When in doubt, blame your staff

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Allen has changed his story in a small but important way. He no longer claims that he made up the word Macaca on the spot, instead he repeated something that he heard his staff say:

… 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. It was the first word that came to his mind when he spied Sidarth at the weekend’s event, according to Republicans who have been briefed on Allen’s version of the event. [Link]

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p>Allen wants to shift blame because coverage of this story brings up his long history of racial insensitivity / insult towards blacks which could torpedo his chance at the Presidential nomination:

As governor Allen had a stormy relationship with African-American voters in Virginia, many of whom criticized his policies and his embrace of the Confederate flag, which the NAACP condemned as a symbol of racism and hate. As a lawyer, Allen also had a noose hanging from a ficus tree in his office, a decoration critics have charged was racially insensitive, but which Allen has explained as a symbol of his tough stance on law-and-order issues…
In 1995, 1996, and 1997, Allen proclaimed April as Confederate History and Heritage Month and called the Civil War “a four-year struggle for independence and sovereign rights.” The proclamation did not mention slavery and was subsequently repudiated by Allen’s Republican successor, Governor James Gilmore. [Link]

Under educational guidelines proposed by Allen’s administration, which were revised after an uproar, students would have been taught that slaves were “settlers…” [Link]

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p>”Stormy relationship” is an understatement. The man is completely obsessed by the confederate flag:

“[a]ccording to his colleagues, classmates, and published reports, Allen has either displayed the [Confederate] flag–on himself, his car, inside his home–or expressed his enthusiastic approval of the emblem from approximately 1967 to 2000.” Allen wore a Confederate flag pin for his high school senior class photo. In high school, college, and law school, Allen adorned his vehicle with a Confederate flag. In college he displayed a Confederate flag in his room. He displayed a Confederate flag in his family’s living room until 1992. [Link]

Given his broader racial outlook, and the fact that he had a French-Tunisian mother, it’s quite possible that he was familiar with the word macaca as a slur. As even one right-wing blog points out in a post defending Allen:

… his claim that he was unaware of the meaning of the term he used, ‘macaca’, is unconvincing given that his mother is of French Tunisian background, in which circles the term is apparently used. [Link]

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p>On the other hand, it’s also possible that he has a racist on his staff. While macaca/macaque isn’t a common ethnic slur in the US, it is used by white supremacists. The two quotes below are taken from a supremacist online forum [via Jeffrey Feldman’s blog, via Manish]:

“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.”

“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…” [Link]

It’s also quite possible that Allen’s new story is accurate, and he picked the word up from his staff who coined it without any racial animus. None of that, however, gets Allen off the hook for either his “Welcome to America” remark or his long-running love affair with the symbols of the Confederacy.

Related stories from The New Republic: George Allen’s race problem, George Allen’s flag fetish

74 thoughts on “When in doubt, blame your staff”

  2. My understanding is that she was French/Italian (and a teensy bit Spanish!) and that she was raised in or taken to Tunisia to escape the Nazis, since as Ennis reminds us, she was a Sephardic Jew. I don’t think she has black feet at all.

  3. Pied-noir can refer to Arabs and Berbers, but it’s usually taken to mean (Caucasian) French people who live(d) in North Africa. I used it in this sense, and it’s into this category that Camus and Derrida both fall.

    I don’t know if the term exists in an English translation. “Black feet” certainly strikes my ear as odd.

  4. Pied-noir (plural: pieds-noirs) is a term for the former population of European descent of North Africa, especially Algeria, which was divided into three French departments until its 1962 independence. It also includes the Algerian Jewish population, some of whose ancestors had fled Spain after the Reconquista. Literally Pied-noir means “black foot” in French. Supposedly, one way the colonists could be distinguished from the indigenous Algerians was by the black boots that the French wore. According to Le Robert French dictionary, it appeared around 1901 to refer to bare-foot indigenous Algerian stokers on boat at a time when coal was the main type of fuel who would get their feet dirty in coal dust. By extension, the term pied-noir was applied to indigenous Algerians. At that time, European Algerians described themselves as Algerian in relation to metropolitan French. But in the 1920s and 1930s, the term Algerian came to be monopolised by indigenous Arab/Berber Algerians as Algerian nationalism became a political force to be reckoned with. By 1955, European Algerians started applying the term Pied-noir to themselves. One of the most famous pied-noir was Albert Camus. [wiki wiki wiki wiki]

    I couldn’t get the bolded part off my mind, Kobayashi-san…I was just being an ass. 😉

  5. Kobayashi, most Americans I know who study French history call them pied-noir as well… no translation needed.

    Seems his family was already in the US when Algeria declared independence, so I really don’t think the politics of the situation would affect either of them too much.

    The only reason it would make any difference is in how his mother herself would have viewed darker-skinned people, and the attitudes she passed down to Allen himself. If she was a white European living in colonial Tunisia … well, I think you can figure out probably the way she was socialized to view them. The Jewish angle complicates it a little. It’s not unheard of though for cultural minorites to look down on other cultural minorities 😛

    I feel ashamed to share a last name with this senator. And i SO WANT a macaca T-shirt. 🙂

  6. I feel ashamed to share a last name with this senator.

    Change it to “Mutineer”! We’re like the Ramones, only browner. 😉

  9. apologies if this has been posted already, but this man sounds a bit scary, if his sister is to be believed:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/08/16/gop-senator-george-allen_n_27382.html

    this particular one is disconcerting, to say the least. if this is how he treats his own family……:

    “Explaining why she is scared of heights, Ms. Allen writes that “Ever since my brother George held me over the railing at Niagara Falls, IÂ’ve had a fear of heights.” [Fifth Quarter: The Scrimmage of a Football Coach’s Daughter, page 43]”

