http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/15/AR2006081501210.html

Quote :

"Allen on Damage Control After Remarks to Webb Aide By Michael D. Shear and Tim Craig Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, August 16, 2006; A01 RICHMOND, Aug. 15 -- Sen. George Allen on Tuesday sought to contain the political damage from remarks he made to a Fairfax County man that dredged up charges of racial insensitivity -- allegations that have dogged him for years as governor, senator and now presidential hopeful. Despite a quick apology Monday, criticism poured in about Allen's use of the word "Macaca" to address a volunteer for the campaign of his Democratic opponent, James Webb, and also about another Allen comment, "Welcome to America." Democrats, left-wing bloggers and civil rights groups called him "insensitive" and "racist," while some conservatives called him "foolish" and "mean." The question was fiercely debated all day: Was "Macaca," which literally means a genus of monkey, a deliberate racist epithet or a weird ad-libbed word with no meaning? And what was Allen trying to say by singling out the young man of Indian descent? Allen's defenders rushed to his side, saying the comments, though careless, do not reflect what is inside the senator's heart. Sudhakar Shenoy, an Indian business executive from Fairfax who has known Allen for years, said he "has been an incredible friend to Indians" and is not a racist. "I'd stake everything I have that George is not that kind of a guy," Shenoy said. In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, Allen (R-Va.) said his remarks Friday to S.R. Sidarth, who at the time was videotaping an Allen campaign event on Webb's behalf, "have been greatly misunderstood by members of the media." He said Monday that "Macaca" was a play on "Mohawk," a nickname given to Sidarth by the Allen campaign because of his hairstyle. In Tuesday's statement, Allen said he "made up a nickname for the cameraman, which was in no way intended to be racially derogatory. Any insinuations to the contrary are completely false." The comments were made at a campaign stop in the southwestern Virginia town of Breaks, where Allen spoke to about 100 supporters. Moments after greeting the crowd, Allen repeatedly pointed at Sidarth, called him "Macaca, or whatever his name is" and went on to say, "Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia," as the crowd laughed. With the video of Allen's remarks available around the globe via Youtube.com and other Web sites, the Virginia controversy became one of the most blogged-about topics on the Internet, according to the Technorati Web site, which tracks entries on 51.3 million blogs. That thrust Sidarth, 20, a volunteer working as the Democratic eyes and ears on Allen's campaign, into the national spotlight. He was interviewed Tuesday by several major newspapers and appeared on CNN and other television networks. Meanwhile, Allen's past -- which includes a youthful admiration of the Confederate flag and an office that once displayed a noose -- lurched back into the public spotlight during the Republican's senatorial battle against Webb, a Navy secretary during the Reagan administration. During the past two years, as Allen has flirted with the idea of running for president in 2008, he has introduced symbolic anti-lynching legislation in the Senate and promised to lead the charge for an official apology for slavery. Political pundits who follow Allen closely said the new comments threaten that well-planned effort. "There are very few issues in American politics that are more sensitive than race. Senator Allen has just plunked himself down in the middle of it," said Geoffrey D. Garin, a leading Democratic pollster. "Allen's comments take him back to a place he was trying to escape from." Avoiding the subjects of race and Allen's history was proving unlikely in the short term as the odd story of the senator's comments bounced around the nation's capital. Sanjay Puri, the leader of the nation's largest Indian political action committee and a longtime Allen supporter, said he will lead a delegation of Indian business executives and community leaders to meet with Allen on Wednesday to express dismay. "The comments are very insensitive. That's what we want to find out: How can we continue working with him?" Puri said. "The senator has had a very good relationship with our community. I was pretty surprised -- you can say shocked." Mark Potok, director of the intelligence project for the Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Montgomery, Ala., said it was "simply impossible to believe" that Allen did not intend the comments as a racial insult. "To me, it looks like yet another case of a politician pandering to the worst instincts in an all-white crowd," Potok said. Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D), who during his campaign last year was dogged by young GOP operatives with video cameras -- usually called trackers -- chided Allen. "It's insensitive," Kaine said. "Campaigns are tough. But George has been in campaigns. He knows there's trackers. It's just a fact of life. You should just do your thing and not single them out." Big-time campaigns often assign trackers to shadow their opponents, hoping to catch the candidate making a gaffe or shifting the message to accommodate different audiences. Virginia Republicans have tracked Webb this year. Often, videos can end up in campaign commercials. That was the job of Sidarth, a University of Virginia senior who attended Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax County. His father, Shekar Narasimhan, is a mortgage banker who has contributed more than $35,000 to Democratic causes in the past decade, according to a review of state and federal campaign finance reports. Sidarth joined Webb's effort this summer, initially working as a field organizer. Last week, when Allen kicked off his statewide "listening tour," Sidarth was asked to trail Allen, he said. Driving his 1996 Volvo, he followed Allen from Charlottesville to Richmond to the Northern Neck. He said he was "shocked" when Allen began talking about him. "I didn't believe that he had gone to using race in the political arena," he said. Rich Lowry, editor of the conservative National Review, wrote on the magazine's Web site Tuesday that he did not think Allen was "trying to speak a coded racist language." But Lowry said Allen showed he "has a mean streak." © 2006 The Washington Post Company "

