A bit more texture on George Allen and the M-word
I’m not sure what the polls look like right now in the Virginia Senatorial race, but the wolves are circling the Allen camp. A couple new revelations (well, actually, it’s one revelation and one allegation that has the stench of ugly truth about it) are raising even more questions about whether Sen. George is and always has been a flaming racist.
First, there’s L’Affaire Macaca. When this bizarre case of Hoof-in-Mouth on the Campaign Trail flared up last month, there was some confusion over how a Virginia cracker came to be using a European and African racial slur. George played dumb – in times of crisis, always revert to your strengths – and we were asked to understand that he didn’t mean anything racist, that the term he pulled out of his ass just happened, by sheer coincidence, to be an epithet in another part of the world.
For the record, coincidence makes me nervous when it occurs in the world of politics.
Then, as I was listening to an NPR story the other morning entitled “Does Religion Even Matter Anymore in Politics?” (an absolutely surreal question to be asking in 2006, by the way), the fog began to lift. If you recall, an enterprising TV reporter ambushed Allen last week with the suggestion that he might be Jewish. Those of us who are at least a little familiar with Southern politics immediately recognized the question as one with no correct answer, and Allen’s response exhibited all the poise and grace of a middle-aged deacon with a MySpace account who’s arranged to score some underage booty only to find a network camera crew waiting for him when he shows up.
The story is that it was Allen’s curious “macaca” slur that set all this in motion. A bit of digging by a reporter led to the revelation that Allen is descended from a very prominent European Jewish family. Which is nice, but irrelevant to the question of whether he’s fit for the office of US Senator. What matters is that she grew up in Tunisia. That’s in Northern Africa, and is apparently one of those spots where the M-bomb is a racist epithet of choice.
Aha… So “macaca” wasn’t a term George pulled out of his ass. It’s a term that his mother grew up with. And at this point, I just need to ask readers to reflect on what they already know about how families talk among themselves. If you grew up in a house where your parents had special terms for certain kinds of people, you knew those terms, didn’t you?
Racism is an inherited condition, and nothing helps us diagnose the disease quite like the symptoms of language.
Now there’s even more bad news for Allen’s spinmeisters. A couple of people who knew the Senator in college – one a classmate and one a football teammate – are saying that he routinely used racial slurs, including the N-variety. There’s also a bizarre story about Allen leaving a severed deer head in a black family’s mailbox. If true, this one was not only disturbing for racial reasons, it was also stupid even by drunk college football player standards.
Allen, of course, denies it all.
Anybody who pays any attention at all to the news knows that people are accused of all manner of appalling things on a daily basis. Knowing the media (and please forgive me this one momentary over-generalization) for the bottom-feeding ratings whore that it is, I remind myself that a lot of what people are accused of turns out to be anything from misunderstanding to misrepresentation to outright fiction. As a result, I try to examine as much of the evidence as the situation merits (“is Sen. Allen racist?” draws marginally more scrutiny than “is Tom Cruise really gay?”) so that I can reach informed conclusions.
The case against George Allen looks pretty strong – if it’s a trial and I’m on the jury, there’s enough here for me to convict. I saw the macaca tape, and as I noted in my first commentary on the subject, I’ve seen that movie before. The language and tone and smirk of wink-wink cracker race-baiting is not new to me. That all the emerging evidence is lining up with the evidence of that tape, well, that makes perfect sense, too.
I think we know, with a high degree of certainty, what Sen. George Allen is. On November 7, I guess we’ll find out what the state of Virginia is, won’t we?
:xpost:
lullaby pit 
I don’t really have much to say about Allen because I haven’t really been following it. Although, I must say, my first experience with racism, where my race was in the majority, just happened to be in Virginia. I moved from Hawaii to Virginia. Talk about culture shock.
Reading your blog made me think of something else, though, that has less to do with race than it does with sexual preference. I don’t know if you ever saw “Zorro, the Gay Blade.” But parts of that movie are friggin hysterical. My parents have worn out their first copy of the movie from watching it too many times. There is one scene in there were the Alcalde is listing off all the different costumes the gay Zorro has been seen wearing: plum, avocado, “red like a radish or red like a rose?”. Somewhere in the summary of his list he says “two fruits, one salad”.
From the first time my parents saw that movie, the have used the words “two fruits, one salad” to describe anyone who is overtly gay. And, to be honest, I STILL think that it’s friggin hysterical. Now, my question is, does that make me a gay-baiter?
I know, it’s kind of loaded question because you know me and know it’s ridiculous coming from me. And it’s probably not in the same category as “the M-bomb” because “two fruits, one salad” is a line out of an obscure movie that few have seen. But when does it cross the line from humor to slur?
As I said after your previous post about this topic, I’m just confused about the whole topic. 🙂 And I didn’t even bring up Blazing Saddles. Hahaha.
I don’t really have much to say about Allen because I haven’t really been following it. Although, I must say, my first experience with racism, where my race was in the majority, just happened to be in Virginia. I moved from Hawaii to Virginia. Talk about culture shock.
Reading your blog made me think of something else, though, that has less to do with race than it does with sexual preference. I don’t know if you ever saw “Zorro, the Gay Blade.” But parts of that movie are friggin hysterical. My parents have worn out their first copy of the movie from watching it too many times. There is one scene in there were the Alcalde is listing off all the different costumes the gay Zorro has been seen wearing: plum, avocado, “red like a radish or red like a rose?”. Somewhere in the summary of his list he says “two fruits, one salad”.
From the first time my parents saw that movie, the have used the words “two fruits, one salad” to describe anyone who is overtly gay. And, to be honest, I STILL think that it’s friggin hysterical. Now, my question is, does that make me a gay-baiter?
I know, it’s kind of loaded question because you know me and know it’s ridiculous coming from me. And it’s probably not in the same category as “the M-bomb” because “two fruits, one salad” is a line out of an obscure movie that few have seen. But when does it cross the line from humor to slur?
As I said after your previous post about this topic, I’m just confused about the whole topic. 🙂 And I didn’t even bring up Blazing Saddles. Hahaha.
Complex question. The same term can mean very different things depending on who’s talking and what the context is. For instance, “macaca” has become one of my favorite terms lately. Except that when I use, it’s not about attacking blacks or foreigners, it’s about mocking people like George Allen. People who know me pretty well know that I have a tendency toward these kinds of subtle, sarcastic appropriations. I guess somebody who doesn’t know me might be appalled.
I don’t think I’d EVER take you for a gay-baiter, knowing you the way I do. Somebody without that context might get it wrong, though.
Complex question. The same term can mean very different things depending on who’s talking and what the context is. For instance, “macaca” has become one of my favorite terms lately. Except that when I use, it’s not about attacking blacks or foreigners, it’s about mocking people like George Allen. People who know me pretty well know that I have a tendency toward these kinds of subtle, sarcastic appropriations. I guess somebody who doesn’t know me might be appalled.
I don’t think I’d EVER take you for a gay-baiter, knowing you the way I do. Somebody without that context might get it wrong, though.