Q: What is a "Macaca" and should we fear it?

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Our next president?

See this man? You should become familiar with him. Many pundits think that he has a pretty decent shot at becoming the next President of the United States. Even though McCain of Arizona seems to be more popular, Allen, currently a Republican senator from the state of Virginia, is more popular with the base of the Republican party and his ambitions are well known. The first thing he has to do however, is hold out against upstart Democrat James Webb who wants to strip Allen of his senate seat.

Today’s Washington Post has an interesting article (thanks for the tip Sanjivani) about Allen’s remarks to a young staffer that Webb had hired to shadow the Allen campaign:

Democrat James Webb’s Senate campaign accused Sen. George Allen (R) of making demeaning comments Friday to a 20-year-old Webb volunteer of Indian descent.

S.R. Sidarth, a senior at the University of Virginia, had been trailing Allen with a video camera to document his travels and speeches for the Webb campaign. During a campaign speech Friday in Breaks, Virginia, near the Kentucky border, Allen singled out Sidarth and called him a word that sounded like “Macaca.”

“This fellow here over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is. He’s with my opponent. He’s following us around everywhere. And it’s just great. We’re going to places all over Virginia, and he’s having it on film and its great to have you here and you show it to your opponent because he’s never been there and probably will never come.”

After telling the crowd that Webb was raising money in California with a “bunch of Hollywood movie moguls,” Allen again referenced Sidarth, who was born and raised in Fairfax County.

“Lets give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia,” said Allen, who then began talking about the “war on terror…” [Link]

So seriously. What is a “Macaca?” This could hurt me if I ever make it to Jeopardy and I don’t know that answer.

Wadhams [Allen’s campaign manager] said Allen campaign staffers had begun calling Sidarth “mohawk” because of a haircut Wadhams said the Webb staffer has. “Macaca was just a variation of that,” Wadhams said. [Link]

Good to know. Will one of you readers please add that definition to the Urban Dictionary? The etymological debate raged on though:

Depending on how you spell it, the name Allen gave Sidarth means different things.

If spelled M-a-c-a-c-a, the term refers to a species of monkeys in the Eastern Hemisphere. “Is he saying Sidarth is a monkey?” Todd [Webb’s spokesperson] asked.

The word M-a-k-a-k-a refers to a town in South Africa. [Link]

<

p>Watch the clip yourself:

I say that South Asian Americans should begin calling each other “Macaca.” Like, “What up Macaca?” Let’s take this word and make it our own, thereby taking power away from the current establishment. Then we can beat the crap of any non-South Asians that use it, especially if they look like they either work for the MAN or might actually be the MAN.

182 thoughts on “Q: What is a "Macaca" and should we fear it?”

  1. Watch this interview of Siddarth on CNN.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBuxjQAVEMY

    He DOES have an unusual hairstyle and the mohawk nickname that the Allen staffers gave him seems fair to me. The pictures posted on the most liberal sites deliberately hide this hairstyle. Why?

    Did Allen really mean the hair, though? I doubt it. I’m not sure about the “Welcome to America” part, though. It could just be the usual “Real America” shit that people like Allen and John Edwards and other city-haters/”Washington outsiders” regularly churn out.

  2. Ok, this is Kobayashi here, and this is Torpedo Watch.

    So the CNN report has taken it to the desired level, and I’d like to declare an end to major combat operations.

    There’s the statement there, at the end of the CNN piece, that this has received “lots of play largely thanks to the internet.” Oh yeah baby. Let me hear you say “Sepia.”

    Allen, in his own defence has said that he doesn’t know what the word means, and that he would never knowingly demean Sidarth. Well, in my opinion, that’s only half-untrue. Allen, from what we know of him, would knowingly demean Sidarth, any day of the week (which is why he deserves to be torpedoed).

    But (gasp!) I actually believe that he doesn’t know what the word means, at least not in the sense of “common slur in Europe for North African, derived from the word macaque.” I don’t think he knew all that. All he was doing was participating in casual persecution. “You don’t belong here, and your name sounds funny.” He was race-baiting, in very general terms. I’ve had my name made into funny syllables too. The neurons might have fired another way and he could have uttered any vaguely “primitive” string of syllables. Bugabuga. Chingchong.

