Memin Pinguin or Speedy Gonzalez

On the heels of Mexican President, Vicente Fox's comment in May, that Mexican immigrants in the United States did jobs "not even blacks" would do, comes the most offensive stamp you've ever seen. Mexico's tiny black community, the Asociacion Mexico Negro, which represents some 50,000 blacks, demanded Monday that President Fox apologize for a set of stamps featuring a black comic book figure that U.S. civil rights groups have slammed as racist.

The stamp features Memin Pinguin, a 1940s comic book character whose looks, stereotypical and racist, with thick lips, a flat nose and monkey-like antics embody outdated ideas about blacks, like many comic books of the time. Mexico said that like Speedy Gonzalez that debuted in the United States in 1953, the Memin Pinguin character shouldn't be interpreted as a racial slur.

"At this point in time, it was probably pretty insensitive" to issue the stamp, said Elisa Velazquez, an anthropologist who studies Mexico's black communities for the National Institute of Anthropology and History. "This character is a classic, but it's from another era," Velazquez said. "It's a stereotype and you don't want to encourage ignorance or prejudices."

Rev. Glyn Jemmott, a Catholic priest in the 98 percent black village of El Ciruelo in Guerrero state told Reuters, "what is evident is the level of tolerance of racism that exists in the country. We are accustomed to racism to the point where anyone who dares question it runs the risk of being considered unpatriotic."

President Fox said that U.S. activists who have called a new Mexican postage stamp racist don't understand the issue and should read the comic book. "All Mexico loves the character," Fox said, adding that he himself was fond of it.