I Don’t Even Know What A Macaca Is….

When I read the news that Republican Virginia Senator George Allen labeled a campaign worker from his rival’s camp a “macaca,” I didn’t quite know what to make of it. The insulted man, named Siddarth, is an American of Indian descent. Siddarth was videotaping Allen’s campaign appearance at a private campaign event. When Allen realized that Siddarth was an infiltrator, he told the crowd to say hello to “macaca” and told him, “Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.” Of course, Siddarth was born and bred in Virginia. *Sigh*

I never thought I would see Allen’s name mentioned in relation to racial epithets. George Allen is the same US Senator who co-sponsored the Senate Resolution with Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) apologizing for the Senate’s eighty-year refusal to pass federal anti-lynching laws.

Allen’s response to the backlash is that he didn’t know that “macaca” had negative racial overtones. He claimed that he just made up the name. Allen’s spokespeople maintained that “macaca” was just a bastardization of the word “mohawk,” in reference to Siddhartha’s hairstyle. We will never know what was in Allen’s heart, but we do know what was in his sight: a dark-skinned, Indian-looking man. In an adrenaline-filled, flustered moment, Allen called that man a derogatory term for dark-skinned non-black people. He didn’t say “yahoo,” or “flibbidy flook”, he said “macaca.”

For those of you who, like me, had not heard the term “macaca” before, it refers to a small monkey. The term is used to denigrate people from North Africa and South Asia. I find it hard to believe that someone who had never heard the term before and has no idea what it means would pick it out of thin air and use it so (in)appropriately.

Making matters worse, the President is backing Allen all the way, attending a fundraiser for him in the aftermath of the incident. When asked why the President of the United States is attending fundraisers for politicians who shout racial slurs at other citizens, the President’s response is that Allen apologized and he accepts that apology. Well, the apology wasn’t Bush’s to accept, and while I do not expect for Bush to be so bold as to chastise Allen in public, I do expect for him to at least distance himself from Allen. Don’t show up all shiny-faced at his fundraiser. Make believe you have some respect for Mr. Siddarth. But, Siddarth is a Democrat, so how much respect can Bush possibly have for him? I should not expect for him to behave as though he represents the entire country, just Republicans. This is, after all, the same President who, in the midst of the Katrina disaster, while people were still holed up in the Superdome and others were still stranded on rooftops, congratulated his incompetent dolt of a FEMA director, “Brownie,” for doing such a great job and then mused about how he could not wait to be sipping tea on the porch of Trent Lott’s rebuilt mansion. I disagree with Kanye West’s statement that “Bush doesn’t care about black people”; Bush doesn’t care about anyone who is not like him and does not agree with him. He should be president of a social club, not of a diverse nation.

A video of Allen’s speech can be found on youtube here.