Speculation on Daft Punk lyrics ignores the fact that "Mexican monkey" is a racist term

On several occasions, while obtaining my caffeine fix from a convenience store before I boarded a bus to work, I heard over the speaker a current “hit” that when I chose to listen carefully, I found rather “disturbing.” Over and over again I heard the lyrics “We’re rough on Mexican lucky,” “We’re rough on Mexican monkey,” and We’re rough on Mexican.” The term “Mexican monkey” is as bad as it sounds; according to the “urban dictionary,” it refers to a person who is half-Mexican and half-black. “They are lazy and don't speak English”—meaning they have stereotypical bad traits of both parties. Is the use of this term a matter of ignorance of its meaning, or was the group aware of its racist implications and making a personal political “statement”?

Now, before people say “conspiracy theory,” the official music video of “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk does have a “Mexican” theme. In a club there is a neon representation of Mexico in the background; the singer is driving through a desert; many of the “extras” are Latino; and there are people dressed in Star Wars-type storm trooper outfits patrolling what appears to be a border crossing. The band members are also seen wearing these outfits on stage. The Internet chatter suggests that I’m not the only person who has been “hearing things” in the song, and others claim that the use of auto-tune or a vocoder  has “confused” listeners as to what was “actually” said. 

I decided to get to the bottom of this “mystery” by downloading the song and giving it a careful listen-to. According to a summation of the lyrics I found, the song starts off like this: 

We've come too far

To give up who we are,

So let's raise the bar

And our cups to the stars.

The singing does adhere to this set of lyrics, although you have to be paying real close attention. Then there is this:

She's up all night to the sun,

I'm up all night to get some.

She's up all night for good fun,

I'm up all night to get lucky.

The singing starts to get real slurry here, but not enough that I can say for certain that the singer meant to say “Mexican.” But after this the “trouble” begins. During the chorus I hear “We’re up on Mexican song” and “We’re up on Mexican lucky.” There is nothing offensive about this, but it is clear that the word “Mexican” is being uttered and it is intentional that listeners are meant to hear this. The middle section after the main chorus is supposed to go something like this:

We're up all night to get lucky.

We're up all night to get lucky.

We're up all night to get lucky.

We're up all night to get lucky.

It goes on like this for about a minute, except not these precise words. Now, I’ve put on my headphones and listened carefully to this section several times. I don’t care what the apologists and amateur “experts” say, there is no doubt that the intention was not to “confuse” listeners. There is a clear difference between “We’re up” and “We’re rough.’ You can’t conjoin the words “we’re” and “up” into that latter phrase; if you did, you would have to come up with something like “We rup,” which makes no sense. 

Also, even if you run the phrase “all night to get” through an auto-tune or vocoder 100 times, you still won’t “create” the sound of “Mexican” unless you actually said it the first time. I also detected that the word “monkey” was sung in place of “lucky” only at certain times, as if this was supposed to be a “catch me if you can” trick. Finally, the word “lucky”—or “monkey”--was omitted altogether at certain points, leaving only “We’re rough on Mexican.” What was the “message” behind that?

I’m not going to speculate overmuch about what the meaning is behind all of this; the intent may be social commentary or racist. Take your pick. Regardless of the truth of the matter, I frankly have been surprised that no one else on the Net has speculated about why it was necessary for people to “hear” the racist term “Mexican monkey” and expect nothing to be said about it. Perhaps it is a statement of the “acceptability” of negative stereotypes expressed openly and without fear of contradiction.