MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) -- President Vicente Fox said Friday that U.S. activists who have called a new Mexican postage stamp racist don't understand the issue and should read the comic book.
"They don't have information, frankly," Fox said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.
U.S. black activists and the White House have criticized the stamp featuring Memin Pinguin, a sort of Jim Crow-era image of a black child.
"All Mexico loves the character," Fox said, adding that he himself was fond of it.
He said White House spokesman Scott McClellan should have had more information before objecting on Thursday to it as an example of racial stereotyping.
U.S. black activists, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton and leaders of other black and Latino organizations have criticized the stamp and urged it be withdrawn.
Earlier Friday, Fox's spokesman Ruben Aguilar said the government of Mexico "emphatically rejects these complaints, which are the products of lack of knowledge or people who want publicity," Aguilar told reporters, though he did not name those to whom he referred.
"By no means is Mexico considering the possibility" of withdrawing the stamp, Aguilar said, accusing critics of being "people who want to take advantage of this ... to seek publicity within American society."
On Thursday, Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez had called the criticisms "a total lack of respect for our culture."
The stamps were being offered at prices exceeding $200 for a full sheet Friday on the eBay Internet auction site. Hundreds of people lined up at Mexico City's main post office to buy them for 6.50 pesos (about 60 U.S. cents).
