Stepping in "macaca"

[kskiska]

With his Confederate-flag-draped past, Sen. George Allen is in trouble for using a term for monkeys -- and a common racial slur around the world -- to ridicule a dark-skinned man at a campaign rally.

By Michael Scherer

Aug. 16, 2006 | On the campaign trail, Sen. George Allen can be a marvel to behold. He'll do nearly a half dozen stump speeches a day, shake a few hundred hands, and be ready for more. With his stiff boots and square sideburns, he comes off as easygoing. Down home. Macho. Red blooded. He tosses around the football and dips tobacco. The people love him in southern Virginia. He speaks their language.

He'll talk about the "real America," the one without homosexuals, movie moguls or Ivy League professors who want to ban guns and burn flags. He'll talk about an America where people have "values" and don't run away from the terrorists when the fighting gets tough. At his best, he begins to inhabit a symbolic fantasyland, becoming the lead cavalryman in a two-century-old culture war between North and South, city and countryside, the New York Times and the local church. He becomes a walking, talking American flag with a clear shot for the White House in 2008.

He is so good at it that he can get carried away. And like so many other talented people, he can sometimes lose control. That's when George Allen the senator is revealed as George Allen the man, the unruly jock who likes to act tough and intimidate -- maybe to a fault.

(snip)

But those three syllables do not often come together by accident. In fact, George Allen may well have been the only one at the rally whose family background would have introduced him to the word "macaca."

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 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."

more…
http://salon.com/news/feature/2006/08/16/allen/

[colorado thinker]

1. When I see people like this in the senate

I think to myself, "Self, you have more common sense in your left little toe than this a**hole, you could be in the Senate and do a helluva better job". Good god, what rock did he crawl out from under? This slime is what we have running this country? Words fail me.

[MADem]

2. Felix has stepped in it again...oh, happy day!

[Skittles]

5. he looks like a republican dick

yes INDEED

[hedgehog]

3. It was only a friendly nick-name

Just like the ones that George hands out! What a bunch of bullies!

[LibDemAlways]

4. Thanks for this.....Allen has a racist history that

goes back over 35 years. Michael Scherer, the author of the article, contacted me a year or so ago to confirm the story about the racist graffiti Allen had spraypainted on our school back in 1970. Ryan Lizza, in the New Republic article, went with it first, after he was able to get 5 classmates and a school administrator to corroborate it. Allen admitted the graffiti, but denied it was racist.

It's to no one's credit that Allen has gotten as far in politics as he has. I contacted Chuck Robb's campaign back in 2000 with what I knew and urged them to look into it and get it out there. They dropped the ball completely. Now it's taken a slip-up by Allen to bring his racism into focus. Back when The New Republic article came out, Webb said it hit "below the belt." Wonder what he's saying now?

[izzie]

6. One knows the type well and he knows who he is talking to

I am sure every one got the point he was making. It seems the kid is more Am. than he is.