CBS News reports that a new postage stamp issued by the Mexican government has prompted criticisms of racism and cultural insensitivity from Blacks in the U.S. As shown below, the stamp supposedly portrays a traditional character in Mexican comic books, “Memin Pinguin,” whom the Mexicans say has actually served to promote cultural tolerance over the years:

In Washington, the White House objected, saying that “racial stereotypes are offensive no matter what their origin.” The Rev. Jesse Jackson branded the stamp “an insult” and asked Mexico to withdraw it from the market. . . . But Ruben Aguilar, a spokesman for President Vicente Fox, said the comic book has promoted understanding and family values for decades and deserved to be enshrined on a stamp. . . . “I respect the reverend Jesse Jackson’s opinion, but we think that he is uninformed about the historic role of this series in Mexican culture to combat racism and promote family values,” he said.

Carlos Munoz, a professor emeritus at the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, said “people in the Fox administration, and perhaps even Fox himself, need a lesson in African contribution to Mexican history.” “It’s a manifestation of the ignorance, of the racism that continues to exist in Mexican culture,” Munoz said. “Mexico, like the USA, is a very racist society. Mexico has just been more successful at ignoring its African culture than the U.S.”

The article notes that this disagreement over cultural perceptions follows on the heels of Mexican President Vicente Fox’s recent comments that Mexican immigrants to the U.S. take jobs that Blacks don’t want, a notion that provoked anger from Black leaders but is an assertion that is actually supported by many sociologists.

It seems pretty clear to me that Mexicans do not have the same sense of historical imagery and its links to racism that American Blacks have, and how this “sambo” caricature is intrinsically linked to racist stereotypes against Blacks in the U.S. I agree with Professor Munoz that it is indeed sad that so many Mexicans are apparently impervious to the history of American racism against Blacks.

In a larger context however, I can’t help but also see these incidents as perhaps a symbol of the emerging friction between Hispanics/Latinos and Blacks in the U.S.. Yes, I realize that the stamp incident involves Mexicans, not Mexican Americans. Nonetheless, in our globalized and transnational society, everything associated with Mexicans is projected onto Mexican Americans and vice versa, whether we like it or not.

Specifically, Hispanics/Latinos have already displaced Blacks as the U.S.’s largest community of color and are starting to challenge Blacks as the most economically, politically, and culturally powerful racial/ethnic minority group in the U.S. Hispanics (Mexicans being the largest Hispanic group) are increasingly flexing their collective political and cultural muscles while Blacks may be digging in to defend what societal power they still have.

And as sociologists will tell you, when there is competition among groups, there will be hostility and conflict between them as well.