Wal-Mart has removed from its shelves a Mexican comic book which some have deemed as racist. "Memin Pinguin" features a dark-skinned protagonist with exaggeratedly thick lips and “bug eyes.” Wal-Mart recently started offering the comic in areas with large populations of Latino customers such as Texas and Miami. Yet one African-American patron was shocked when she found the caricatures:
“They are calling him names. They call him an animal in one section. His mom is spanking his butt and it looks like they are drowning him,” said (Shawnedria) McGinty, who went so far as to buy a Spanish dictionary to better understand the comic books.
As Guanabee observed, this isn’t the first time "Memin Pinguin" has been controversial in the U.S.:
“Memin Pinguin” caused a stir in the States a couple of years back when the Mexican government issued a postal stamp commemorating the character. The comic book was then reissued after not having been published for a number of years. So it’s a wee bit surprising, given the blacklash those stamps received, that Wal-Mart would decide to carry it in its stores. In the United States nonetheless! Now they are feeling the wrath of the African American community.
Image- CNN
Sources- CNN, Dallas Morning News, Reuters, Guanabee
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