I have to laugh at the way in which other people want to drag black folks into their arguments. Does this mean that black folks are no longer considered a despised class of laborers? Or is El Presidente Fox telling Anglos that Mexicano immigrants are now more useful to them than their native born Negritos?

Maybe he'll propose a swap when he meets with Condi and George. I wonder what the rate of exchange would be. The U.S. takes three Mexicans - full of dignity, willpower and capacity for work - and gives Mexico one black in exchange who will be willing to do work that not even Mexicanos want to do anymore in Mexico. Oh! I forgot there is no work in Mexico.

Maybe these forward thinking political leaders will create a new Lend-Lease program. Mexico will guarantee the U.S. so many barrels of oil for every Mexican immigrant that the U.S. allows to enter the country. The number of barrels the U.S. receives could be based on factors like the immigrant's age, education, skills and the length of time they plan to stay in the U.S. Intangible factors like the degree to which they exhibit qualities like dignity, will and a capacity for work can also be counted toward the number of barrels of oil we would receive. The less skills and education the perspective immigrant has the more oil Mexico would have to give us in exchange. This system would allow Mexico to get rid of its surplus labor and it would permit Americans to continue driving their gas guzzling SUVs without fearing a precipitous rise in gas prices. This is a win-win situation for everyone and it would be market-based. How many barrels of oil is the average Mexican worth?

I have to laugh at the way in which other people want to drag black folks into their arguments.

I'm not amused either.

Fox said "not even Black people."  That means white folks won't take those jobs either and I don't see them acting like someone twisted their nipple.

It's one thing when an American official asses up. It's another thing when an official from a foreign government says his people are so upstanding they'll happily clean toilets for less than it takes to live on...a thing I care little about.

I can't help thinking about what the response would have been if Presidente Fox had worked up the courage to speak the truth and say that Mexicans, because of the conditions in their country, were willing to be paid less to do jobs that white people don't want to do even if they were paid more than Mexicans. What he did instead was half-step and drag black folks into an argument between Anglos whose primary language is English and Anglos whose primary language is Spanish. If Fox didn't learn anything else by acquiring his college degree in the U.S. he learned that kicking black people is a time honored tradition here even if black folks are not part of the problem or the solution.