Last Friday, Sen. George Allen (R-VA) called a young man in the audience on his "listening tour" a "macaca" -a racial slur meaning monkey, in case that wasn't obvious. He followed up with "welcome to America". Edifying. Irony being the force it is, the 20-year-old audience member was, of course, born and raised in Virginia. He's of Indian descent, so his skin color is different from Mr. Allen's -thus "justifying" the assumption that the young man must be an immigrant. As though, even had he been right and the man was a recent immigrant, that was reason to call someone a monkey.
A few days later the Allen campaign did offer a back-handed apology. Nonetheless, in a reasonable world, Senator Allen would be an embarrassment to the Republican Party and the country. This is the man who displayed a noose in his law offices, displays the Confederate flag at his home, and opposed the creation of a holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Yeah, he's a prize. But he's running with the support of the Republican Party, and he's ahead in the polls.
I freely and a little proudly admit that my pull with the Republican Party is non-existent. However, there is a concerted effort to keep this faux pas front and center. Among other things it has given a struggling (and admittedly a little unimpressive) Democrat a chance in an important Senate race. Mr. Allen is free to be a bigot and free to talk about it, but it seems sad to me that bigotry is selling as a platform of a candidate for the United States Senate. That we can work to change. Color of Change is sponsoring a petition drive asking the Republican Party to withdraw support from Sen. Allen. In a reasonable world, they wouldn't want to be associated with this sort of behavior. We'll see. Follow the link above if you want to sign the petition.
Tags: activism George Allen
1 comment:
How do you think the Republicans managed to win over the once-staunchly Democratic South? They would like you to believe that they chose to appeal to the conservative "family values" voters. But what really happened is that they took up the racist cause when it became obvious that the Democratic party was going to back civil rights. Of course the Republican party stands behind this idiot. He's doing exactly what they want him to do.
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