It should be said that all people enjoy fashioning themselves as the truly aggrieved. The idea that black people have cornered the market on something as ancient and human as playing the victim is laughable. I am thinking of Preston Brooks beating down Charles Sumner for insulting the honor of South Carolina--and then getting a hero's welcome back home. I'm thinking of the Cuban-Americans and Elian Gonzales, or folks who organize their whole identities around flags of treason. One way of coping with the very human, and very distasteful, penchant for playing the victim is to claim that only the blacks do it--or that the blacks do it the most, or that they do it so much that it's become a culture. Not like those true stand-up Americans who've given themselves as martyrs in the War On Christmas.
That said, I don't get the uproar over this. Yeah, it's dead wrong, but on the list of things shortening the life-span of my kid, it doesn't rank. Plus racist art is ultimately bad art, and bad art tells me a lot about its consumers. The worst thing in the world would be for these idiots to go underground. No. I like them right here, caught in the shine of their own high beams. Right here. Right where I can see them.
UPDATE: This is a great point, " Lots of little kids who wouldn't otherwise encounter this (particular) crap are exposed to it in a context that is "mainstream." After all, WalMart are the schmucks who force entertainers to issue special sanitized versions of their CDs. "
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I can't get too exercised over these things existing in print as alleged "cultural artifacts" - although I doubt that most folks who consume them are doing research or historical exegesis - but having them on sale at WalMart - which is the retail equivalent of broadcast television - is, in fact, "outrageous." Lots of little kids who wouldn't otherwise encounter this (particular) crap are exposed to it in a context that is "mainstream." After all, WalMart are the schmucks who force entertainers to issue special sanitized versions of their CDs.
I can't get too exercised over these things existing in print as alleged "cultural artifacts" - although I doubt that most folks who consume them are doing research or historical exegesis - but having them on sale at WalMart - which is the retail equivalent of broadcast television - is, in fact, "outrageous." Lots of little kids who wouldn't otherwise encounter this (particular) crap are exposed to it in a context that is "mainstream." After all, WalMart are the schmucks who force entertainers to issue special sanitized versions of their CDs.
I was in Mexico in 2005 when the initial controversy erupted. My friend who was born and raised in Mexico asked "why does the US think they can dictate to us? We (Mexicans) never said anything about Speedy Gonzalez."
Two wrongs don't make a right but they make you see things from a different perspective.
Coates: you don't see how perpetuating stereotypes and images of black "ugliness" (which have a looooong history in American culture, as a cursory glance here: http://www.ferris.edu/JIMCROW/menu.htm would reveal) could be a BAD thing for how black people are perceived and even perceive themselves?
If you don't, you should ask this woman:
http://digitalfemme.com/journal/index.php?itemid=894
"Yeah, it's dead wrong, but on the list of things shortening the life-span of my kid, it doesn't rank."
I think you're looking at this through the eyes of a grown man who's less affect by how the world tries to define him; as opposed to a child who absorbs these kinds of messages like a sponge, if the messages aren't combated.
Couldn't they find someone who speaks Spanish to actually translate the damn thing & give some context? I mean, I doubt it would change much, but I'd like to know more than that the word "negro" (i.e. "black") appears frequently.
I own some old collector's item Windsor McCay "Little Nemo" comics that have an undeniably racist wild man character in them who pretty much runs around going Ooga Booga. I love them for the great art nouvea grace of the lines, imaginative story and historic significance - as an adult.
My son will get to read them - when he also is an adult and can appreciate them on the same level. Until then they are on the top closet shelf.
I agree that it is indeed a natural (or at least easy) tendency to wear the victim mantle. Ta-Nehisi, you expose your conservative-side because rejecting that mantle is pillar of conservate ideals and embracing it is a liberal ideal.
Now, there are real victims out there. And there are real liberals fighting for those victims. And this non-issue diminishes all genuine victims and those that claim to fight for them.
"I agree that it is indeed a natural (or at least easy) tendency to wear the victim mantle. Ta-Nehisi, you expose your conservative-side because rejecting that mantle is pillar of conservate ideals and embracing it is a liberal ideal."
In my lifetime, American conservatism has pretty much only been about trying to assure white straight Christian men that they are victims of liberals, minorities, gays, Muslims, Jews, atheists, feminists, abortion doctors and the ACLU. The last GOP president who didn't depend on such tripe to hold onto power was Eisenhower (who had a decent record on civil rights), who is probably the most popular Republican president among liberals since Lincoln.
Ironically, there's an issue of MemÃn where he goes to Texas with his soccer team and isn't served at a soda counter because the restaurant doesn't serve blacks. His (Mexican) friends stand up for him and go to jail. Now Walmart is banning the comic in Texas because it's racist.
Mexicans don't see it as racist, and in fact they see it as something that's stood up against racism. But the imagery in the U.S. is so tied to our own past that we can't see it otherwise, I guess. Maybe it's inappropriate for the U.S., but not for Mexico.