Fox Regrets Racial Remark

Mexican President Apologizes For Comment About Black Workers

(AP)  The dispute reflects Fox's growing frustration with U.S. immigration policy and deteriorating relations between the two nations.

The Mexican government is expected to send a diplomatic letter to the United States this week protesting recent measures that include requiring states to verify that people who apply for a driver's license are in the country legally, making it harder for migrants to gain amnesty, and overriding environmental laws to build a barrier along the California border with Mexico.

The measures have been widely criticized in Mexico, where residents increasingly see the United States as adopting anti-migrant policies.

Even Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, the archbishop of Mexico City, criticized the U.S. policy as ridiculous and defended Fox's comment, saying: "The declaration had nothing to do with racism. It is a reality in the United States that anyone can prove."

While Mexico has a few, isolated black communities, the population is dominated by descendants of the country's Spanish colonizers and its native Indians. Comments that would generally be considered openly racist in the United States generate little attention here.

One afternoon television program regularly features a comedian in blackface chasing actresses in skimpy outfits, while a popular advertisement for a small, chocolate pastry called the "negrito" — the little black man — shows a white boy sprouting an afro as he eats the sweet. Many people have nicknames based on skin color.

Victor Hugo Flores, a 30-year-old bond salesman, cringed when asked what he thought of Fox's comment, but said it isn't too different from popular sayings celebrating what Mexicans see as a strong work ethic among blacks.

"It was bad, but it really isn't racist," he said. "Maybe the president shouldn't have said it. But here we say things like, 'He works like a black person,' and it's normal."