    So, all the dictionary wielding this and that is just gulab jamun. After all, Allen didn’t call Sidarth “a macaca,” he called him “Macaca.” He was using it as an insulting invented name, not as a slur. Additional evidence for this is that his target audience doesn’t know what the hell he was talking about.

    It’s just his luck (and ours!) that the nonsense name does exist already as a slur, and a pretty ill one at that. That’s why this thing played. Because it was possible to connect it to the pre-existing slur. (It’s uncanny how similar this is to Philip Roth’s “The Human Stain,” but, in that case, the persecuted was innocent of even the lesser crime).

    The media is a mindless bitch but, on this occasion, it’s our mindless bitch. The fact that the media turned this mental hiccup of casual race-baiting into a specific “brown people are monkeys” is par for the course. It’s all part of the persecuting mentality, actually. But I say let Allen get his desserts, just or unjust. He’s earned it.

  3. So the CNN report has taken it to the desired level, and I’d like to declare an end to major combat operations.

    Neither the CNN report, nor your analysis justifying a unilateral declaration of disarmanent and cease fire, mention the following:

    (1) the term “macaca” that Allen used doesn’t just mean “monkey,” it is derived from a term historically used by the French and other Europeans to be racially derogatory toward North Africans.

    (2) George Allen’s mother is French Tunisian and Allen himself is reportedly fluent in French and would surely have heard the term from her. Are you really going to buy that his use of the term is a coincidence?

    (3) Allen has a history of such conduct: Confederate flag pin on his lapel in his high-school yearbook, owned a Confederate flag, noose hanging from a ficus tree in his gubernatorial office, etc.

    (4) Allen’s campaign manager said Allen used the term but meant “Mohawk,” a reference to the victim’s haircut. But the haircut is a mullet. And Allen himself has not used that explanation but has claimed he didn’t know what he was saying (see number 2, above). The prosecutor in me says these contradictory explanations are bogus.

    (5) None of the macaca stuff addresses the “Welcome to America” crap, directed at a second-generation, albeit brown-skinned American, nor the bullying context–that this was said in front of an all-white crowd, friendly to Allen.

    Without this context, the media have written a typical “he said, she said” story but have not given readers/viewers enough facts to draw their own conclusions about Allen’s true intent.

    This story deserves as much play as Mel Gibson continues to get for his antisemitic remarks. As does critical analysis of Allen’s explanations and nonapologies: “I’m sorry if you were offended,” i.e., “You’re too sensitive; it’s your fault.”

    The consequences are even bigger here than with Gibson. This guy is one of the most politically powerful people on the planet. He aspires to be the most powerful person on the planet.

    And there is only one solution. Take him down now while you have the chance. Invest in James Webb’s candidacy. Don’t turn your head and shrug and say, “Well, that was fun. Let’s talk about something else.” Finish the job.

  4. I’d like to declare an end to major combat operations

    Ah my favorite metal, irony.

    But you know I didn’t invent the term, right? Or its wilful misuse…

    In any case, Subodh is right: the fight isn’t over. Never mind my analysis (which, naturally, I stand by), click on one of the links above and donate to Webb’s campaign.

  5. Neither the CNN report…

    Mr. Kobayashi, my apologies, I think we were talking about two different reports. I was referring to this CNN report on their website, which is totally incomplete. At least a couple of the items on my list were mentioned (although not all) in the video segment referenced in the post above. In either case, I don’t think this is over until we have done everything we can to oust George Allen not just for use of the term “macaca” but the entire incident, context, and fact that this was a part of a pattern.

    I always wanted to change the course of history.

    So do it!

  6. The key item that is missing from just about every news report but is all over the web is the connection between “Macaca”… Allen’s mom and her heritage…and Allen’s mouth.

    They could report the facts and let people draw their own conclusions.

  7. and, sorry if this has been said earlier, the Rhesus monkey, which as y’all know is THE dominant monkey in indian towns, is a type of… macaque.

    things that make you go “hmmmm!”

