Highly offensive: Karen Juanita Carrillo examines the ongoing currency of racist curios. (Culture).

"Ay, yie-yie-yieeee! "I am dee Frito Bandito!" the Frito-Lay Company's infamously caricatured Mexican American advertising mascot used to sing on TV commercials:

"I love Frito's Corn Chips/I love dem I do/I love Ftito's Corn Chips/I take dem from you!"

As a pudgy, greasy, illiterate-sounding, jolly thief, the Frito Bandito was an early 1970s racist offense. It took four years for Frito-Lay to pull the image from its ad campaigns.

During that time, the company's years of aggressively marketing the symbol--as a pencil eraser, a toy ring, and even as the feature on a "Wanted for Theft" poster--made Frito Bandito items a hot commodity. A writer on the toy collector's website ToyNfo.com notes that, "The controversy plus the age of the Frito Bandito, makes anything with his likeness quite collectible today.... A small pencil-eraser image of this gun-toting junk-food bandit, in good condition, can bring up to $20 today."

The Frito Bandito is part of a growing trend in the world of racist collectibles. Like Aunt Jemima, Fu Manchu, and Redskin Indians, the Frito Bandito is a stereotyped ethnic image that may ignite controversy, but is also quickly becoming an income-generating antique.

Activist groups are reliably boycotting and petitioning to stop the sale of these items. What's strange, though, is to find that some of the newest consumers of these antiques are members of the same ethnic groups its stereotypes are slurring. Scores of recent magazine articles have featured middle-class African Americans finding their niche in the world of antiquing by collecting derogatory black memorabilia. Others, both white and non-white, are debating the merits of bucking political correctness and daring to purchase racially "edgy" items. Under the premise that "we could all use a laugh," or that racist antiques are collectible documentation of "how bad things used to be," ethnic memorabilia sell like hotcakes in online auctions and other markers. These reminders of the ugly faces of racism continue to have new permutations and continued shelf life.

To the Highest Bidder