  11. What’s up my macacas!? Takin’ it back yo! Porch Monkey 4 Life! Takin’ it back!
    Still, why the hell does the staff have to pick on one cameraman? It’s just one camera. Publicity is normally a good thing for a smart politician and staff. Oh wait…

  12. Others may disagree, but I found your seemingly breezy, actually aimless comments slightly condescending vs. detached or neutral. The vast majority of us don’t agree with R.K. Khan and I don’t think any of us wanted to feed a troll to prove that to you Don’t mean to sound condescending and there is nothing to prove. Having desi friends is significant because it has made me interested in some of the subjects discussed here since my former college roommate introduced me to this site. He thought it was a good way to get to know the desi-spora as he called it and I am interested in all kinds of cultures. Mentioning yoga was meant as a joke. It was more to meet the opposite sex than for fitness.

  13. the analogy isn’t appropriate. african americans have a long history in this nation of being enslaved, lynches and caricatured as monkeys. yes, it is true that americans are more sensitive toward blacks, but, there is a reason.

    The issue is not one of justification, i.e., that African Americans should feel more slighted than S.Asians because they have history of enslavement. (The fact is that S. Asians also have a long history of white exploitation / colonialism.) The only point i was trying to make is that we have no clout. People can make racist comments about us and generally get away with it.

  14. The fact is that S. Asians also have a long history of white exploitation / colonialism.

    Yes, but not by (white) Americans.

  15. The references to Allen’s mother’s ethnicity started with trying to see if he had any chance of knowing what Macaca is.

    Now it seems to have taken on a life of its own. Was she French? Ohhh! Terrible. She was actually Jewish? Oh my God!

    This too started of rather mildly supercilious “Rednecks won’t approve”. But do I detect a bit of “I hope the Virginians vote him out on the basis of his mother’s ancestry.” ?

  16. But do I detect a bit of “I hope the Virginians vote him out on the basis of his mother’s ancestry.” ?

    No.

  18. But do I detect a bit of “I hope the Virginians vote him out on the basis of his mother’s ancestry.” ?
    No.

    What is the relevance of all this stuff here then?

    According to Jennifer, “Mom prided herself for being un-American. … She was ashamed that she had given up her French citizenship to become a citizen of a country she deemed infantile.”

    Allen should be judged for who he is, not who his mother is.

  19. Allen should be judged for who he is, not who his mother is.

    I don’t think anyone is asking Allen to be judged on anything other than who he is. But, I believe the desire here is to explore things and viewpoints he was/might have been exposed to during his upbringing. For example, if I have a racist parent, chances are, one way or the other, it will have some influence (perhaps at best subconsciously) in my life, whether it is positive or negative. It’s up to me what I do/deal with it. The thinking is that since his mother has ties to North Africa, there is a prossibility that he’s at least heard the offending term before. He’s already displayed other racist/ethnic insensitivities, so there’s certainly a valid pattern on which to base an assumption.

    If it were I, and I truly had just randomly come up with the utterance, then I would profusely apologize to the individual in question. However, Allen’s only apologized for the recipient’s misinterpretation and apparently not even face to face. I think these conditions combined have fueled the fire.

  20. Sure, No Desh. I know (see #65) that it did start out trying to see if Allen knew about ‘Macaca’ or not.
    The fire, no doubt, is justifiably fueled and all that crap he has done, plus his pathetic apology earn him a lot of trouble.

    My question is, how is his mother’s America-hating and French-loving or Jewishness coming in? Some of us descended from criminals who fled to this country. Some of us are kids/grandkids of people back home who dislike America. Does that count against us if we ran for public office?

  21. Open Letter to Sen. Allen

    Hey you Pigkaka, or whatever they call you. I will never vote for you. Check out the polls–Virginia has spoken. Welcome to 21st century America. Get yourself a digital computerized vacuum cleaner and start cleaning up that bigotry you have been practising for decades.

    Disclaimer: I don’t know what that word means. I meant no offense by it. Perhaps, I meant to say “pigtails,” referring to Mr. Allen’s hairstyle.

  22. The definition of “pied-noir” in Wikipedia is politically correct nonsense. The French (the racist ones) called Pied-Noir the French population returning to France from the N Africa colonies, after France lost them. It is a racial insult that suggest that they were not “quite white” whatever that means. In France you would not call anybody directly a pied-noir becuase it is an insult. ItŽs funny that Allen comes from a pied noir mother and uses racial insults directly at other people. There is not such a word as “macaca”. The word is “macaco” (Spanish) and besides meaning monkey is a racial insult that means “very ugly” and itŽs directed at dark skinned people. No doubt Allen knows the word Macaco which is the same in French, Italian and Spanish (his mother origins). He probably said macaca to make it sound more funny (caca – shit) or because his Spanish is not quite that good.

  23. ” To prevent comment spam, please type the word brown below: ” Now that’s very good.

    “From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee… For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee…” – Khan’s last words There is no such thing as anglo-celt, silly boy.

    I thought it was a nice touch to get a Travis Pickles haircut and follow a politician around, 10 out of 10 for style.

  24. I know I am adding to an old post; but I can’t stand misinformation, even for a good cause. Georgia, U.S.A. was never a penal colony. This is a myth. The colony of Georgia was actually founded for humanitarian reasons. James Ogalthorpe wanted to start a colony to help people who had been thrown in to prison for not being able to pay their depts. He thought they could be given a new life in the colony, while paying back their depts. Unfortunately, it did not work due to the type of crops they tried to raise in the new colony. Only about 113 ever came. It is sad that after this, other people came to settle and decided to bring slaves into the colony against the wishes of James Ogalthorpe, who hated slavery.