Tom and Jerry cartoons of the sort mentioned are clearly racist. That does not mean that they were necessarily resented by Blacks in the 1940's as they are by Blacks in the present. I do not think that the sale or trade of these should be outlawed, though perhaps showing them over public airwaves is improper.
In the 1960's I lived in Mexico City where I attended college, studying for my Masters in Spanish. The largest movie theatre ion Mexico and perhaps in North America was the old Cine Sonora, which has over 4000 seats with two balconies. The price of admission on Sundays to the triple feature was $3.00 pesos, then the equivalent of 24¢ US. We used to kid that it was the "brick and stick" theatre: when you entered, they gave you a brick and a stick. The brick was for propping up your seat, the stick was to defend your brick. In reality, there was no brick or stick, but many of the seats were broken, so you needed to come on time or the best functional seats would be taken
The triple feature was first, a Mexican film, perhaps about La Revolución, perhaps about colonial times, perhaps about Masked Lucha Libre wrestlers. The second was a European film, this could be an art house film like Umberto D or And God Created Woman, or a Steve Reeves Roman Gladiator film. The Third film was always American, are usually something that had won an award.
The Cine Sonora was a noisy place. The European and American fims had subtitles, and you could hear a murmur of men reading the subtitles to their girlfriends. Everyone applauded heroic acts, the death of a bad guy and the end of the film. But the ONE FILM that always got the biggest applause was the cartoon, and by far the most popular cartoon figure at the Cine Sonora was Speedy González, the Fastest Mouse in all of México.
They laughed at Speedy outsmarting el señor pussycat, but they also laughed as much at Speedy's slow and dimwitted rodent buddies. It was not until years later that Mexican Americans began to complain about how racist Speedy Gonzalez was.
