck comic books.
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/9 @ 8:58 pm #
What do you know of this character? What do you know of Mexico?
I lived there and worked there. People whom I didn’t know hailed me as “guero”–whitey. It wasn’t unusual for people to call one another “skinny,” or “baldy,” or “darky,” or “fatty.” Nobody took offence.
The writer of the comic isn’t doing that. The people who feel offended are assigning that motive to a person who draws cartoons. Cartoons often have something in common with caricatures: the exaggeration of features for comedic effect.
I didn’t hear you screeching about Bush=chimp characterizations, cynn. Were those not reductionistic?
Comment by McGehee on 7/9 @ 8:58 pm #
I counted on my kindergarten classmates being sophisticated enough to know I wasn’t a greedy duck.
Comment by B Moe on 7/9 @ 8:58 pm #
And therefore you think the complete reduction of a race or culture is A-OK.
How about the complete reduction of the human race to lack the intelligence to recognize exagerated humorous caricatures to be exagerated humorous caricatures?
Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/9 @ 9:03 pm #
Dan, I refuse not to be offended. I find it hilarious that cynn is so upset. Oh, and cynn, here is my best Irish joke in case you want to piss on my ethnic heritage(and quit taking yourself so seriously):
Q;What is the difference between an Irish wake and an Irish wedding?
A:One less drunk!
Comment by cynn on 7/9 @ 9:09 pm #
So this is innocent humor. Caricatures. Got it. B. Moe: A uniquly large-headeed beast that routinely gets its snout stuck.
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/9 @ 9:12 pm #
Okay, cynn. You’ve got all the answers. Are the other characters in the comic less grotesque? Is this character represented as stupid?
Tell me what makes this more grotesque than Jughead, if you can.
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/9 @ 9:13 pm #
I’m wasting my time. You’re nothing but a pile of Pavlovian reflexes.
Comment by cynn on 7/9 @ 9:18 pm #
Look at the fucking picture. Is it not even mildly offensive? For God’s sake, I am all for the off-color shit. Blonde jokes, gay jokes, white-out on the monitor and all that. But this is nasty.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/9 @ 9:19 pm #
I was struck again the other day at how really just ugly that Maus book is. It’s not that I don’t get it, it’s just ick to look at.
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/9 @ 9:22 pm #
Okay. Please explain how that’s offensive compared with this.
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/9 @ 9:23 pm #
While you’re at it, tell me about monkey lips. Really Angelica Joliesque, aren’t they?
Comment by cynn on 7/9 @ 9:25 pm #
I don’t have any answer, Dan. I had questions, but those don’t seem to be entertained, so I’ll go. You essentially said that people were responding in a worthless (to you) way.
Comment by Jeff G on 7/9 @ 9:27 pm #
Q: Why did the monkey fall out of the tree?
A: It was dead.
Probably my favorite joke of all time. And if that makes me a racist, so be it.
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/9 @ 9:27 pm #
Here’s your chance to explain yourself. Please, knock yourself out.
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/9 @ 9:30 pm #
Did you know that more people are killed every year by
suicidalhomicidal coconuts than by sharks? True story.Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/9 @ 9:39 pm #
Shawnedria? Her parents had a sense of humor!
Comment by cynn on 7/9 @ 9:41 pm #
You guys are not only going to hell, you have to get chicken first.
Comment by lee on 7/9 @ 9:42 pm #
I think woody woodpecker is denigrating to redheads.
It’s just not right.
Comment by B Moe on 7/9 @ 9:43 pm #
Look at the fucking picture. Is it not even mildly offensive?
Did you look at that Hillbilly Bears link? Is that not even mildly offensive? So what? The whole world ain’t a humorless bitch, cynn, you all need to understand what the fuck diversity actually means.
Comment by happyfeet on 7/9 @ 9:43 pm #
oh. It sounded plausible to me.
Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/9 @ 9:46 pm #
What about “Alice the Goon?”
Comment by lee on 7/9 @ 9:52 pm #
I think some people (and more every day) are just walking around offended, looking for an offense.
Comment by cynn on 7/9 @ 9:53 pm #
So what does diversity mean, B Moe? The free reign to slam whatever self-identified group that chaps your hide that week? The freedom to free-associate with whatever group you want>
Comment by RTO Trainer on 7/9 @ 9:56 pm #
Cynn,
Try to be clear. What here is a “slam?”
Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/9 @ 9:59 pm #
Algore the goon
Comment by RTO Trainer on 7/9 @ 10:03 pm #
OW!
D@%nit, Seven.
Comment by cynn on 7/9 @ 10:04 pm #
To me, a slam is anything encompassing a flippant dismissal to an outright pecking apart. Thankfully, I don’t let it define what I say.
Comment by RTO Trainer on 7/9 @ 10:05 pm #
Yeah….that’s not clear.
Maybe try actually refering to the example at hand?
Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/9 @ 10:06 pm #
You call that clear?
Comment by B Moe on 7/9 @ 10:08 pm #
To me, a slam is anything encompassing a flippant dismissal…
Says the fucking Queen of the flippant dismissal.
Comment by cynn on 7/9 @ 10:10 pm #
Well, I would think it’s obvious. A slam is an attack. Individual reasons notwithstanding. For example, black people and their threatening culture.
Comment by B Moe on 7/9 @ 10:15 pm #
While MemÃÂn suffers a degree of racist taunting, especially in the first issues, the characters mocking him are depicted as either cruel or ignorant. As the story progresses, his race becomes less of an issue.
In one famous issue, MemÃÂn, having read that Cleopatra VII of Egypt took milk baths to lighten her skin, tries the same treatment. His mother weeps with sorrow that her son would want to change his skin color. A repentant MemÃÂn decides to be proud of his race and color to honor his good mother.
Horrid. Absolutely unacceptable.
Comment by Jeff G on 7/9 @ 10:15 pm #
If others adopt the trappings of a particular culture, why are they not also part of that culture? Is there a “black culture” available only to blacks, for instance? And if so, how does that work, exactly?
Comment by RTO Trainer on 7/9 @ 10:15 pm #
Would a “flippant dismissal” include commenting on a subject one knows very little about–perhaps, maybe even particularly when a little more knowledge of the subject would show that the commenter had prejudged the subject?
(prejudged–is that like prejudice?)
Comment by happyfeet on 7/9 @ 10:20 pm #
“If others adopt the trappings of a particular culture, why are they not also part of that culture?”
it’s gerbils, you morons.*
Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/9 @ 10:24 pm #
it’s gerbils, you morons.
Lemmiwinks
Comment by RTO Trainer on 7/9 @ 10:27 pm #
I thought it was bunnies….
Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/9 @ 10:30 pm #
Some spelunking rodent!
Comment by Bravo Romeo Delta on 7/9 @ 10:30 pm #
Cynn,
As far as I can tell, it’s like this: my Dago, Pollack, and Mick buddies all give each other a huge amount of crap. For that matter, my African-American colleagues of partially Irish decent dish out Mick jokes with the best of Belfast.
In this case, I can say that I was, at a bare minimum, taken aback by the cartoon image above. However, is it “allowable” for brown Mexicanish folks to make such comparisons? What’s the intent? If the intent doesn’t matter, then does that mean there are such things as absolute moral positions that don’t depend on culture?
BRD
Comment by Ouroboros on 7/9 @ 10:40 pm #
I don’t know any monkey jokes but here’s my fav knock knock.
Knock Knock
Who’s there?
Interrupting Cow
Interrupting Cow wh….
Moo!
Hahahahahah! That just kills me…
(Ok.. You gotta say it out loud.. Hard to appreciate in writing..)
Comment by B Moe on 7/9 @ 10:41 pm #
The first time I hear a black person complain about Cletus the slack jawed yokel on the Simpson’s I might give a shit about any of this. Probably not, but at least then it wouldn’t look like nothing but grandstanding for more handouts.
Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/9 @ 10:43 pm #
Here’s a monkey joke for you:
Q:What did the monkey say when he got his tail caught in the lawnmower?
A:It won’t be long now!
Comment by lee on 7/9 @ 10:44 pm #
You were at a bare minimum, taken aback by the cartoon image above.
Really?
Huh.
I guess I’ve just been desensitized by Amerikkka, ‘cuz I didn’t think it was remarkable at all, being a cartoon and all.
Comment by Ouroboros on 7/9 @ 10:46 pm #
Hey, if you’re going to be insulted by lowest common denominator African American Stereotypes in the media, check out Nancy’s jive talkin, cornbread baking pot connection in Weeds..
Comment by cynn on 7/9 @ 10:47 pm #
Hey, BRD, much love and support. No, my point was that the political shits only care about the irrelevant skin color unless they they can make an issue of it. Some day this war’s gonna end…
Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/9 @ 10:51 pm #
Geez, if I wanted to be depressed, I could’ve gone to Perfesser Caric’s blog, or Feministe.
Here’s a website for therapy cartoons.
Comment by Bravo Romeo Delta on 7/9 @ 10:53 pm #
Cynn,
As a member of the human race, I would like to officially welcome you, as another member of the human race to…
Yah – the greatest repository of human nature ever found – the human race.
C’est la WTF.
BRD
Comment by cynn on 7/9 @ 11:00 pm #
All aboard, bud. So glad you’re here.
Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/9 @ 11:06 pm #
Get aboard the Love Train.
Comment by Ouroboros on 7/9 @ 11:10 pm #
The backstory on this Memin character is way more interesting than the bitching and moaning from The Insulted.. The comic book has actually anti-racism potlines over the 60 years it’s been around.
Check it out here at Wiki.
