First “m,” now “n”: Allen to go through epithet alphabet?
September 25, 2006 | Comments Off
George Allen, a Republican Senate candidate from Virginia, recently mocked an American citizen of Indian ancestry who worked as a videographer for Allen’s rival and was (as is now common in campaigns) filming Allen’s “listening tour.”
Allen referred to S. R. Sidarth as “Macaca” and then welcomed him “to America and the real world of Virginia.” “Macaca,” it transpires, “is the scientific name of a genus of monkeys, and it is a slur in some cultures.” Although Allen insists he did not know the meaning of the term, The Nation’s Max Blumenthal found that the candidate had in the past pandered to a white supremacist hate group.
Now Salon talks to Allen’s former UVA football teammates. Three of them say he repeatedly used the “n” word in conversation with his white friends, and one has shocking memories of a hunting trip with Allen.
After they had killed a deer, Shelton said he remembers Allen asking Lanahan where the local black residents lived. Shelton said Allen then drove the three of them to that neighborhood with the severed head of the deer. “He proceeded to take the doe’s head and stuff it into a mailbox,” Shelton said.