Republican Senator Calls an Indian American
‘Macaca’ and Makes a Monkey of Himself
By M.P. Prabhakaran
Politicians are very good at hiding their personal prejudices and undesirable private thoughts. They do it with sugarcoated words and affectation of compassion and culture. But once in a rare while they blab, giving others a chance to take a peek into their true selves. In the case of Republican Senator George Allen of Virginia, that rare moment came on August 11, 2006.
He was in the small southwestern town of Breaks, campaigning to be a second-term senator from his state. Pointing to the only dark-skinned person in an otherwise all-white crowd of about 100 people, he said, “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.”
His audience had a hearty laugh. A beaming Mr. Allen, who had begun his speech saying that he was “going to run this campaign on positive, constructive ideas,” then went on to articulate more of those ideas: “Let’s give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.”
The young man whom Mr. Allen singled out for ridicule was S.R. Sidarth, an Indian American and a fourth-year student at the University of Virginia. Sidarth could as well have turned around and told Mr. Allen, “Welcome to Virginia, you Californian carpetbagger in cowboy boots.” Allen was born in California and is said to be fond of wearing cowboy boots. Sidarth, though of Indian descent, was born and brought up in Virginia. Admirably, the 20-year-old lad did not stoop to the level of the 55-year-old U.S. senator. The great-grandson of a man who had accompanied Mahatma Gandhi, as his secretary, to the famous 1931 Round Table Conference in London, held in response to Indians' demand for self-rule, he is too cultured to do that.
Colored Immigrant
One can think of only two reasons why Sidarth was picked as a target for ridicule: he looked different from the rest of the crowd; and he was working for James Webb, Allen’s Democratic Party opponent in the senate race. As a volunteer for the Webb campaign, he had been following the Republican senator around with a video camera, recording his travels and speeches. As we all know, it is an accepted practice in American politics.
What does Macaca mean? It could mean different things, depending on the context in which it is used. It could mean a monkey. Or, in the sense in which it is used in France and some other European countries, it could mean a colored immigrant, the equivalent of wog. Senator Allen, the son of an immigrant mother who grew up as a French Tunisian, certainly knew what the word meant when he used it. He should know that he was making a monkey of himself when, in an effort to put out the firestorm his gaffe had created, he repeatedly said that he did not know what it meant.
He told Managing Editor Aziz Haniffa of India Abroad that he “would have spelled it m-e-k-a-k-a.” In his interview with Mr. Haniffa, published in the weekly’s September 1, 2006 edition, he also said that if he “actually knew it was an insulting phrase or word, of course, I would not have used” it. Thank God he didn’t say he meant it as a compliment.
An educated person who has two university degrees under his belt, a lawyer by profession, a former governor of a state, a former member of the House of Representatives and current member of the U.S. Senate using a word the meaning of which he did not know? Whom is he trying to fool?
And nobody believed, either, the explanation he gave to the “Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia” part of his insult. He said he meant: “Just to the real world. Get outside the Beltway and get to the real world.”
What a belabored explanation! He should know that the camera doesn’t lie. The glee and scorn with which he uttered those words made it clear that he welcomed the young Indian American as though he was someone from another planet.
Named for Mohawk Hairstyle
Mr. Allen’s communications director, John Reid, came up with a creative explanation for the senator’s use of the word Macaca: Allen campaign workers had nicknamed Mr. Sidarth “Mohawk” because he would not disclose his name. They came up with that name because of his hairstyle. According to Mr. Reid, the senator was playing on the word Mohawk when he called Sidarth Macaca, not trying to stamp a “foreigner” label on him.
The explanation, apart from being stupid, was a lie. It was stupid because Sidarth’s hairstyle is a mullet, tight on top, long in the back. It was a lie because Sidarth had already been introduced to Mr. Allen and others in his campaign. In an interview with CNN, Sidarth said that he remembered the senator making special effort to pronounce his name correctly, when he was introduced to him. Jessica Smith, press secretary for the Webb campaign, also confirms the fact that Mr. Sidarth had been introduced to the senator prior to the incident and that his staff knew who he was.
Because of twisted explanations and lies like these, the apology he has been offering ever since – a direct apology to Sidarth was offered only 12 days after the incident – carried little weight. Many even find it insincere. They say it is a desperate attempt to win back the support he lost in the wake of the controversy. Let’s see whether he succeeds.
There are other reasons, too, why people find it difficulty to accept his apology as sincere. Even as he was profusely apologizing, his campaign staff was trying to silence the critics with the accusation that they were blowing it out of proportion. According to them, the controversy was the handiwork of the liberal media, Democrats and Internet bloggers.
The performance of Mr. Allen’s campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, also contributed a great deal to making the senator’s apology appear insincere. A few hours before he first apologized to Sidarth, through Washington Post staff writers, Tim Craig and Michael D. Shear, Mr. Wadhams had dismissed the whole episode with an expletive, and insisted that the senator had “nothing to apologize for.” In a memo sent to fellow Republicans, which was signed on August 19, 2006 and titled “Notes on a tough week,” he said that the Webb campaign and the news media had ganged up “to create national news over something that did not warrant coverage in the first place.” Wadhams blamed them for “Literally putting words into Senator Allen's mouth that he did not say ….”
If that is so, people are asking, why did Mr. Allen apologize? And why should anyone take that apology seriously?
Racist Past
This would have been excused as a faux pas, had there been no racist blots on Mr. Allen's past. There are quite a few: He had once hung a noose in his law office (when pointed out, he said it had “nothing to do with lynching”); in 1984, as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, he had opposed creating a state holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King; he had voted against changing a racially offensive state song; he had displayed the Confederate flag on several occasions; he had featured the flag in his first statewide television ad in Virginia; after being elected Governor of Virginia in 1993, he had signed a Confederate Heritage Month proclamation that described the Civil War as "a four-year struggle for independence and states’ rights"; he had opposed the 1991 Civil Rights Act; and, in as recently as 2002, during the Trent Lott controversy over his praise of segregationist Strom Thurmond's 1948 presidential candidacy, he first defended Senator Lott, but became a critic only after Lott’s ouster as senate majority leader became certain.
The important question Virginians have to ask themselves when they vote in the November election is: Does a man with such a racist past, and is not completely cured of it yet, deserve to be their senator, again? And, since his name has been bandied about as a possible Republican candidate in the 2008 presidential election, all Americans have to ask themselves: Should such a man be even dreaming of becoming the President of the United States at a time when its popularity around the world has sunk to the lowest point?
[Published on September 5, 2006.]
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