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 7/9 @ 11:13 pm #
I think woody woodpecker is denigrating to redheads.
Also to penis amputees and sufferers from priapism.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 7/10 @ 6:24 am #
“#Comment by McGehee on 7/9 @ 8:57 pm #
I used to love Scrooge McDuck comic books.”
KILTIST!
Comment by Dread Cthulhu on 7/10 @ 6:40 am #
cynn: “The free reign to slam whatever self-identified group that chaps your hide that week? The freedom to free-associate with whatever group you want>”
Actually, cynn, it is the First Amendment that gives that right. Frankly, I prefer it when the idiots talk — if we shut them up, we couldn’t pick them out of a crowd. For the record, it was not guess as to Quannel X’s race–he’s another racialist / racist idiot.
The other thing to note that things that are deemed racist *now* were, like as not, not seen as racist at their inception. I am given to understand that even “Coal Black and the Sebbin’ Dwarves” (A now banned “Merrie Melody” cartoon) was positively received by the African American community of the day — it had both positive and negative characters, albeit in charicature (which begs the question, what do you use in a stylized cartoon, if not a charicature??), high energy, etc. You can argue they didn’t know any better, but that risks accusations of patronization, etc.
Comment by BJTex on 7/10 @ 7:23 am #
My concern has always been that the easily outraged looking at pictures without taking the time to understand the context risk blurring the bias to the point where real racism gets obscured. Our rush to legislate “hate speech” and “hate crimes” expends our outrage on the irrelevent or, worse, unnecessary bloviating which creates a climate where all are looking over their shoulders or deperately trying to define the parameters of insult.
The picture would have given me pause but now that I understand the context (the most important being the fact that the character is not African American but Cuban/Mexican) then I understand the characature as a reflection of the story line.
Pictures in and of themselves are not racist unless they clearly point to a narrative that seeks to denegrate the race. cynn’s outragem is a reflection of rampant political correctness which results in things like Columbia students declaring Minutemen appearances “hate speech” and toddlers rejecting certain foreign foods as “Burgeoning Cultural Imperialists.”
As a Portuguese and a member of a legally certified minority (at least in the state of New Jersey,) this is not a world in which I want to live.
That having been said, Costco was having a two for one sale on denunciations so I can be generous. Blanket denunciations to all!
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 7/10 @ 7:57 am #
I’m with McGehee. Those of us who are of at least partial Irish descent should refuse to buy Lucky Charms. That gay leprechaun is really insulting (not that there’s anything wrong with being a gay leprechaun).
Comment by SevenEleventy on 7/10 @ 8:00 am #
Erin go bragh!
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 7/10 @ 8:02 am #
I prefer “Erin go braless”, myself. Especially if it happened to be Erin Gray in her prime.
Comment by Rob Crawford on 7/10 @ 8:48 am #
Isn’t Speedy Gonzales pretty popular in Mexico? And Disney’s Three Caballeros (Donald Duck, Jose something, and Panchito) as well?
Some people go looking for reasons to be offended. The rest of us just tru to get on with life.
Comment by McGehee on 7/10 @ 9:23 am #
Maybe what the Offended could do is declare the Memin the one and only prophet of God, thus making it a mortal sin to portray him in cartoons.
Problem solved?
Comment by MarkD on 7/10 @ 9:51 am #
Jesse Jackson wants to geld Obama, and the offense du jour is a cartoon? I live in a strange world.
Comment by coco on 7/10 @ 2:37 pm #
if you want to find out more about anti-black caricatures, I would say, check out the jim crow museum’s articles on
little black sambo
and
picanninys
this is what the site says about how to distinguish a caricature from a racist stereotype:
Comment by McGehee on 7/10 @ 3:46 pm #
That would be the “they all look alike to me” school of caricature.
Andn if every dark-skinned character in the Memin Pinguin comics looked just like Memin, there’d be a case.
Comment by McGehee on 7/10 @ 3:48 pm #
Come to think of it, Memin makes me think of Pasquale Gumbo.
Comment by baldilocks on 7/10 @ 5:56 pm #
Ya know, I was with you all about the equal opportunity offense. But are they asking for money? If not, then I’d say that it’s you who is playing into a stereotype–a more dangerous one.
BTW, if such things actually did offend you, why would it take a black person to speak out on behalf of “Cletus” stereotypes? If your principles lead you to speak out on behalf of others, it shouldn’t matter whether they would do the same for you or not, B Moe. If it *does* matter, they’re not your principles; they’re your commodities.
Comment by cynn on 7/10 @ 8:47 pm #
Yeah, I’m huffed and puffed. Why can’t I get Song of the South thesedays?
Comment by cynn on 7/10 @ 8:56 pm #
I will assume the junior position on this, since the answer is important to me as well.
Comment by cynn on 7/10 @ 9:01 pm #
baldilocks, I mean. Smart guy. Haven’t paid adequete attention.