Link to the video:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2006/08/14/VI2006081400598.html

8/16/2006 11:31:54 AM

Yapeepee

8/16/2006 11:35:26 AM

Nigaga?

Crakaka?

8/16/2006 12:09:13 PM

in all honesty, who doesn't hate indian people?

8/16/2006 12:10:24 PM

I was a little confused by his statements too. Reading those words made me think he must have been drunk, lol

Anyway, at the very least he shouldn't have said it. It reflects negatively on him. I'm not sure if it makes him an out-and-out racist or anything, but it was stupid to say regardless.

8/16/2006 12:17:14 PM

The "welcome to America" thing was racist, unless he knew that the guy had recently come to America.

Other than that, it was just blatant stupidity, prevalent with most of our politicians.

8/16/2006 1:20:29 PM

i assume from the "welcome to america" thing he was talking about the dot indians.

But then there is the mowhawk reference that suggests that he was talking about the feather indians.


Which was it?

8/16/2006 1:31:39 PM

Behold a pale xenophobe.

Next thing you know, he'll want to establish an official language...oh wait.

8/16/2006 2:59:07 PM

Quote :

"Macaca' or 'macaque' is a nasty racial epithet alright. It is often used by American white supremacists to describe black people. In Belgium, it is a racial slur for 'dirty arab.' Could this be George Allen's Mel Gibson moment? WARNING: This findings in this post contain language that many readers may find offensive. What I hope to show in these results are instances where the word 'macaca' or 'macaque' are being used as an offensive racial slur on par with other more familiar racial slurs. This research is intended to clarify what exactly happened in the outburst by George Allen using sources commonly available to anyone with a computer. Google Search: nigger+macaque Source: Vanguard News Network Forum Quote: "I watched the press conference they had when they caught the rampaging macaque. Niggy the Pinhead here put on a hilarious performance: "I's only bin shairf fo' a few munts..." it mumbled over & over, desperate to pass dat ol' buck. "I's bin foccusin' on securetee in de jail, but now I be foccussin' on de coathouse, know whum sayin'?" It's all part of the forced-at-fed-gunpoint jewfarce of pretending that niggers have any bidness leading anything more complex than tribal grub-hunting expeditions." Farther down in the same thread, another reader quoted the section with 'macaque,' made it bold face and replied as follows: Source: Vanguard News Network Forum Quote: "I watched the press conference they had when they caught the rampaging macaque. ...goddamn rapin, lootin', murderin', rampaging niggers, goddamn them all... Soure: ACDC Forum Quote: "Well, I have the same opinion too ... but sometimes we're referring to a "human-race" and so I was a bit surprised that in the US they don't call a nigger a nigger. Here in our dictionary dutch translation : neger = black citizen originating from africa ...And here there's nothing wrong with that word. Here the "niggers" call themselves "niggers" too .... so, I don't know why in the US this word is so negative ... maybe because of people there where using this word more in a way of insults towards black people. I think that black people where much more discriminated in the US than here (slavery, etc...). Every continent has it's own history ... Another example : here in Belgium when you want to insult an arab .... you would never say "arab" ... but use the words "macaque" or "bougnoul". I don't want to teach you guys how to insult an arab or motivate you to insult them ... I just want to say we use a "nickname" instead of using the name of the race. But of course if you would call them a "dirty arab" ... this is offending too. Source: Stormfront White Pride World Wide Quote: "I agree with you Gabor, "our" players sure don't look like they had Celts or Francs for ancestors. Football in France isn't sport it's politics, what the French avatar of ZOG wants is for us to admire niggers and sand niggers like Zidane so that we get used to being around untermenschen and accept the presence on our soil of the millions of "chance pour la France" that plague our lives. Didn't work this time though, une France macaque-bougnoule-blancgnoule pas question, jamais...Victory through superior intelligence! Google Search: "racial slur"+macaque Source: Vanguard News Network - Reader Letters Quote: "What it's like in France these days...I see it's the same in America as in Europe. Here in France we got those niggers and arabs (quite the same thing as