Thanks to anti-Mexican comments on a popular TV show, Brits are being seen as xenophobic.

[pampango]

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/mexico/110201/BBC-racist-mexican-stereotypes-top-gear

It has always been great being a Brit in Mexico. When people ask where you are from, they are delighted to know you are not American, the country that absorbed the northern third of Mexico and whose border patrol agents regularly round up migrants.

After some childish guffaws, presenter Richard Hammond launched into his rant. “Why would you want a Mexican car? Because cars reflect national characteristics don’t they,” Hammond said. “Mexican cars are just going to be lazy, feckless, flatulent, overweight, leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat.”

Then to add insult to injury, co-presenter Jeremy Clarkson personally attacked the Mexican ambassador. “We won’t get any complaints about this because at the Mexican embassy the ambassador’s going to be sitting there with a remote control like this,” Clarkson said, slumping in the chair, snoring.

Clarkson was wrong about that one. Mexican Ambassador Eduardo Medina Mora wrote a letter demanding an apology. “The presenters of the program resorted to outrageous, vulgar and inexcusable insults to stir bigoted feelings against the Mexican people, their culture, as well as their official representative in the United Kingdom,” he wrote. “Although casual banter is an essential component of the program’s appeal, humor never justifies xenophobia. It is not a matter of taste but of basic principles.”
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At first I thought he called Mexicans "lazy and shiftless". Where have I heard that stereotype before? :(

Didn't realize that the British had a stereotype of Mexicans. Thought the relatively few bigots over there restricted their stereotypes to Poles or Bulgarians or Muslims. Got a feeling these radio guys are in some pretty hot water now.