So fair to say Mexican President Vicente Fox has officially received his baptism by fire in American race relations.

I've been following this story since Sunday morning, when I read that Fox, perturbed at growing animosity between America and Mexico over, um, "guest workers," said that the Mexicans, his people, do work that even blacks won't do. Yes, that is what he said.

And in America, talk like that just doesn't shine.

Fox probably thought he was being either diplomatic or clever, yet instead managed to step on a live public relations' hand grenade.

Furthermore, I was trying to figure out if he thought his comment was in any way complimentary to our - say it again - Mexican guest workers. The sentiment, as I read it, appears to be: no human in their right mind would want this job, so lets get a bunch of Mexicans to do it instead.

Maybe my view is askew, but that's the way I read his quote the first time, and the more I've followed the story - Fox has stopped short of officially apologizing, but did call America's race-swindler Jesse Jackson to apologize - the more that's what his quote sounded like.

According to one story, it was more of an error lost in the translation:

"Many Mexicans did not see Fox's remark about blacks as offensive. Blackface comedy, while demeaning to many Americans, is still considered funny here and many people hand out nicknames based on skin color."

That's the funny part of the story, though. Fox wasn't talking about the races in his home nation, he was talking about them and what they do and do not do here in America, a place where we take our race talk pretty seriously. We haven't become Balkanized yet, but we're slowly moving that way so touchy are we about race, specifically black-white-brown race cards and characterizations.

Here's the quote that really caught my attention, one of those that came in reaction to the reaction of Fox's comments:

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

So, the head Catholic in Mexico City sees nothing wrong with the quote either, and goes on to point out that it is proveable.

The latter part of that statement remains to be seen. It's not a fair comparison, since a good number of illegal immigrants work for wages far below the minimum, and nobody in America who is legal ever would. It's not a matter of work ethic, it's a matter of common sense.

The fact is Mexico seems hell bent on moving its poor and downtrodden into the United States as fast as possible, aiding in the bankrupting of, among other things, our fragile health care, education and social welfare systems. It's like Fox and other are encouraging the people of his own nation to leave and go to a different one, a perplexing political point of view, but one that makes sense.

American money spends quite nicely in Mexico, because green is the only color that really matters in America.

Ciao.