Fr Glyn Jemmott, a priest who hails from Trinidad and Tobago has been making headlines in Mexico where he works as parish priest in El Ciruela (The Plum Tree), a poor fishing village about 150 miles south of the tourist resort of Apaculco.

One of the particularly interesting things about El Ciruela is that 98 percent of this parish comprise black Mexicans, who nationally account for a total of some 100,000 (.1 percent) of the total population of the country's 110 million people.

Padre Glyn, as he is known in the area, is one of the leaders of a group called the Mexico Black Association, which represents 50,000 black Mexicans living in the Costa Chica region of Mexico 's Pacific coast.

In July this group wrote a letter to President Fox calling on him to apologise for a set of stamps featuring a black comic book figure that US civil rights groups have slammed as racist.

The set of 5 stamps commemorate a comic book figure Menim Pinguin, from the decade of the 1940s, depicted as a black youngster with thick lips and a flat nose.

Declaring that the character was stereotypical and racist, the Black Association said that “Menim Pinguin rewards, celebrates, typifies and cements the distorted, mocking stereotypical and limited vision of black people in general.” The White House has said the stamps are offensive and have “no place in today's world”.

Rev Jesse Jackson, Rev Al Sharpton and leaders of other black Latino organisations have urged that the stamp be withdrawn. Critics say that like many comics of the time, Menim Pinguin reflects offensive views of blacks as lazy and mischievous.

In response to the criticism, President Fox refused to withdraw the commemorative stamp issue. The stamp is recognition of a “character very loved in Mexico and that has absolutely nothing discriminatory about it,” said the President, adding that he himself has been fond of the comic book since childhood.

“And it appears to me that it has evoked a great national unity… different views from outside are not well informed.” Fr Glyn strongly disagrees with President Fox: “The stamps are 101 percent offensive, there is no doubt about it” the St John Vianney trained priest who is a contemporary of Fr Terrence Montrose and Fr John Persaud told Reuters in a interview headlined by CNN.

“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,” he added.

Padre Glyn was working as a missionary in Mexico city when he learned about the blacks of Costa Chica. He asked to be moved to the El Ciruela parish and arrived 20 years ago to find low self esteem so ingrained that a black man did not believe Jemmott was a priest.

“Blacks are not fit to be priests. I've never seen a black priest.” Fr Glyn has created education and other programmes for several black towns in the region over the last decade and has seen a gradual change in attitudes and pride in the community's black roots.

The stamp controversy is not the first recent sign of tension between the Fox administration and black groups. Only last month, the Mexican President provoked widespread criticism in the US when in his attempt to defend the right of Mexicans to seek jobs in the US he declared that the Mexican migrant workers were making a vital contribution to the US economy because “they are prepared to do jobs that not even Blacks will do.”

The implied stereotype that blacks as a group are at the bottom of the social and economic spheres in the US, provoked angry reactions there, calls for President Fox to withdraw his remark and meetings between top black civil rights leaders and the Mexican President to pressure him to apologise to the US black community. President Fox subsequently withdrew the remark and apologised.

Fr Glyn, meanwhile, in his remote Mexican parish, responds to the vocation of the Church Universal to uphold human dignity and serve the poor and oppressed everywhere, and particularly in the missionary work of the Caribbean church far beyond the merely geographical bounds of the region.

The Catholic Standard