your coons, but muslims !!!) saying their hate of everything White. They own a lot of suburbs where the police cannot go anymore, white families are forced to flee or see their kids molested, racketted, their young daughters gang-raped in a basement. The liberals in the gov't and medias just pretend it's "far-right lies", that the bougnoules (an offensive name for the arabs here) are victims of our racism (though of course they get every welfare aid that exists), marxist judges let em roam free. Islam is conquering the country fast, now there are muslim meals in the schools, and in some places white children have to learn arab at school ! Rappers are the same as yours, proclaiming they will conquer everything, fuck the country, kill the whites, fuck every white woman they see. Ordinary citizens aren't allowed to own a gun and defend themselves. This week a white father was jailed because he shot the arab raper of his 12 year old daughter. Of course now, if an arab does the same, he'll be let free because his fellows boucaques (contraction of bougnoule and macaque) would threaten to burn everything. Police station are attacked and even burnt every week, ethnic arab gangs own rocket-launchers and kalashnikovs. Google Search: "Original Dissent"+macaque Source: Original Dissent Quote: "FYI - friends of mine who are cops told me years ago that [Rodney] King is "red-flagged" in the system, meaning that if/when he is pulled over, sergeants (superior officers) are to be called to the scene immdiately, or he is to be let go if possilble. All to avoid the appearance of Sir Rodney being picked on. Don't want another riot you know. And the macaque has taken full advantage of this privilege." Source: Original Dissent Quote:"Bryant lacked the all-important street credibility, they said, and although the defining characteristics of "street cred" remain unclear, some said Bryant didn't match up to the appeal of Allen Iverson and Tracy McGrady. Lying coward. We all know the only way to gain "street cred" with nigra gutter scum is to be just like them. That's why that ugly cornrowed thug Iverson has it while the well-tailored macaque-about-town Kobe doesn't. Keep it real, yo." CONCLUSION The term 'macaque'--also pronounced 'mukakkah'--is a commonly used racial slur on par with the word 'nigger' in the united states. In Europe, the word 'macaque' is largely a racial slur used to insult people of North African descent. It is roughly synonomous with 'dirty arab.' Most of the results that came back in these searches took me to well known white supremacy websites--and to posts from the past two or three years. So this is a phrase that is still in use. Also returned where hundreds of 'ethnic slur' dictionaries online, all of which list this term as a 'Belgian' racial slur. "

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/8/14/17325/4950]

8/16/2006 3:40:29 PM

After exhaustively refining a search in Google to remove all the results about species of the macaca (~7 million results on its own) and George Allen's name from the search, I've got to say that I'm on his side guys. I've managed to narrow the results down to less than 300k, and have finally found it used as a name: for an obscure Portugese short made in 1997.

SURELY George Allen just confused Sidarth with a Portugese actor from the movie. An honest enough mistake people...move along.

---

The Google search link broke the thread. Read and paste everything after the colon into your Google search instead: macaca -rhesus -monkey -fuscata -sylvanus -silenus -nemestrina -arctoides -fascicularis -nigra -sylvana -mulatta -maurus -hirsutus -thibetana -"George -Allen"

[Edited on August 16, 2006 at 4:17 PM. Reason : .]

8/16/2006 4:15:38 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Felix_Allen

[Edited on August 16, 2006 at 4:32 PM. Reason : ]

8/16/2006 4:31:57 PM

I don't know anything about Geroge Allen and for all I know he's a textbook bastard.

At the same time, I have trouble imagining that a United States Senator, a man of some semblance of intelligence or at least political competence, would knowingly, audibly, and without the influence of drugs or alcohol, call someone associated with the opposition and holding a live video camera in a room full of people any kind of ethnic slur.

I'm just not seeing it. You let something slip when you think the mic is off, I could buy it as exposing a racist streak. But babbling something that weird in a room where you not only knew there was a camera but in fact with the cameraman as a subject? Sorry. I'm gonna need more than that.

