[...] The stamps were being offered on eBay for more than $200 for a full sheet. Hundreds of people lined up at Mexico City's main post office to buy them for 6.50 pesos, or about 60 cents, when they went on sale Friday.
Commentators in Mexico's press also expressed incomprehension at the complaints.
Novelist Elena Poniatowska, a noted supporter of leftist causes, was quoted in the newspaper La Jornada as calling the criticisms "absurd."
"In our country, the image of black people is one of enormous goodwill, which is reflected not only in characters like Memin Pinguin, but in popular songs ... like 'Little Black Watermelon,'" a song about an unruly black boy.
Some of their defense appeared to be founded what they see as a relative lack of knowledge about the history of blacks in Mexico.
"It's the United States, not Mexico, that has a history of slavery," wrote columnist Sergio Sarmiento in the newspaper Reforma.
In fact, Mexico had hundreds of thousands of slaves during the colonial period, though it banned slavery before the United States did.
Mexico did not have formal legal segregation nor did it experience a large-scale civil rights movement that focused on rooting out racism.
| As Morgan Fox's Associated Press (via San Francisco Chronicle) article "Mexico's Fox says new stamp not racist" makes clear, mutual incomprehension continues
posted in articles on July 1, 2005 12:03 PM | t (0)
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