  8. the latest spin:

    What does Macaca really mean? Three Virginia Republicans confirmed to the Hotline that several Allen campaign aides and advisers are telling allies that the word was a made-up, off-the-cuff neologism that these aides occasionally used to refer to tracker S.R. Sidarth well before last Saturday’s videotaped encounter.

    According to two Republicans who heard the word used, “macaca” was a mash-up of “Mohawk,” referring to Sidarth’s distinctive hair, and “caca,” Spanish slang for excrement, or “shit.”

    Said one Republican close to the campaign: “In other words, he was a shit-head, an annoyance.” Allen, according to Republicans, heard members of his traveling entourage and Virginia Republicans use the phrase and picked it up.
  9. Said one Republican close to the campaign: “In other words, he was a shit-head, an annoyance.”

    Oh, well THAT makes it ALL better.

  10. I’d donate to Webb cuz “the real America”/fauz working class jig grates me. And all the corresponding inconsistent, intolerant positions that often go hand in hand with that cipher. Only in this country could a filthy rich blue blood laggard pull the Cowboy from Crawford shtick.

    But hanging our hopes on this simian slang seems quixotic, what if it comes out that Webb used a derogatory term for the Vietnamese while he served (like a another Presidential hopeful)?, then what???

    Denounce Allen for the right reasons, and support Webb for the right reasons.

    And my two fave simian anthems: by the Stones and Manu Chao.

  11. Isn’t anyone going to comment about the real atrocity here? I’m talking about that ridiculous hairstyle.

  12. What the hell is wrong with some of you? You know damn well he was using this guys race against him and some of you are making excuses for him? I understand that some Indians feel that they must kiss as much ass as possible in this world so as not to perceived as part of “the bad colored people” but sometimes you have to get your head out of your ass and open your eyes.

  13. siddartha #158 – that spin is TOO surreal. Will they just give up already? Go Jim Webb – use my new donation well.

    Speaking of simian anthems/tales, my personal fave is the age-old and constantly morphing tale of the Signifying Monkey passed down through African/African-American culture. Everyone from Henry Louis Gates Jr to Dolemite his badself has a take on it…

    Here’s one of the naughtier versions:

    http://members.tripod.com/~mogley/monkey.html

    Here’s an academic take behind it:

    http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/wyrick/debclass/gates.htm

    Maybe George Felix will get slapped down like the signifying monkey, oops, i mean MACACA, in the old tale!

    Any desi simian tales of note (Hanuman excluded)??

  14. A retraction. Earlier in the day, I wrote:

    I actually believe that he doesn’t know what the word means, at least not in the sense of “common slur in Europe for North African, derived from the word macaque.” I don’t think he knew all that. All he was doing was participating in casual persecution. “You don’t belong here, and your name sounds funny.” He was race-baiting, in very general terms. I’ve had my name made into funny syllables too. The neurons might have fired another way and he could have uttered any vaguely “primitive” string of syllables. Bugabuga. Chingchong.

    Yes, I know I take my fairmindedness too far sometimes. But, thinking it over, and reviewing all the available information, I now think Allen’s a far more vile a character than I gave him credit for. The noose incident has me sold. The macacafocker knew exactly what he was saying. It wasn’t casual or vague. He was referring to a brown man as monkey, and he was counting on the fact that at least some of the people in the audience would appreciate the slur. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if President George Felix Allen enjoyed the occasional night outing in a white robe (and matching mask).

  15. just donate and campaign for webb…

    please.. esp if you live/are from virginia…

    all america needs are even more idiots to help run the nation…

    macacas UNITE!

  17. “Unusual hairstyle”?! That would be a mullet – common among white Americans. Not so common among us macacas.

    And macaca sounds so similar to mohawk…

  18. Whats funny is that in India this guy Sidharth would be considered “fair-skinned”, “aryan”, with “sharp features”, “handsome” etc….but in America he is subject to the same racial contempt as black africans.

  19. If I had Sidath following me around like he did George Allen, he would have been called something worse. Sadath was trying to piss off Mr. Allen, and in the process he got called a name–boo hoo—-

  20. Hmm, what’s interesting is that Senator Allen was one of the first senators to support the US-Indian civil nuclear deal, an early strong proponent, and is on the USINPAC website as addressing the pac in April. His photo on the website along with the statement that he is one of the strongest supporters of the deal. This is very strange…..why if he has visited India and is such a strong proponent did he act in that way? I don’t understand people at all.