As for "welcome to America," his explanation strikes me as being almost reasonable: that he was trying to say his opponents lived in a dream world centered on Washington and didn't get enough time among the people. Again, that's an "almost."

[Edited on August 16, 2006 at 4:38 PM. Reason : ]

8/16/2006 4:37:18 PM

i just hate it when people get ethinc slurs wrong. call me a dothead all you want, just don't confuse me with those people.

8/16/2006 4:46:08 PM

I will admit, the fact that he named his son Forrest bothers me a great deal more than anything.

8/16/2006 4:47:43 PM

he knew what he was doing

8/16/2006 5:16:56 PM

Quote :

" Though he doesn't like to use it, the senator's full name is George F. Allen. He gets the middle initial from his grandfather, Felix Lumbrosso, a French-Italian who was incarcerated by the Nazis during World War II. Felix raised Allen's mother, Etty, in Tunisia, a French protectorate [sic] in North Africa. As a child, Allen's grandparents lived near the family home, and Etty spoke five languages around the house. Allen makes no secret of his heritage on the campaign trail. "I have my grandfather's bloodlines," he said at a recent swing through a suburb of Richmond. "My grandfather is French-Italian. I have about one-sixteenth Spanish in me." In North Africa, the word "macaca," often spelled "macaco" or "macaque," is far more than a string of random syllables. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word dates back to the mid-1600s, as a Flemish approximation of the Bantu word for monkey in the Congo and southern Gabon. The word migrated north, taking on all the racist connotations that followed African colonization. By the early 1800s, Jacko Maccacco, a famous fighting monkey, could be found on display in Westminster Pit, a notorious London arena for dog fights. The word had entered the common vernacular, and it eventually became a racist shorthand for blacks."

http://mediamatters.org/items/200608170001

8/16/2006 10:30:27 PM

(16%).

That's what racism + Virginia = for good ol'Felix.

http://www.wusatv9.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=51530

Quote :

"Exclusive Poll Results Show Allen Losing Ground GOP Allen's Once Large Lead Evaporates: In an election for the United States Senate in Virginia today, 8/21/06, incumbent Republican George Allen edges Democrat challenger James Webb 48% to 45%, according to an exclusive SurveyUSA poll conducted for W*USA-TV in Washington, DC. Since an identical SurveyUSA poll released 6/28/06, Allen has lost 8 points and Webb has gained 8 points. Allen's lead has shrunk from 19 points to 3 points. Interviewing for this poll began 8/18/06, one week after Allen singled out a Webb campaign worker at an Allen rally. Allen has lost support across all demographic groups, but in particular, among younger voters. He has gone from Plus 23 to Minus 17, a swing of 40 points. In Southeastern VA, Allen has gone from a 2:1 lead to a tie, a 31-point swing. Those who support Ballot Question 1, defining marriage in Virginia as between one man and one woman, vote for Allen by 39 points. Those who oppose Question 1 vote for Webb by 64 points. The election is in 11 weeks, on 11/7/06. The Republicans have a 10-seat majority in the U.S. Senate. Allen's seat had been considered safely Republican, and Allen himself had been widely considered to be a Republican candidate for President of the United States in 2008. Marriage Amendment Passes 2:1. In an election in Virginia today, 8/21/06, Question 1, which amends the Virginia Bill of Rights to define marriage in Virginia as between one man and one woman, passes with 65% "Yes" to 34% "No", according to an exclusive SurveyUSA poll conducted for W*USA-TV Washington DC. Republicans support the Amendment 8:1. Democrats oppose the Amendment 5:4. Independents support it 3:2. 92% of Conservatives vote "Yes." 29% of Liberals vote "Yes." Those who approve of President Bush's job performance support the Amendment 9:1. Those who disapprove of Bush oppose the Amendment. The Amendment is supported by 89% of Allen voters but by only 39% of Webb voters. The following is the result of what 567 "likely voters" said they would vote: # If the election for United States Senator were today, and you were standing in the voting booth right now, who would you vote for? Republican George Allen? Democrat Jim Webb? Independent Green Gail Parker Or some other candidate? 48% Allen (R) 45% Webb (D) 2% Parker (IG) 5% Undecided # Question 1 amends the Virginia Bill of Rights to say the following: that only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this Commonwealth and its political subdivisions. In an election today, would you vote yes or no on Question 1? 65% Yes 34% No 1% Undecided"

[Edited on August 21, 2006 at 6:36 PM. Reason : ...]

8/21/2006 6:35:47 PM