The 'Real World' of Sen. Allen
By Eugene Robinson
Friday, August 18, 2006; A21
Okay, I'm willing to believe the senator is ignorant of primate taxonomy and Belgian slang -- he's all about good-ol'-boy bonhomie, not Renaissance-man erudition. I don't buy the rest of his explanation, though -- that he was trying to refer to Sidarth's haircut, which he thought was a mohawk. I also don't buy his claim that he meant no offense.
I think he was playing to the crowd by singling out the one person who didn't belong there, not because he was a spy from a rival campaign -- shadowing is standard campaign practice these days -- but because he looked "foreign" (my word, not his). I think he came up with "Macaca" as a kind of generic name for a foreigner who appeared to be from the Indian subcontinent, or someplace over there where people have dark skin and straight black hair. Why else would he add the "welcome to America" bit if not to emphasize Sidarth's apparent foreignness?
Yes, he was obviously singling out the furriner. But he didn't just "come up" with 'macaca.' I think he was betrayed by his subconscious.
[A]nyone who speaks French knows what a Macaque is. "Macaque" is French for monkey. And George Allen speaks French.
Here is a quote from the president of the University of Virginia, Patricia Cormier at UVA's commencement exercises in Spring 2005 introducing Senator George Allen:
"A little known fact about Senator Allen is that his undergraduate education was enhanced substantially by his excellent performance in French class, taught by none other than Dr. Raymond Cormier, visiting professor of French at Longwood, and my husband! I have up here on the podium the gradebook, and he got a very good grade. No wonder the senator can applaud his superior education."
http://longwood.edu/... (Google is your friend!)
So now we know he was lying when he said he didn't know what it means. Was it a racial slur?
George Bush speaks spanish. If he called someone of color the spanish word for monkey... well you get the picture.
And not only is it the French word for monkey, it is a known racial slur in his mother's home country of Tunisia. Hell, I am from Louisiana and unfortunately I have heard it much too often in reference to blacks amongst my French speaking relative (including I'm ashamed to say my parents).
That's a minor flaw in the op-ed, though.
Let's assume for the moment that the Macaca moment was not premeditated, that it was an ad lib. That means Allen instinctively or subconsciously believed that drawing a line between his white audience and the darker, foreign-looking Sidarth was at that moment good politics. It was a way of defining "us" and "them," and the thing is that it worked, drawing a hearty laugh from the crowd.
Um, maybe I spoke too quickly. Seems he spotted it...
Because of his swagger and personality, Allen is often likened to George W. Bush. The president, for all his manifold faults, is one of the few politicians who really does understand the changing face of America. I'm beginning to think that perhaps Allen understands it, too -- at least well enough to know what buttons to push among white audiences.
Senator, I don't think you're as ignorant as you claim.
Yeah, he nailed it. I retract my complaint.