  21. MD, Nice that you pointed out that Sen. Allen was a supporter of India-US N-deal. That shows that USINPAC is not some crazy partisan PAC, but its genuinely interested in India related issues.

    Thats why I dont understand Abhi et al’s hatred for USINPAC. Arent they showing a typical partisan behaviour? If my assertion is true, than why be worked up over IARC’s support of Sen. Allen? Arent IARC showing a partisan behaviour?? (Of the house-macaca type, if you ask me 🙂 )

    From MSNBC article on Indian-American’s increasing clout, a snippet

    Since 2002, USINPAC has contributed nearly $285,000 to candidates of both major parties, ranging from liberal Democrats such as Sen. Barbara Boxer of California to conservative Republicans such as Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana.

  22. From MSNBC article on Indian-American’s increasing clout, a snippet

    That article states that there are now ~2.3 million IAs in the US. If true, that’s quite a jump – 40% or so since the last census.

    Yes, Republican overtures to India have endeared them to a lot of browns. It will be interesting to see if it translates into Republican votes. Allen doesn’t help, but then, there’s Hillary.

  23. If I had Sidath following me around like he did George Allen, he would have been called something worse. Sadath was trying to piss off Mr. Allen, and in the process he got called a name–boo hoo—-

    Newsflash: SIDARTH (Gosh, it was SO difficult to spell his name right! No wonder you screwed it up twice.) wasn’t doing anything unique or shocking; it’s now COMMON practice to have someone from your campaign film the public appearances your opponent makes.

    For all of our sakes, learn, then type.

  24. Ok, my comment #171 is a little confusing. What I mean is

    If anyone has a negative opinion of USINPAC based only and only on partisan lines, than its equivalent to Dr.Vijay’s unconditional support to all things Republican.

    Also I tried to point out that since USINPAC was in favor of N-deal, but are against Sen.Allen (who is for N-deal) shows that USINPAC is showing independant behaviour and is atleast trying to represent IA issues in the way they are represented in Washington by any other lobbying group.

    That in my book is commendable and I say bravo!!

  25. Time for Muslims to get offended. Macaca did he call that Hindu Sidarth ‘Mecca’? Blasphemous. Where are u mullahs when we need u?

  27. This story is killing Allen. This morning’s Fox News had two minute section on it only publicizing it more. It won’t go away for him. Awesome.

  28. I still don’t know what “macaca” really means. But read between the lines: watching the tape, Allen was obviously being condescending and disrespectful to this young man. I think that’s what matters. Does he think the opposition isn’t watching? A man of integrity may have made light of Mr. Sidarth’s presence by saying “we welcome our young friend from the opposition… maybe we’ll convert him..” There’s never a reason to treat another like Allen did. It may seem small, but I think it gives insight into his personality. Hey, Mr. Sidarth is a “kid”, he hasn’t made his bones yet, I say, ‘Allen, pick on someone your own size.’ I used to be a straight down the line Republican, now I just pick the best person. Run Condi, run! What is it with politicians and character?

  30. Macaca does look a little bit like a monkey. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Some of my best friends are simians. Then again, if you follow any primate around long enough, they’re bound to hoot at you or at the very least throw insults and maybe some dried caca. During these situations, its always wise to hold up a moment and say to yourself WWDD – what would Darwin do?

  31. This is very strange…..why if he has visited India and is such a strong proponent did he act in that way? I don’t understand people at all.

    Maybe because he didn’t know about Sidarth’s Indian pedigree.

    Subodh, that was a great op-ed.

    I have been dismayed more by the sidestepping of this incident by some in the media, particularly one of my favorites; WSJ.

    It’s not just Allen’s comments but the attitude adopted later by his campaign, the ‘ it was just mean’ comment by Rich Lowry among others that are leaving Indian Republicans chagrined in the face of Indian Democrats’ ‘ I told you so’ banter.

  32. That species of monkey is spelled MACAQUE NOT Macaca. The pronunciation is very different. Get your facts right before you start whining please.